AIM: To study the effects of different dose proportioning the danggui-shaoyao powder (DS) on learning and memory and the content of NO in brain in mice. METHODS: The ability of learning and memory was measured by the step-through task and the water maze task. The content of NO in brain was determined referring to the reagent manual. RESULTS: All different dose proportion of DS promoted the memory of normal mice. And only DS 1 (1 5.4) and DS 3 (1 1.34) obviously improved the scopolamine-induced mice passive avoidance handicap, prolonged the latency, and decreased number of errors. DS 3(1 1.34) obviously improved reserpine-induced mice spatial orientation handicap and prolonged the latency; others had no remarkable effect on spatial orientation handicap of mice. And all different dose proportions of DS could reduce the content of NO in the brain of passive avoidance disruption mice induced by scopolamine. CONCLUSION: DS 3 (1 1.34) improves passive avoidance handicap and spatial orientation handicap of mice, and reduced the content of NO in the brain of passive avoidance handicap mice induced by scopolamine. The effect of DS 3(1 1.34) is the best on benefiting memory.

Compound libraries and chemical synthesis play important roles in drug discovery and development, and efficient synthetic techniques can greatly facilitate the drug research. This review highlights the application of some efficient synthetic techniques in drug research including microwave chemistry, click chemistry, combinatorial chemistry, cascade reactions and multicomponent reactions, as well as the construction of diverse and drug-like compound libraries.

Water solubility is an essential physical chemistry property of organic small molecule drug and is also a very important issue in drug discovery. Good water solubility often leads to a good drug potency and pleasant pharmacokinetic profiles. To improve water solubility, structure modification is a straight and effective way based on the theory of water solubility. This review summarized valid structure modification strategies for improving water solubility including salt formation, polar group introduction, liposolubility reduction, conformation optimization and prodrug.
Drug Design ; Prodrugs ; chemistry ; Solubility ; Structure-Activity Relationship ; Water ; chemistry

Phages also known as bacteria viruses, are recognized as the most abundant and diverse microbes. This diversity is adapting to the selective pressures such as the prevalence of the phage resistance mechanisms of bacteria. Phages invade and lyse bacterial through six steps (adsorption, injection, replication, transcription translation, assemble, release). Bacteria evolve to many anti-phage mechanisms to avoid phage infection and lysis. This paper focus on a variety of anti-phage mechanisms of bacteria.
Bacteria ; genetics ; virology ; Bacterial Physiological Phenomena ; Bacteriophages ; genetics ; physiology ; DNA Replication ; Evolution, Molecular ; Virus Attachment

AIM: To investigate the effect of glomerular intercellular interaction under high glucose concentration on the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and transforming growth factor ?_1 (TGF-?_1) in co-cultured human ECV304 cells, and to study the intervention with tea polyphenols (TPs). METHODS: The endothelial cells were cultured alone or co-cultured with mesangial cells in high glucose media with or without TPs for 0 h, 12 h and 36 h, respectively. The activity of SOD and the content of MDA in the media of the system were detected by spectrophotometry. The expression of TGF-?_1 mRNA in the endothelial cells was measured by using semi-quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR). RESULTS: High glucose decreased the activity of SOD, increased the content of MDA and up-regulated the expression of TGF-?_1 mRNA in co-cultured ECV304 cells and the effect became more prominent than the single-cultured cells. TPs interrupted it more effectively. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that there is interaction between mesangial cells and ECV304 cells under high glucose concentration. The interaction may markedly up-regulate the production of ROS and the expression of TGF-?_1 in co-cultured ECV304 cells. TPs may protect ECV304 cells by intervening intercellular interaction.

Adult ; Chemotherapy, Adjuvant ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; secondary ; Mediastinal Neoplasms ; diagnostic imaging ; drug therapy ; pathology ; surgery ; Mediastinum ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local ; Osteosarcoma ; diagnostic imaging ; drug therapy ; pathology ; secondary ; surgery ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Animals ; Antigens, CD34 ; metabolism ; Cell Culture Techniques ; methods ; Cells, Cultured ; Endothelial Cells ; cytology ; metabolism ; Female ; Kidney Glomerulus ; cytology ; metabolism ; Male ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Vimentin ; metabolism

Background and purpose: High expression of telomerase and telomere stability are two common features in tumor cell. hTERT is a catalytic subunit of telomerase, TRF2 is extremely important to maintain the length and stability of telomerase. This study was to construct the recombinant adenovirus mediated shRNA to hTERT and TRF2, and to investigate the inhibitory effects of the vector by solo-inhibiting and connect-inhibiting in the MCF-7 cells, in order to present a new approach to the gene therapy for breast cancer. Methods: rAd-hTERT and rAd-TRF2 were constructed and the expression of hTERT mRNA and TRF2 mRNA were tested by FQ-PCR 48 hours after transfecting in MCF-7 cells. Apoptosis was observed by flow cytometry 1 to 6 days after transfection. Results: ①At 48 hours after transfection, the results of FQ-PCR showed that compared to PBS group, the expression of hTERT in rAd-hTERT group was obviously decreased and the inhibition ratio was about 86%, but TRF2 had not been obviously inhibited (P>0.05);the expression of TRF2 in rAd-TRF2 group was obviously decreased and the inhibition ratio was about 80%, but hTERT had not been obviously inhibited (P>0.05);in rAd-hTERT/rAd-TRF2 group, the inhibition ratio of hTERT and TRF2 were about 88% and 85%. Comparing rAd-hTERT/rAd-TRF2 group with rAd-hTERT group and rAd-TRF2 group, there were no significant differences of inhibition ratio between hTERT gene and TRF2 gene(P>0.05). Otherwise, comparing rAd-HK group, rAd-blank group with PBS group, there were no significant differences of inhibition ratio between hTERT gene and TRF2 gene(P>0.05). ②The result of flow cytometry showed that apoptosis was induced at the first day after transfecting in rAd-hTERT group and rAd-TRF2 group, the most obvious apoptosis was in the 3rd to 5th days,at the peak in the 5th day, and decreased in the 6th day after transfection. The apoptosis ratio of rAd-hTERT group was 46.2%, rAd-TRF2 group was 43.5%. The apoptosis ratio of rAd-hTERT/rAd-TRF2 group was 46.2% at first day, 68.5% at the second day, the most obvious apoptosis was in the 3rd to 6th days and was 77.6% in the 6th days in rAd-hTERT/rAd-TRF2 group. There were significant differences in apoptosis ratio in solo-inhibiting and connect-inhibiting(P<0.05). In addition, comparing rAd-HK group, rAd-blank group with PBS group, there were no significant differences in apoptosis ratio(P>0.05). Conclusion: ①Target sequence of RNAi which aimed at hTERT gene and TRF2 gene was designed efficiently, and the RNAi expression vectors were seen in vivo study efficiently and specifically inhibited the correspond gene expression and promoted cell apoptosis in MCF-7 cells. ②rAd-hTERT vector and rAd-TRF2 vector have no synergistical effect and antagoinstical effect on inhibiting hTERT gene and TRF2 gene mRNA expressing in MCF-7, but there was synergistical effect in terms of the induction of apoptosis. So association-RNAi-technique targeting to the genes of telomere length and stability can effectively promote tumor cell into apoptosis and inhibit breast cancer cell growth. RNAi technique of connecting correlation genes is a more effective gene therapy strategy.

Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the distribution and clinical significance of CD8+ T cells in bladder cancer tissues in situ.Methods Immunohistochemistry were used to examine the distribution of CD8+ T cells in bladder cancer tissues,which were obtained from January 2003 to December 2009 from 302 patients.Among all the patients,262 were male while 40 were female;mean age is 60 years;tumor size ≤ 3 cm was in 235 and tumor size ＞ 3 cm was in 67;Unifocal tumor was in 214 and multifocal tumors were in 88.Amount of tumor stage Ta-T1 was 212 and T2-T4 was 90.Sixteen patients have lymph node metastasis.Histological low grade was diagnosed in 175 and histological high grade was diagnosed in 127.According to the differences between anatomic structure and cellular composition,bladder tumor tissues can be classified to two localization patterns:(1) intratumoral regions,defined as tumor cell nests;(2) stromal regions,defined as stromal areas that lack direct contact with tumor cells.Therefore,we divided 302 bladder cancer patients into two groups based on the median frequency of intratumoral CD8+ T cells (median,3/× 400 high resolution) and stromal CD8+ T cells (median,37/× 400 high resolution),respectively.x2 analysis was used to evaluated the correlation between CD8+ T cell density and clinicalpathological variables.Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression models were applied to estimate overall survival (OS).Results CD8+ T cells were predominantly located in the intratumoral regions (mean,14 ± 2/× 400 high resolution) rather than in associated stromal regions (mean,50 ± 3/× 400 high resolution,P ＜ 0.05).The density of intratumoral CD8+ T cells was inversely associated with age (P =0.026),tumor size (P ＜ 0.05) and tumor stage (P ＜ 0.05),and could represent a favorable prognostic predictor of OS (HR =0.427,P =0.003).However,the density of stromal CD8+ T cells was positively associated with age (P =0.004) and histological grade (P ＜ 0.01),and could represent an adverse prognostic predictor of OS (HR =2.206,P =0.009).Conclusions Our findings suggest that intratumoral/ stromal CD8+ T cells could potentially serve as favorable/ adverse prognostic markers for bladder cancer patients,respectively.

Water solubility is an essential physical chemistry property of organic small molecule drug and is also a very important issue in drug discovery. Good water solubility often leads to a good drug potency and pleasant pharmacokinetic profiles. To improve water solubility, structure modification is a straight and effective way based on the theory of water solubility. This review summarized valid structure modification strategies for improving water solubility including salt formation, polar group introduction, liposolubility reduction, conformation optimization and prodrug.