OBJECTIVETo investigate the effects of Salvianolic acid B preconditioned endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) on the Nkx2.5 and GATA-4 gene expressions at the early stage of cell differentiation of bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSc) transplanted into infarcted myocardium, in order to find out the best synergism for co-transplantation of the two kinds of cells.

METHODSBMSc and EPCs of rats were isolated and cultured, and rats were modeled into acute myocardial infarction (AMI) by left coronary artery ligation. Then the EPCs preconditioned with different concentrations of Salvianolic acid B and BMSc or DMEM medium were implanted into heart ischemia area. Expressions of Nkx2.5 and GATA-4 mRNA expressions in myocardium were detected by Real-time RT-PCR 4 weeks later.

RESULTSCompared with those in the non-implanted model rats' myocardium, the gene expression of Nkx2.5 and GATA-4 mRNA were significantly higher in all the transplantation receptive groups, comparisons between the implanted groups showed that the highest value of expressions (2. 654 +/- 0.606 of Nkx2.5 and 1.573 +/- 0.372 of GATA-4) displayed in the group contained more EPCs, for 8-fold to BMSc in volume.

CONCLUSIONBMSc can differentiate into cardiac muscle like cells, and condition of their differentiation is related with the degree of the internal environment improved.

Animals ; Benzofurans ; pharmacology ; Cells, Cultured ; Endothelial Cells ; cytology ; drug effects ; transplantation ; Gene Expression ; drug effects ; Male ; Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation ; Myocardial Infarction ; metabolism ; therapy ; Myocardium ; metabolism ; Random Allocation ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Stem Cell Transplantation ; Stem Cells ; cytology ; drug effects

OBJECTIVETo study the clinicopathologic features, differential diagnosis and pathogenesis of sclerosing angiomatoid nodular transformation of spleen.

METHODSTen cases of sclerosing angiomatoid nodular transformation of spleen were retrieved from the archival file. Histochemical and immunohistochemical (EnVision method) studies were performed. Ultrastructural findings were also available in one of them.

RESULTSSclerosing angiomatoid nodular transformation was characterized by micronodular appearance of vascular spaces lined by plump endothelial cells with interspersed ovoid spindle cells. Immunohistochemical study showed that the endothelial cells of vessels in the angiomatoid nodules had various expressions of immunologic phenotypes and could be mainly classified into 3 types: CD34(+)/CD31(+)/CD8⁻ endothelial cells of the capillaries, CD8(+)/CD31(+)/CD34⁻ lining cells of the sinusoids and CD31(+)/CD8⁻/CD34⁻ endothelial cells of the small veins. Collagen network and dilated lymphatic sinuses were evident under transmission electron microscope.

CONCLUSIONSSclerosing angiomatoid nodular transformation of spleen is a rare benign entity. It may represent a reactive condition and bears some relationship with splenic angioma. It needs to be distinguished from borderline or malignant vascular tumors of spleen.

Adult ; Antigens, CD34 ; metabolism ; CD8 Antigens ; metabolism ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Hemangioendothelioma ; metabolism ; pathology ; Hemangiosarcoma ; metabolism ; pathology ; Histiocytoma, Benign Fibrous ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; ultrastructure ; Humans ; Male ; Microscopy, Electron ; Middle Aged ; Platelet Endothelial Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 ; metabolism ; Splenic Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; ultrastructure

OBJECTIVETo seek a rapid, simple, but effective inquiry method for screening high risk population challenged by schistosomiasis.

METHODSTwo embankment collapsed villages were selected in schistosomiasis epidemic area in Dongting Lake. Information on water exposure was collected through a retrospective study. Data was analyzed by stepwise discriminant analysis.

RESULTSA Fisher's function was established by stepwise discriminant analysis which including 5 variables out of 18. Two hundred and forty-six individuals were discriminated by the function with accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of predicting their current infection status with the results of 87.4%, 84.1% and 89.0% respectively.

CONCLUSIONThe inquiry method might serve as simple, rapid, economic and effective tool for diagnosis in screening high risk population challenged by schistosomiasis in lake communities.

Adult ; China ; epidemiology ; Disasters ; Discriminant Analysis ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Mass Screening ; methods ; Multivariate Analysis ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Assessment ; Rural Health ; Sampling Studies ; Schistosomiasis japonica ; epidemiology ; prevention & control ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Objective To explore the setting of logos on tobacco control information at outlets for retails and restaurants in 12 selected cities of China.Methods For all the shops for retail of tobacco,alcohol,food and restaurants under survey in 333 blocks of 12 cities (Beijing,Tianjin,Shanghai,Qingdao,Hangzhou,Shaoxing,Suzhou,Nantong,Zhenjiang,Chengdu,Xining and Harbin),setting and contents of logos on tobacco control information,inside and outside them were examined.Results 45 700 objectives were included in the study.Among all types of retail shops,the identification rate of tobacco control information at the entrance and inside were 3.6％ and 4.4％,with an overall identification rate as 7.0％.The overall rate at the entrance of all the restaurants was 4.6％ which was larger than the ones at the retail shops.Our result showed that there were differences between cities and types of establishments and higher rates seen in the larger ones.Of all the places that having had placement of information on tobacco control,only 18.5％ of them had put them both inside and outside.Slogans or images on "No Smoking" were the main forms of information but less than 10％ of them would show signs as ‘exclusive non-smoking'.Conclusion Data from our survey showed that the identification rate of tobacco control information was at a low level in 12 cities,and differences were seen between cities,size of establishment,that called for improvement of the existing tobacco control policies in China.

Objective To investigate the incidence rate and assess the disease burden of respiratory illness associated with influenza among pregnant women in Suzhou , China. Methods As a subproject of“The Sino-US Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases Program”,pregnant women were recruited in-to the cohort since October , 2015 and follow-ups were carried out .Throat swab for influenza was taken for laboratory test when the pregnant women got influenza-like symptoms . Results In total 4438 pregnant women recruit up to 24th July 2016, among which1 539 are early-pregnancy, middle-pregnancy accounted 2 174 and late-pregnancy took 726.Lost to follow-up rate was 5.5%.And 995 cases of throat swabs was taken and tested (80.83%), of which 68 cases were positive (6.8%).The incidence density was 0.08 per hundred person-weeks . Conclusion This prospective cohort study took laboratory test of influenza virus to investigate the incidence rate of respiratory illness associated with influenza among pregnant women can provide credible data about the incidence of influenza .To a certain extent , this study makes up the blank of such research .

OBJECTIVETo investigate the clinical stage and histological grade of gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

METHODSTwelve clinical and pathological parameters were assessed in 613 patients with follow-up information. These parameters were classified into two gross spread parameters including liver metastasis and peritoneal dissemination, five microscopic spread parameters including lymph node metastasis, vascular, fat, nerve and mucosal infiltration, and five histological parameters including mitotic count ≥ 10 per 50 high-power fields, muscularis propria infiltration, coagulative necrosis, perivascular pattern and severe nuclear atypia.

RESULTSThe accumulated 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) of 293 patients without any of these predictive parameters of malignancy were 99.3% and 100.0%, respectively. They were regarded as nonmalignant and further evaluations on the stage and grade of these tumors were not performed. At least one and at most seven predictive parameters of malignancy were identified in 320 patients. For these patients, the accumulated 5-year DFS and OS rates were 43.9% (mean 6.7 years) and 59.7% (mean 9.3 years), respectively. The DFS showed significant difference between patients with and without gross spread (P < 0.01), with and without microscopic spread (P = 0.001). DFS and OS were associated with the number of predictive parameters of malignancy in patients without gross spread (P < 0.01 for both DFS and OS), but not in patients with gross spread (P = 0.882 and 0.441, respectively).

CONCLUSIONSMalignant GIST could be divided into clinical stages I and II based on the absence and presence of gross spread, respectively. The degree of malignancy of patients in clinical stage I could be graded according to the number of predictive parameters of malignancy. Patients in clinical stage II were of the highest degree of malignancy regardless of the number of parameters. The staging and grading of gastrointestinal stromal tumors in this study are strongly associated with prognosis.

Actins ; metabolism ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Antigens, CD34 ; metabolism ; Disease-Free Survival ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms ; secondary ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Grading ; methods ; Neoplasm Invasiveness ; Neoplasm Staging ; methods ; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit ; metabolism ; Survival Rate ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo prepare a porcine aortic valve (PAV) free of the cellular components.

METHODSThe cellular components of porcine PAV were completely removed using trypsin and Triton X-100, and the acellular PAV was examined microscopically with HE staining with its physical and chemical properties assessed. Transmission electron microscopy was used to observe the integrity of the collagen and elastin and the DNA contents in the PAV was detected to confirm the total removal of the cellular components. With the fresh PAV as the control, small pieces of the acellular PAV were implanted into the subcutaneous tissues of 4 rabbits, and 4 weeks after the implantation, the implants were harvested for microscopic observation.

RESULTSThe cellular components were effectively removed from the cusps and roots of the PAV by trypsin and TritonX-100, with marked soluble protein loss [(0.24-/+0.04)% vs (0.48-/+0.12)%] and significantly increased water content [(92.2-/+1.5)% vs (89.2-/+1.6)%]. The acellular PAV still maintained good fibrous scaffold structure and the shrinkage temperature and tension at fracture underwent no significantly changes [(67.9-/+1.0) degrees celsius; vs (68.8-/+0.8) degrees celsius; and (489.3-/+19.0) g/mm2 vs (540.7-/+19.5) g/mm2, respectively]. The PAVs implanted in rabbits showed only mild tissue reaction with a few infiltrating neutrophils, lymphocytes and plasmocytes observed 4 weeks later. The accelular PAV caused obviously milder inflammatory reactions than fresh PAV.

CONCLUSIONSThe acellular PAV prepared by treatment with trypsin and Triton X-100 retains good fibrous scaffold structure and mechanical strength with low antigenicity.

Animals ; Aortic Valve ; cytology ; transplantation ; Bioprosthesis ; Cell Separation ; methods ; Octoxynol ; Prosthesis Design ; Rabbits ; Swine ; Tissue Engineering ; methods ; Tissue Scaffolds ; Transplantation, Heterologous

BACKGROUNDAccording to the National Institutes of Health consensus criteria, gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) smaller than 2 cm in diameter with less than 5 mitotic figures per 50 high-power fields are considered very-low-risk GISTs, but these two indices alone cannot reliably predict a benign outcome during long-term follow-ups. Therefore, identification of additional parameters for predicting the clinical behavior of GISTs is necessary.

METHODSEighty-eight patients with tumors that meet the very-low-risk GIST criteria were retrospectively investigated and morphological parameters of tumors associated with the biological behavior of very-low-risk GISTs were evaluated in the present study. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate disease-free survival rates.

RESULTSEighty-one patients were followed up for one to 16.3 years. Five cases of relapses were identified in the patients. Distinctive infiltrative growth patterns such as muscularis propria, muscularis mucosa, or nerve infiltration were identified by microscopy in 4 patients with the relapse, including three patients who experienced multiple recurrences. The infiltrative growth features became more obvious in multiple recurrent tumors compared to the single recurrent tumor, while only one developed relapse in 76 patients without infiltration (P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONMicroscopic infiltrative growth patterns of the tumor may have clinical significance in predicting the prognosis of very-low-risk GISTs.

Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Disease-Free Survival ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors ; pathology ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prognosis ; Retrospective Studies

BACKGROUNDBorderline gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are intermediate tumors between benign and malignant variants; however, the clinical and pathological features of borderline GISTs remain poorly defined. This study aimed to characterize GISTs and to identify a set of borderline criteria for practical use.

METHODSMedical records and specimens of 840 patients from 12 hospitals were retrospectively examined. Totally 485 and 76 patients with any of the parameters predictive of either malignant or benign tumors were excluded. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate disease-free survival and overall survival rates.

RESULTSAmong the remaining 279 borderline GIST patients, 223 were followed up for 1 to 31.48 years. Two patients developed local recurrence, and both were cured by subsequent operations alone. The 5-year disease-free survival and overall survival rates were 99% and 100%, respectively. Morphologically, borderline GISTs typically exhibited moderate cellularity, and subsets of them also showed moderate atypia, low mitotic activities, or large tumor size. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) consensus criteria, the risk levels of the 279 GISTs were classified to be very low to high. However, the disease-free survival rates were not significantly different among these risk groups (P = 0.681).

CONCLUSIONSThe proposed borderline GIST criteria in the current study may complement the existing NIH criteria, based primarily on tumor size and mitotic count, in the evaluation of the biological behaviors of GISTs. Since a subset of borderline GISTs with high risk level showed favorable outcome, the introduction of the borderline GIST system may avoid overdiagnosis and over therapy.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors ; diagnosis ; metabolism ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Young Adult

This study was aimed to establish ELISA for recombinant bovine IFN-gamma (BovIFN-gamma) detection and provide a new method for diagnosis of pathogenic infection. The total RNA was isolated from peripheral blood leucocytes cultured with PHA mitogen stimulation. Then bovine IFN-gamma (BovIFN-gamma) gene cDNA was amplified by RT-PCR and cloned into pET28a to obtain the expression plasmid designated as pETBovIFN-gamma. The pETBovlFN-gamma was further transformed into competent E. coli BL21 cells and a 18kD His-tagged protein as expected was expressed after IPTG induction. By using purified recombinant BovIFN-gamma as antigen and lymphocyte-hybridoma technique, four hybridoma cell lines which stably secreted monoclonal antibodies against rBovIFN-gamma were generated, designated as A7, A10, G6, and G10. The immunoglobin subset was identified as IgG1 . Western-blotting analysis and ELISA demonstrated that the monoclonal antibodies secreted by all the four hybridoma cell lines could react specifically to the recombinant BovIFN-gamma, but not irrelative proteins such as Ag85B, ESAT-6-CFP-10 and GM-CSF, suggesting that the four hybridoma cell lines were rBovIFN-gamma specific monoclonal antibodies. A sandwich ELISA was established by using A10 secreted monoclonal antibody and rabbit polyclonal antibodies against BovIFN-gamma, HRP labeled goat anti-rabbit IgG. The results indicated that the sensitivity was 2ng/mL. This sandwich ELISA to detect BovIFN-gamma paved the way to develop a sensitive method for specific infection detection such as bovine tuberculosis diagnosis.
Animals ; Animals, Newborn ; Antibodies, Monoclonal ; biosynthesis ; immunology ; Antibody Specificity ; immunology ; Blotting, Western ; Cattle ; Cells, Cultured ; DNA, Complementary ; genetics ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; methods ; Female ; Hybridomas ; Interferon-gamma ; genetics ; immunology ; metabolism ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred BALB C ; Plasmids ; genetics ; Rabbits ; Recombinant Proteins ; immunology ; metabolism ; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction