Adenocarcinoma, Clear Cell ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Adult ; Carcinoma ; metabolism ; pathology ; Carcinoma, Mucoepidermoid ; metabolism ; pathology ; Carcinoma, Renal Cell ; metabolism ; pathology ; secondary ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Humans ; Keratins ; metabolism ; Male ; Nasal Cavity ; Nose Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; S100 Proteins ; metabolism

Astragali Radix was firstly recorded in the "Shen Nong's Herbal Classic" as a top-grade and commonly used traditional Chinese medicine. Its frequently used slices include raw Astragali Radix and honey-processed products. In current studies, many reports were made on honey-processed Astragali Radix, whereas fewer study reports were made on the cutting process of Astragali Radix. Currently, because Astragali Radix is primarily cut by drug workers according to their operating experience, but with out specific cutting parameters, it is easy to cause the loss or mildew of active ingredients. As a result, the quality of Astragali Radix circulated in the market is not guaranteed, and the quality of their slices and preparations are hard to be controlled, which seriously impact the clinical efficacy. In response, this experiment was performed, in which the optimum cutting process of Astragali Radix was taken as the study objective, the Box-Benhnken central composite design in the response surface analysis was adopted, and the content and appearance character of astragaloside and calycosin-7-glucoside were regarded as the study indicators. Three factors, namely the softening time, the drying temperature and the drying time, were selected to optimize the cutting process of Astragali Radix and obtain the optimum cutting process parameters as follows: the softening time was 3 hours, the drying temperature was 50 degrees C, and the drying time was 4 hours. According to the verification test, the Astragali Radix cutting process is steady and feasible, which has certain significance for normalizing the cutting process of Astragali Radix.
Astragalus Plant ; chemistry ; Chemistry, Pharmaceutical ; methods ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; Glucosides ; chemistry ; Plant Roots ; chemistry

OBJECTIVETo study the effect of medical ozone in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B.

METHODS42 patients with chronic hepatitis B were divided randomly into two groups. 22 patients treated with basic therapy were as a control group. 20 patients treated with basic therapy plus ozone therapy were taken as a treatment group. Index of biochemistry and virology were studied at initial and post-treatment 8 weeks.

RESULTSAfter the treatment, liver function of the treatment group and the control group had more significant improvement. The treatment group complete effective and partial effective were 10% and 35% difference. The control group complete effective and partial effective were 4.6% and 13.6% (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONTreatment of medical ozone on patients with chronic hepatitis B is effective.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Antiviral Agents ; adverse effects ; therapeutic use ; Drug Combinations ; Female ; Guanine ; analogs & derivatives ; therapeutic use ; Hepatitis B virus ; drug effects ; physiology ; Hepatitis B, Chronic ; drug therapy ; immunology ; Humans ; Liver ; drug effects ; physiology ; Liver Function Tests ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Ozone ; adverse effects ; therapeutic use ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo investigate changes in the adherent ability, the expression of adhesion related proteins Pyk2 and paxillin during HL-60 cells differentiation into granulocyte-monocyte induced by low-dose (LD) bufalin in combination with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), and to explore the effects of bortezomib on cellular adhesion and the expression of Pyk2 and paxillin.

METHODSThe expression of CD11b was detected by flow cytometry, cellular adherence ability by MTT assay, and the expressions of Pyk2, paxillin and tubulin by Western blot.

RESULTSThe combination of 5 nmol/L bufalin and 30 nmol/L ATRA induced HL-60 cells differentiation in a time-dependent manner, the percentages of CD11b positive cells treated for 2 d and 4 d being (20.0 +/- 2.8)% and (75.0 +/- 5.3)%, respectively, with the increasing of cellular adherence ability. Meanwhile the expressions of Pyk2 and Paxillin were also up-regulated in a time-dependent manner. Bortezomib suppressed HL-60 cell adhesion in a dose-dependent manner. At concentrations of 1 nmol/L and 10 nmol/L the adherence level were (7.8 +/- 0.1)% and (5.3 +/- 0.3)%, respectively, with down-regulation of Pyk2 but not Paxillin.

CONCLUSIONPyk2 is involved in the regulation of cellular adherence function. Bortezomib might inhibit HL-60 cells adhension function by down-regulation of Pyk2 expression.

Boronic Acids ; pharmacology ; Bortezomib ; Bufanolides ; pharmacology ; Cell Adhesion ; drug effects ; Cell Proliferation ; drug effects ; Focal Adhesion Kinase 2 ; metabolism ; HL-60 Cells ; Humans ; Paxillin ; metabolism ; Pyrazines ; pharmacology ; Tretinoin ; pharmacology

In order to obtain the fungicides with minimal impact on efficiency of mycorrhizal symbiosis, the effect of five fungicides including polyoxins, jinggangmycins, thiophanate methylate, chlorothalonil and carbendazim on the growth of medicinal plant and efficiency of mycorrhizal symbiosis were studied. Pot cultured Glycyrrhiza uralensis was treated with different fungicides with the concentration that commonly used in the field. 60 d after treated with fungicides, infection rate, infection density, biomass indexes, photosyn- thetic index and the content of active component were measured. Experimental results showed that carbendazim had the strongest inhibition on mycorrhizal symbiosis effect. Carbendazim significantly inhibited the mycorrhizal infection rate, significantly suppressed the actual photosynthetic efficiency of G. uralensis and the most indicators of biomass. Polyoxins showed the lowest inhibiting affection. Polyoxins had no significant effect on mycorrhizal infection rate, the actual photosynthetic efficiency of G. uralensis and the most indicators of biomass. The other three fungicides also had an inhibitory effect on efficiency of mycorrhizal symbiosis, and the inhibition degrees were all between polyoxins's and carbendazim's. The author considered that fungicide's inhibition degree on mycorrhizal effect might be related with the species of fungicides, so the author suggested that the farmer should try to choose bio-fungicides like polyoxins.
Fungi ; drug effects ; growth & development ; physiology ; Fungicides, Industrial ; pharmacology ; Glycyrrhiza uralensis ; chemistry ; growth & development ; microbiology ; physiology ; Mycorrhizae ; drug effects ; growth & development ; physiology ; Plant Extracts ; chemistry ; Symbiosis ; drug effects

Background and purpose:Remarkable advances have been made in cancer chemotherapy by developing new anticancer drugs and therapy strategies.However,multidrug resistance in human cancers remains a major clinical challenge for cancer treatment.Attempts in several clinical studies to reverse multidrug resistance protein (MDR) by using MDR modulators have not yet generated promising results.Our aim was to explored the mechanism of reversal of multidrug resistance in human leukemia K562 cells by PI3-K inhibitor.Methods:Trypanblue dye exclusion method was used to observe the drug sensitivity and the effect of LY294002 on the drug resistance.Western blot to analyze P-gp and p-Akt phenotypes,and flow cytometer was used to measure the intracellular drug accumulation. Results:K562/D induced by DNR was cross resistant to DNR,ADR,VCR and VP16 (Resistance Index:65,52,134 and 50 respectively).DNR induced over-expressions of P-gp and p-Akt in K562/D cells;LY294002 increased the intracellular drug accumulation,and then reversed the drug resistance to DNR,ADR,VCR and VPI6 in K562/D cells(Resistance Index:23,21,63 and 29 respectively),but not in the sensitive cells (K562/S).Conclusion:The multidrug resistance of K562/D cells can be induced by DNR which is related to the P-gp and p-Akt over-expressions, and LY294002 can reverse multidrug resistance in human leukemia cells in vitro via inhibits PI3-K/Akt pathway.

A capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector for high performance liquid chromatography was developed. The detector was consisted of a signal generator, a signal amplifier, and a pair of tubular electrodes. A plastic connecting tube following the separation column was threaded through the two tubular electrodes. When the separated components passed the region between two tubular electrodes, they would be sensed. The instrumental parameters of this detector were investigated, including the internal diameter of connecting tube,the frequency and voltage of excitation signal, electrodes length, and the gap between two electrodes. The 0.5 mm of internal diameter of connecting tube, 70 kHz of excitation frequency, 60 V of excitation voltage,10 mm of electrodes length and 1.5 mm of gap between two electrodes were finally found to be the best working conditions for the detector. This HPLC-C4D(capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector) was applied to the analysis of oleic and linoleic acids in Brucea javanica oil. The chromatographic peak area was linear with concentration for oleic and linoleic acids in 5-1000 μg/mL, and the limit of detection reached 2.5 μg/mL and 1.0 μg/mL,respectively. The results demonstrate that the present method is sensitive and accurate, proving this homemade contactless conductivity detector has a great application potential for pharmaceutical analysis in future development.

A quantitative real-time PCR assay was developed to measure the proviral load of human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) in peripheral blood. The technology utilizes special primers and Taqman MGB fluorescence probe to measure amplification products from the gag-pro-pol polyprotein gene of HTLV-I. HTLV-I copy number was normalized to the amount of cellular DNA by quantitation of the beta-actin gene, The amplification system was sensitive to detect 5 copy/microL. The standard curve had a good linearity when the quantity for the gene was between 10(3) and 10(7) copy/microL (R2 = 0.999). Good reproducibility was observed in each intra- and inter-assay. We also measured proviral load in peripheral blood in 12 HTLV-I seropositive former blood donors. Proviral load for HTLV-I infected donors ranged from 0.015 to 12.819 copy/cell in WBC with the mean of 3.116 copy/cell.
Gene Products, gag ; genetics ; Gene Products, pol ; genetics ; Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 ; genetics ; isolation & purification ; Humans ; Molecular Probes ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; methods ; Viral Proteins ; genetics

OBJECTIVETo explore the killing effect of the mutant herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-sr39tk) and its wild-type (HSV-tk) mediated by lentiviral vector on T lymphocytes in vitro and compare T cell survival rate after GCV or ACV treatment.

METHODSThe three-plasmid lentiviral vector system including packaging plasmid DeltaNRF, envelope plasmid VSV-G and vector plasmid (pTK151 + HSV-sr39tk or pTK151 + HSV-tk) were cotransfected into human embryonic kidney 293T cells using modified calcium phosphate precipitation methods. The packaged virus was harvested 72 h later. The survival of T cells expressing HSV-sr39tk or HSV-tk was measured by MTT assay after 4 day-culture against a gradient of GCV or ACV concentrations.

RESULTSThe three plasmids were effectively cotransfected and a high titre of lentivirus was obtained (2 x 10(6) IU/ml). 39tk(+) T cell survival rates declined promptly when the prodrug GCV/ACV concentrations increased from 0 micromol/L to 10 micromol/L. The T cell survival rates in GCV group declined from (96.04 +/- 3.23)% to (36.76 +/- 4.38)% while in ACV group from (97.31 +/- 4.61)% to (43.75 +/- 8.99)%. However, when GCV/ACV concentrations were more than 10 micromol/L, further decline of 39tk(+) T cell survival rates became unobvious. The growth rate of 39tk(+) T cell exposed to GCV or ACV was obviously lower than that in un-transfected T cells (P < 0.05). Tk(+) T cells were sensitive to GCV (P < 0.05), but not to ACV (P > 0.05). There was a significant difference in killing effects between 39tk(+) T cell + GCV group and tk(+) T cell + GCV group (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe lentiviral vectors containing HSV-sr39tk gene could infect T lymphocytes effectively and stably without affecting the proliferation of the transduced cell. In contrast to HSV-tk gene, T cells infected HSV-sr39tk were more sensitive not only to GCV but also to ACV.

Acyclovir ; pharmacology ; Animals ; Cell Survival ; drug effects ; Cells, Cultured ; Ganciclovir ; pharmacology ; Genetic Vectors ; Lentivirus ; genetics ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Plasmids ; genetics ; T-Lymphocytes ; cytology ; drug effects ; Thymidine Kinase ; genetics ; Transfection

BACKGROUNDMyopia is a common disorder and the incidence has increased yearly, but its pathogenesis remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the possible role of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and its receptor c-Met in the development of lens-induced myopia in guinea pigs.

METHODSSixty one-week-old guinea pigs were chosen. The right eyes were treated with -10.0 diopters (D) lenses as the lens-induced myopia group; the left eyes remained untreated as the control group. Six weeks later, refractive status and axial length were determined by streak retinoscopy and A-scan ultrasonography, respectively. The guinea pigs were killed and both eyes collected. Morphological changes were observed by hematoxylin and eosin staining. The expression levels of HGF, c-Met, and matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP-2) mRNA and protein in the posterior sclera were analyzed by RT-PCR and Western blotting, respectively.

RESULTSThe lens-induced myopia group became myopic with a significant increase in axial length and a significant decrease in refraction. Compared with the control group, the posterior retina and sclera were thinner in the lens-induced myopia group. The expression levels of HGF and MMP-2 mRNA and protein and of phosphorylated c-Met protein were significantly higher in the posterior sclera of the lens-induced myopia group than in the control group (all P < 0.05). In the lens-induced myopia group, the expression level of MMP-2 in the posterior sclera positively correlated with the expression level of HGF (r = 0.902, P < 0.05) and phosphorylated c-Met (r = 0.885, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONHGF/c-Met might play a role in the development of lens-induced myopia in guinea pigs by upregulating the expression of MMP-2.

Animals ; Guinea Pigs ; Hepatocyte Growth Factor ; metabolism ; Myopia ; etiology ; metabolism ; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-met ; metabolism