Rhamnolipid,an important biosurfactant,is reviewed with respect to chemical strocture,properties,physiological role and their fermentation production,especially focusing on the production with inexpensive raw materials,such as vegetable oils and residues from agro- industrial wastes.This can not only reduce the production costs,but also contribute to the reduction of environmental impact generated by the discard of residues,and the treatment costs.

Anti-glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody-associated encephalitis is a kind of autoimmune encephalitis mediated by anti-glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody, which belongs to anti-neuronal intracellular synaptic protein antibody-associated encephalitis. Clinical manifestations include stiff-person syndrome, cerebellar ataxia, limbic encephalitis, seizures, etc., often associated with a variety of autoimmune diseases, rarely associated with tumors. Detection of anti-glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody is crucial for clinical diagnosis. Immunotherapy helps to relieve symptoms and improve prognosis. The incidence of this disease is low, and there are few reports at home and abroad. This paper intends to review the research on this encephalitis, hoping to improve the clinicians′ understanding and the level of diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

Aim:To predict ability of self-care at discharge of inpatients with first-ever cerebral infarction. Method: 346 stroke patients with first-ever cerebral infarction admitted to our hospital were analyzed,male 187,female 159,the average age was 63. 90± 11. 40 years and the average length of stay 36. 53±27.03days. Patients were divided into two groups, self-care and non self-care according to discharged outcome.Nineteen factors were selected from casenote and reports of laboratory and special exam such as EKG,CT or/and MRI. All material were analyzed (t test and X2 test,multiple regression). Result:The age in single factor analysis (P<0. 01)and six factors in regression analysis were significant differences in predicting discharged outcome between two groups. Conclusion:Main factors to predict the ability of self-care at discharge of inpatients were infarction of 1eft brain, large area, multiple focus, and accepted aphasia, arrhythmia as well as hemipareses, This research could be used for clinician to set a discharge plan and a guideline to select patients in early rehabilitation programs.

As the number of patients with compromised immune function increases and fungal resistance develops, so does the risk of contracting deadly fungi in humans. Both fungi and humans are eukaryotes, so identifying unique targets for antifungal drug development is difficult. In addition, the existing antifungal drugs are limited by toxicity, drug interaction and drug resistance in practical application, which leads to the increasing incidence and fatal rate of fungal infections. Therefore, it is urgent to develop new antifungal drugs. The semi-synthetic technology using microbial fermentation products from natural sources as lead compounds has become the most used method in structural modification of antifungal drugs due to its advantages of few reaction steps and easy operation. This paper will introduce the current status of natural antifungal drugs in clinical use, as well as the latest progress in the research and development of new semi-synthetic antifungal drugs, and summarize their mechanism of action, structural modifications, advantages and disadvantages, so as to provide reference for the subsequent development of new antifungal drugs.

OBJECTIVETo investigate the main factors that influence the results of sperm alkaline single-cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE), optimize the conditions, and standardize its procedures.

METHODSUsing alkaline SCGE, we detected the DNA fragments of sperm treated with different concentrations of H2O2 and determined the influences of the number of agarose gel layers, pH during DNA unwinding and electrophoresis, the time of DNA unwinding and electrophoresis, and cumulative sperm number on the results of sperm alkaline SCGE. Then we optimized the procedures, analyzed the repeatability of the optimized method, and examined 40 semen samples using the method.

RESULTSThree agarose gel layers could reduce the background. The optimal pH during DNA unwinding and electrophoresis was 10, and the best times for DNA unwinding and electrophoresis were 40 min and 30 min, respectively. Fifty sperm were adequate to ensure the reliability of the results. Based on the percentage of tail DNA, the intra- and inter-assay repeatabilities of the optimized sperm alkaline SCGE were 3.12% and 7.13%, and by the DNA damage score, they were 2.38% and 6.09%, respectively. Sperm DNA fragments were significantly increased in the infertile patients with oligoasthenoteratozoospermia as compared with healthy fertile males (P <0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe optimized sperm alkaline SCGE, highly repeatable and easy to be standardized, can be applied to the clinical detection of sperm DNA fragmentation in infertile men.

Asthenozoospermia ; genetics ; Comet Assay ; standards ; DNA Damage ; DNA Fragmentation ; Humans ; Hydrogen Peroxide ; toxicity ; Male ; Oligospermia ; genetics ; Oxidants ; toxicity ; Reproducibility of Results ; Sperm Count ; Spermatozoa ; drug effects ; enzymology ; Time Factors

Objective To explore the effects of acupoint application of midnight-noon ebb-flow with hour-prescription of points on dysfunction for sufferers with senile osteoporosis(SOP).Methods In this study,76 patients with SOP in clinic in this hospital were recruited and randomly divided into the experimental group(n=38) and the control group(n=38) in accordance with random number table.Both were on the basic treatment of Caltrate D.The experimental group performed acupoint application of midnight-noon ebb flow with hour-prescription of points,while the control one performed common acupoint application.Oswestry Disability Index(ODI) was used to evaluate the dysfunction before,after 4 weeks and 8 weeks of intervention.SF-36 was adopted to evaluate the patients' quality of life before and after 8 week's intervention.Results The ODI scores of the experimental group after 4 weeks and 8 weeks were lower than those of the control group(P＜0.01).Repeated ANOVA indicated that the scores of ODI in group effect,time effect and interaction effect were of statistical significance(P＜0.01).Further comparison showed that the scores of ODI in three different time sections suggested that the latter time point were lower than those of the former time point(P＜0.01).The scores of eight dimensions of SF-36 after the intervention of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group(P＜0.05).Conclusion The acupoint application of midnight noon ebb flow-with hour-prescription of points can effectively improve the dysfunction whose curative effect enhanced with time increasing and improve the quality of life.

Ginseng saponins are a type of important active substances in the ginseng genus plants. They have notable pharmacological activities of antineoplastic, neuroprotective, and hepatoprotective activities, which have been drawn more attention to obtain minor ginsenosides by all kinds of methods. In this review, we discussed the latest progress for enrichment of minor ginsenosides by biological transformation of major ginsenosides. At the same time, we have a brief outlook of the research at bioconversion of ginseng saponins.
Bacteria ; metabolism ; Biotransformation ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; metabolism ; Ginsenosides ; chemistry ; metabolism ; Panax ; chemistry ; metabolism

DNA barcoding is an effective technique in species identification. To determine the candidate sequences which can be used as DNA barcode to identify in Papaver genus, five potential sequences (ITS, matK, psbA-trnH, rbcL, trnL-trnF) were screened. 69 sequences were downloaded from Genbank, including 21 ITS sequences, 10 matK sequences, 8 psbA-trnH sequences, 14 rbcL sequences and 16 trnL-trnF sequences. Mega 6.0 was used to analysis the comparison of sequences. By the methods of calculating the distances in intraspecific and interspecific divergences, evaluating DNA barcoding gap and constructing NJ and UPMGA phylogenetic trees. The sequence trnL-trnF performed best. In conclusion, trnL-trnF can be considered as a novel DNA barcode in Papaver genus, other four sequences can be as combination barcode for identification.
DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic ; methods ; Papaver ; classification ; genetics

Objective To evaluate the feasibility and value of quantitatively assessing left ventricular systolic function in rats with myocardial infarction (MI) by myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) based on mathematical morphology algorithm.Methods SD rats model of MI were mede,then MCE were performed before MI and at 1,3 weeks after MI.In vitro study:based on the principle of binary morphology,segmentation of endocardium was acquired using dilation,erosion,closed operations and connected domain object tag-based.The automatic segmentation of endocardial contour was compared with the manual segmentation boundary.In vivo study:the left ventricular area was calculated using the software,and the area variation fraction (AVF),a new index of left ventricular systolic function,were acquired.The correlation between AVF and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was analyzed.The value of AVF for diagnosis for left ventricular dysfunction was evaluated by ROC curve.Results ① The cross-correlation coefficient (CCC) and percent error (PE) between automatic contours and manual boundary were more than 0.90 and less than 9％,respectively.② AVF correlated positively with LVEF (r =0.934,P ＜ 0.001).③ ROC analyses showed the area under curves for AVF diagnosing left ventricular dysfunction was 0.834.The best cutoff value was 27.5 ％ for diagnosing left ventricular dysfunction with the sensitivity of 85 ％ and specificity of 60 ％.Conclusions Left ventricular endocardium can be identificated automatically and rapidly by MCE based on mathematical morphology algorithm.AVF can assessed quantitatively left ventricular systolic function in rats with myocardial infarction.

Objective To explore the relationship between cervical spondylotic radiculopathy (CSR) and carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) by investigating their electrophysiological characteristics and the incidence of CSR root injury and root injury complicating with CTS.Methods One hundred and twenty-four cases of CSR diagnosed in Peking Union Medical College Hospital from September 2013 to February 2014 by electromyography (EMG) were recruited.According to the results of EMG,patients were divided into root injury and root injury complicating with CTS groups.The distal motor latency (DML),motor nerve conduction velocity (MCV),sensory nerve conduction velocity (SCV),sensory nerve action potential (SNAP),compound muscle action potential (CMAP) and spontaneous potential (SP) were compared between the two groups.Results There were 81 (65.3％) cases with root injury,11 cases with double sides injury and 29 cases with normal EMG among these 124 patients.The CMAP,DML,MCV,SCV and SNAP were normal in 76 cases,CMAP lowered 5％-12％ in 3 cases,DML extended 3％ and 9％ in 2 cases.There were 14 cases (11.3％) with concomitant CTS (female 10 cases and male 4 cases,double sides CTS 10 cases).Among the 14 cases with concomitant CTS,there were 9 cases with simply sensory nerve conduction abnormality,SCV slowing down 26％-47％,SNAP reducing 58％-86％ or normal,while other 5 cases with motor conduction abnormality as well as sensory nerve conduction abnormality,CMAP reducing 21％-78％,DML extending 27％-39％ in 3 cases,MCV slowing down 32％ and 40％ in 2 cases.Five cases had spontaneous electricity position movement in the abductor pollicis brevis.The incidence of root injury complicating with CTS in C6 (27.4％,9/33),C7 (26.9％,7/26) and C8 (5/7) showed statistically significant difference (x2 =5.96,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusions There is a high incidence of root injury and CTS in CSR patients,indicating a possible double crush between CSR and CTS.