OBJECTIVE: To compare the effects of de-addiction with the therapy of acupuncture, acupuncture plus opium, opium plus buprenorphine and opium plus Han's instrument for de-addiction and to study the effects of the four therapeutic methods on the protracted withdrawal syndrome and craving. METHODS: The effects of de-addiction were assessed with the opiate withdrawal scale and the craving degree with visual analogue scale (VAS). RESULTS: The dominance of acupuncture treatment for withdrawal syndrome appeared to be after the 6th day, and the dominance for controlling craving showed after the 8th day, moreover, there were little side effects. CONCLUSION: Acupuncture treatment had the potentiality of preventing relapse and could be used for treating the protracted withdrawal syndrome and psychic dependence during the period between the stages of abstinence and rehabilitation.

Objective To investigate the C1q expression in the patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and its mechanism on the anti-TB role of macrophages .Methods Each 30 cases of active pulmonary TB ,tuberculous pleurisy ,latent Mycobacterium tu-berculosis infection and healthy controls were selected .Peripheral venous blood 10-20 mL was collected on the next day of admis-sion or on the time for physical examination .Pleural fluid 50 mL was extracted in the patients with hydrothorax and the lung tissue specimens 1 cm × 1 cm × 1 cm was taken in the operative patients .The real-time quantitative PCR(RT-PCR) was adopted to detect the express C1q in peripheral macrophages and the C1q expressing in macrophages of the lung tissue was detected by immunohisto-chemical staining .Results The peripheral blood C1qA expression level in the active pulmonary TB group and the tuberculous pleu-risy group was significantly higher than that in the healthy control group and the latent TB infection group (P<0 .05) .The C1qA expression level in hydrothorax in the tuberculous pleurisy group was higher than that in the active pulmonary TB group (P<0 .05) ,and the C1q expression in hydrothorax in these two groups was higher than that in peripheral blood (P<0 .05) .C1q was strongly expressed in macrophage cytoplasma in the active pulmonary TB group and the TB pleurisy group ,but weakly expressed in the multinuclear macrophages .Conclusion The peripheral blood C1qA expression level in the active pulmonary TB group and the tuberculous pleurisy group was significantly higher than that in the healthy control group and the latent TB infection group (P<0 .05) .The C1qA expression level in hydrothorax in the tuberculous pleurisy group was higher than that in the active pulmonary TB group (P<0 .05) ,and the C1q expression in hydrothorax in these two groups was higher than that in peripheral blood (P<0 .05) . C1q was strongly expressed in macrophage cytoplasma in the active pulmonary TB group and the TB pleurisy group ,but weakly ex-pressed in the multinuclear macrophages .

Objective To investigate the biological activities of a conditioned medium for human dermal papilla. Methods Culture medium of the lower passage human dermal papilla cells was collected as the conditioned medium. The growth pattern and the growth curve of the higher passage human dermal papilla cells cultured with conditioned medium were observed in vitro. And the morphology of the co-culture of the higher passage human dermal papilla cells and the lower passage human dermal papilla cells was observed. Results The higher passage human dermal papilla cells, which was cultured with conditioned medium from the lower passage human dermal papilla cells, showed aggregative growth pattern. And the growth curve of the higher passage human dermal papilla cells was much better than that in the control groups (P

AIM: To investigate the effect of microRNA (miR)-30c on the viability and migratory ability of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) by targeting plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1).METHODS:The HUVECs were transfected with miR-30c mimic and inhibitor or negative control (NC), and then the expression levels of miR-30c, PAI-1 mRNA and protein were detected by RT-qPCR and Western blot.The viability and migratory ability of HUVECs were measured by CCK-8 assay and wound healing test .After bioinformatic analysis, the assessment of miR-30c binding to PAI-1 3’-UTR was carried out using a luciferase reporter gene assay .RESULTS:miR-30c directly down-regu-lated PAI-1 levels by binding to the 3’ UTR seed sequence of PAI-1 mRNA.Furthermore, transfection of a miR-30c mimic down-regulated the expression of PAI-1 at mRNA and protein levels, leading to enhanced migratory ability and viability of the HUVECs.However, transfection of a miR-30c inhibitor up-regulated the expression of PAI-1 at mRNA and protein le-vels, leading to decreased migratory ability and viability .CONCLUSION:Regulation of miR-30c level changes the migra-tory ability and viability of HUVECs by affecting the PAI-1 expression, indicating the involvement of miR-30c in modulating endothelial function .

Objective: To investigate the correlation between FIB-4 and the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after curative resection. Methods: From January 2009 to December 2012, the clinicopathological and follow-up data of 245 patients with HCC after curative resection were retrospectively studied. Their survival was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method. The Cox proportional hazard regression model was used for the multivariate analysis. Results: According to FIB-4 index, patients were divided into two subgroups: FIB-4Ⅰ(≤3.25) and FIB-4Ⅱ(>3.25). FIB-4 could predict liver cirrhosis severity (Ishak grade, Grade 1-5 vs. Grad 6, r=0.681, P<0.001). It was associated with liver function such as:aspartate transaminase (P<0.001)、total bilirubin (P=0.009)、albumin (P=0.001) and platelet count (P<0.001) other than tumor clinicopathologic features. Both univariate and multivariate analysis showed FIB-4 could predict the prognosis of HCC patients (Overall survival: P=0.037 and 0.011; Recurrencefree survival: P=0.027 and P=0.043, respectively). Conclusion: The preoperative FIB-4 index could be used as a prognostic marker for the prognosis of HCC after curative hepatectomy.

AIM:To explore the production and cytotoxicity of the reactive oxygen species(ROS)induced by diallyl trisulfide(DATS)in HL-60 cells.METHODS:HL-60 cells were either treated with various doses of DATS alone,or DATS combination with apocynin,a specific NADPH oxidase inhibitor,or with antioxidant N-acetyl-L-cysteine(NAC)for 0,1,3,6,12 and 24 h,respectively.The intracellular ROS level was measured by flow cytometry.The activity of NADPH oxidase was evaluated by NBT reduction experiment.The content of both malondialdehyde(MDA)and the protein carbonyl were analyzed by spectrophotometer.RESULTS:The results from flow cytometry indicated that DATS significantly increased the intracellular ROS level in HL-60 cells(P

-β2 was positively correlated with OPG (r=0. 432,P<0. 01). Conclusions The reference ranges of serum TGF-β1 and TGF-β2 in healthy adult females are established. Both TGF-β1 and TGF-β2 of them are correlated with OPG and ieptin.

Prediction of RNA secondary structures including pseudoknots is a difficult topic in RNA field. Current predicting methods usually have relatively low accuracy and high complexity. Considering that the stacking of adjacent base pairs is a common feature of RNA secondary structure, here we present a method for predicting pseudoknots based on covariance with stacking and minimum free energy. A new score scheme, which combined stacked covariance with free energy, was used to assess the evaluation of base pair in our method. Based on this score scheme, we utilized an iterative procedure to compute the optimized RNA secondary structure with minimum score approximately. In each interaction, helix of high covariance and low free energy was selected until the sequences didn't form helix, so two crossing helixes which were selected from different iterations could form a pseudoknot. We test our method on data sets of ClustalW alignments and structural alignments downloaded from RNA databases. Experimental results show that our method can correctly predict the major portion of pseudoknots. Our method has both higher average sensitivity and specificity than the reference algorithms, and performs much better for structural alignments than for ClustalW alignments. Finally, we discuss the influence on the performance by the factor of covariance weight, and conclude that the best performance is achieved when lambda1 : lambda2 = 5 : 1.
Algorithms ; Base Pairing ; Base Sequence ; Computational Biology ; methods ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Nucleic Acid Conformation ; RNA ; chemistry ; genetics ; Sequence Analysis, RNA

ObjectiveTo study the correlation between the etiology and clinical features of erythroderma.MethodsThe clinical data on 182 patients with erythroderma were retrospectively collected and analyzed.ResultsThe male-to-female ratio was 2.8 ∶ 1 and the average age at onset was 58.6 ± 14.6 years.Of the 182 cases,135 (74.2％) were due to pre-existing dermatoses,14 (7.7％) to drug reaction,8 (4.4％) to malignancies,while 25(13.7％) had no obvious precipitating factors.The most frequent triggering factor was systemic consumption of drugs(52 patients,28.6％ ),and glucocorticosteroid was the most prevalent causative drug.Seventy-six patients were followed up,recurrence was observed in 14 patients but not in 58 patients,and 5 patients died,2 patients with idiopathic erythroderma were finally diagnosed with mycosis fungoides (MF)after multiple skin biopsies.ConclusionsPre-existing dermatoses are the most frequent cause of erythroderma.Idiopathic erythroderma is liable to relapse,possibly associated with malignancies,and should be closely followed up.

OBJECTIVETo screen methylations of CpG islands in prostate cancer using restriction landmark genomic scanning (RLGS).

METHODSThe DNA was extracted from homogeneous cells captured by laser capture microdissection in 20 prostate cancer and 18 benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) tissues for scanning the CpG islands using RLGS. The methylation status of each CpG island was compared between the cancer and BPH samples to screen the genes involved in prostate cancer development. The screened genes were uploaded to DAVID database for GO analysis, and the genes with the most significant methylation were analyzed by pyrosequencing.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONAmong all the tested CpG islands, 10245 (37.2%) in prostate cancer and 8658 (30.3%) in BPH samples were found to be abnormally methylated, and >60% of the methylated CpG islands were in the promoter region. Compared with BPH samples, the prostate cancer samples showed differential methyation in 735 CpG islands, including 458 hepermethyated and 256 hypomethelated ones. Seven genes (DPYS, P16, APC, GSTP1, TMEM122, RARB, and ARHGAP20) in prostate cancer were identified to have distinct methylations. Bioinformatics analysis suggested that these genes were associated with several biomolecular and biological processes, and among them DPYS gene was involved in 13 GO anotated biologic functions, development of 50 diseases and 47 protein interactions. Pyrosequencing of 7 sites of the CPG island in DPYS gene showed a methylation frequency of 32.7%, suggesting the importance of DPYS gene in the carcinogenesis and progression of prostate cancer.

CpG Islands ; DNA Methylation ; DNA, Neoplasm ; genetics ; Genomics ; Humans ; Male ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prostatic Hyperplasia ; genetics ; Prostatic Neoplasms ; diagnosis ; genetics