Immunoenhancement activity of bee pollen and its acetone extract was studied in normal, sarcoma-180 bearing, cyclophosphamide- and antilymphocyte serum-treated mice.Bee pollen and its acetone extract given orally for 30 days could significantly increase the production of serum anti-SRBC hemolysin (HC50) and the number of spleen plaque forming cells (PFC) in primary response to sheep red blood cell (SRBC) in young and adult mice. The acetone extract of bee pollen could significantly prevent the decrease of HC50) the number of PFC and specific rosette forming cells (SRFC), and the quantitative hemolysin of spleen cells (QHS) against SRBC in S-180 bearing, cyclophosphamide- and antilymphocyte serum-treated mice respectively.These results suggested that bee pollen of Brassica campestris L. and its acetone extract have immune-enhancement activity.

Objective:To explore the effects of hyperoxic environments on renal metabolites to understand the potential mechanisms that contribute to pathologic retinal vascular neovascularization and renal injury through metabolomic studies in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) model.Methods:Sixteen C57/B6J mice pups born to day 7 (P7) were randomly and equally divided into an OIR model group and a normal control group using a randomized numerical table of mother mice.Mice were reared standardly from birth until day 7 (P7), then mice and their mother mice in the OIR group were placed in a hyperoxic (75±2)% chamber until day 12 (P12) and then reared normally.Mice in the normal control group were reared normally throughout.Mice in two groups were killed by carbon dioxide euthanasia on postnatal day 17 (P17). The mice retinal wholemount from the two groups were made and stained with isolectin B4 (IB4) to observe the morphology of retinal vessels, central non-perfusion area and pathological neovascularization.The kidney tissue of P17 mice was analyzed by liquid chromatograph mass spectrometer.After anticoagulant treatment, the whole blood of mice was centrifuged and precipitated, and the obtained plasma without cellular components was analyzed by targeted metabonomics.Mass spectral information was interpreted using metabolomics data processing software Progenesis QI v2.3.Overall differences in metabolic profiles were distinguished by unsupervised principal component analysis and orthogonal partial least squares analysis (OPLS-DA). The fold change and P values of metabolites were compared between the two groups.The variable importance of projection value>1 and P value<0.05 was used to screen out differential metabolites.Metabolic pathway enrichment analysis of differential metabolites was performed based on the KEGG database.The feeding and use of animals were strictly in accordance with the requirements of the Ethics Committee of Jinan University, and the research protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Jinan University (No.20200401-54). Results:The IB4 staining of retinal wholemounts showed that the retinal blood vessels were evenly distributed in the P17 mice from control group.The peripheral retinal vessels were tortuous and disordered with a large non-perfusion area in central region in P17 mice from OIR group, and a large number of neovascularization clusters were formed at the junction of the nonperfusion area and the vascular area of the retina, showing strong fluorescent staining.The relative area of retinal nonperfusion area in OIR group was (25.16±3.50)%, which was significantly larger than (0.63±0.30)% in normal control group ( t=12.07, P<0.001). The OPLS-DA parameter R2X cum (0.578), interpretation rate R2Y cum (0.978) and prediction rate Q2 cum (0.857) values were all greater than 0.5, indicating that the OPLS-DA model had a good predictive ability.A total of 26 main differential metabolites were found, among which 17 were up-regulated and 9 were down-regulated, including glycerophospholipids (PC 20∶4(5Z, 8Z, 11Z, 14Z)/0∶0, PC 22∶6(4Z, 7Z, 10Z, 13Z, 16Z, 19Z)/0∶0, PC 14∶1(9Z)/20∶2(11Z, 14Z), PE P-18∶0/20∶4(6E, 8Z, 11Z, 14Z)(5OH[S]), amino acid metabolites (arginine, ornithine, pipecolic acid, and hydroxylysine), purines (guanine, hypoxanthine, hydroxypurinol), and fatty acids (methyl 15-palmitate, 2, 6, 8, 12-tetramethyl-2, 4-tridecadien-1-ol), and so on.Differential metabolites were mainly enriched in ABC transporters (L-arginine, taurine, inositol, adenosine, N-acetyl-D-glucosamine, L-glutamine), aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis (L-isoleucine, L-proline, L-arginine, L-histidine, L-glutamine), arginine biosynthesis (L-arginine, L-ornithine, L-glutamine) metabolic pathways.The plasma targeted metabonomics showed that the differential amino acid metabolites were mainly enriched in metabolic pathways such as aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, arginine biosynthesis and metabolism, and ABC transporters. Conclusions:ABC transporter, aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, and arginine biosynthesis metabolic pathways in OIR mice may participate in the pathological changes of renal injury and neovascularization in retinopathy of prematurity.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of a community-based intervention supporting type 2 diabetes mellitus patients in their self-management of the disease. Methods: This research was a randomized controlled trial conducted in communities in Fangshan District, Beijing, China. Adult patients with type 2 diabetes from 17 communities in 4 sub-district of Fangshan District were randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group. Participants in the intervention group participated in a three-month group-based diabetes self-management intervention service. Data were collected both in intervention and control group at baseline and after the intervention to evaluate the effect of the intervention. A questionnaire survey was completed by all participants to collect their demographic information, diabetes related health behaviors and skills. A physical examination and lab testing including height, weight, blood pressure, and waist circumference as well as HbA1c, fasting blood glucose, lipid profile were conducted before and after the intervention. Results: A total of 500 valid questionnaires were received, including 259 in the intervention group and 241 in the control group. Patients in the intervention group who learned how to conduct the self-monitoring of blood glucose increased from 56.76% (n=147) to 87.26% (n=226) after the intervention, higher than that of control group (63.07%, n=152) (P<0.001). 69.50% (n=180) patients in intervention group had blood glucose monitor at home, which was 60.62% (n=157) prior to the intervention and higher than that of control group (57.68%, n=139) (P=0.004). After the intervention, 3.09% (n=8) patients in intervention group ceased to take medicine by themselves, which was 16.22% (n=42) before the intervention, while the control group was 8.30% (n=20) after the intervention (P=0.009). Patients in the intervention group made significant improvements in implementing self monitoring on blood glucose (SMBG), which was increased from one day per week to 2 days per week, and foot self-examination, which increased from 2 days per week to 7 days per week. The body weight of patients in the intervention group reduced 1.62 kg on average after the intervention, while it increased 0.88 kg in the control group. Similar improvement was found in waist circumstance between the intervention and control group (-0.83 cm vs -0.16 m). There was a significant reduction on body weight and waist circumstance in the intervention group (P<0.05). Conclusion The group activities focusing on people with type 2 diabetes resulted in improvement in their lifestyle and self management behaviors, as well as their body weight and waist circumstance.