Objective To look for more serum biomarkers supporting the diagnosis of multiple system atrophy ( MSA) and providing more evidence for early treatment.Methods All patients and healthy controls were enrolled from January 2011 to March 2015 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.Demographic features and biochemical examination results were collected.The t test was used to compare the lipid levels between MSA patients and controls.LSD-t test was used to compare the lipid levels among subtypes of MSA patients.Multivariate Logistic regression analysis was conducted to analyze the influencing factors.The relevance between lipid levels and onset age, disease duration and Hoehn & Yahr stage was calculated by Spearman correlation coefficients.Results Participants included 195 MSA patients and 195 age-and gender-matched controls with no neurological diseases.The levels of total cholesterol ((4.33 ±0.90) mmol/L), triglyceride ((1.27 ±0.71) mmol/L), low-density lipoprotein (LDL;(2.70 ±0.76) mmol/L) were significantly lower in patients than in controls ((4.52 ±0.85), (1.47 ± 0.86), (2.85 ±0.71) mmol/L ,t=2.056,2.528 and 2.149 respectively, all P<0.05).The levels of total cholesterol ((4.28 ±0.96) mmol/L) and triglyceride ((1.20 ±0.64) mmol/L) were significantly lower in MSA-P patients than in control group ((4.52 ±0.85), (1.47 ±0.86) mmol/L;LSD-t=1.983, 2.566, both P<0.05).After adjusting for age, gender and histories, the odds ratio ( OR) was 0.31 (95%CI 0.15-0.65, P =0.002 ) for MSA patients in the highest quartile of triglyceride and 0.38 (95%CI 0.17 -0.83,P=0.016) for those in the highest quartile of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), compared with the lowest quartiles.And HDL level was in a significantly positive correlation with onset age (r=0.15, P=0.039).Conclusion Our data suggest that triglyceride and HDL may be associated with the prevalence of MSA, and the lower levels of HDL, the earlier onset of MSA.

Objective To evaluate the differentiation of mouse tracheal epithelial cells ( MTEC) at an air-liquid interface and to investigate the influences of influenza virus on the cystic fibrosis transmem-brane conductance regulator ( CFTR) in primary cultured MTEC for further elucidating the possible mecha-nism of imbalanced fluid and salt transportation in respiratory system caused by influenza virus infection . Methods The morphology of primarily cultured MTEC was observed under inverted microscope .Trans epi-thelial electrical resistance ( TEER) was measured by a resistance meter to evaluate the integrity of cultured MTEC.An Ussing chamber apparatus was used to record the short-circuit current of primary cultured MTEC . Results The primarily cultured MTEC clustered together and had a tight pavement-like appearance under light microscope .The TEER was greater than 1000 Ωafter 6 days of culture .Influenza virus could reduce the short-circuit current of CFTR to (52.77±10.30)％in intact cell membrane and to (41.50±1.09)％in monolayer MTEC after increasing the permeability of basement membrane .It had been proved that CFTR was essential to maintaining the balance of fluid and salt transportation in respiratory system.Conclusion Mouse MTEC are efficiently cultured at a air-liquid interface and the primarily cultured cells are highly simi-lar to those in a normal physiologic state .Influenza virus may block the secretion of anions through inhibiting the function of CFTR , which may induce the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and the incidence of asthma .