Cardiovascular diseases, like coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction, are the most common cause of death worldwide. Chinese medicines have demonstrated rich cardioprotective activities for clinical applications. Salvia miltiorrhiza, a very important component of traditional Chinese medicine, can promote blood circulation and relieve blood stasis. Salvia miltiorrhiza is widely used in treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease such as coronary heart disease and cerebral infarction ( CI). Tanshinone II(A), the major lipophilic components extracted from the root of S. miltiorrhiza, possesses anti-atherosclerosis, anti-cardiac hypertrophy, anti-oxidant, anti-arrhythmia and so on. This paper discusses current research status of tanshinone II(A) in cardioprotective effects.
Animals ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; drug therapy ; genetics ; metabolism ; physiopathology ; Coronary Vessels ; drug effects ; physiopathology ; Diterpenes, Abietane ; therapeutic use ; Humans

Tripterygium wilfordii has exihibited multiple pharmacological activities, such as anti-inflammatory, immune modulation, anti-tumor and anti-fertility. T. wilfordii have been used for the therapy of inflammation and autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, immune complex nephritis and systemic lupus erythematosus clinically. However, it is well known that T. wilfordii has small margin between the therapeutic and toxic doses and could cause serious injury on digestive, reproductive and urogenital systems. Among all the organs, liver is one of the most remarkable targets of T. wilfordii-induced toxicities, and the damage is more serious than others. It is generally accepted that T. wilfordii-induced liver injury is a result of the combined effects of toxic elements of T. wilfordii. It is reported in several studies that the mechanism of T. wilfordii-induced liver injury may be related to lipid peroxidation, cell apoptosis and immune damage, and so on. Licorice is one of the most commonly used Chinese herbal medicine, with effects of heat- clearing and detoxicating, anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective, reconciling various drugs, and so on. Licorice often accompany T. wilfordii in clinical application which can significantly reduce the liver injury induced by T. wilfordii. The attenuated effect is exact, but the mechanism is still a lack of in-depth study. This paper reviews the studies on T. wilfordii-induced liver injury and the related mechanism as well as licorice and other traditional Chinese medicine accompany T. wilfordii to reduce the injury in recent years, so as to provide reference for related research in the future.
Animals ; Chemical and Drug Induced Liver Injury ; etiology ; prevention & control ; Glycyrrhiza ; Humans ; Inactivation, Metabolic ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Tripterygium

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of large and medium sized arteries which is caused by environmental and genetic in-teractions.Recently, epigenetic modification of the genome has been identified to play a major role in the disease development .Epigenetics refer to heritable alterations that are not due to changes in DNA sequence and histone modification is one of them .Histone modification is closely related with atherosclerosis .This paper reviewed the histone modification progress in atherosclerosis research , to investigate the feasibility of his-tone modifying enzymes as therapeutic targets of atherosclerosis treat-ment.

Nuclear factor erythroid 2 -related factor 2 ( Nrf2 ) is a key transcriptional factor of endogenous antioxidant defense system, which maintains the redox balance by mediating Nrf2/ARE pathways that could regulate the expression of a battery of downstream antioxidant enzymes, phase Ⅱdetoxifying enzymes and transport proteins.Recent studies have demonstrated that Nrf2 plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of myo-cardial ischemia reperfusion injury ( MIRI) , thus activation of Nrf2 lead to the increase of antioxidant capacity, and eventually alleviates myocar-dial injury as well as exerts cardioprotection effect to some extent, which makes it a novel promising therapeutic target.Therefore, this paper re-views the research progress of the cardioprotection effect of Nrf2 in MIRI, attempting to provide innovative ideas about treatment for MIRI in clinical practice.

This article describes the experiences of professor CHEN Quan-xin, an old famous TCM doctor, in the treatment of insomnia. He believes that insomnia stems from incoordination between nutrient qi and defensive qi and deficient cultivation of cardiac spirit, and treatment of insomnia need to regulate spirit and quiet heart coherently. Painless acupuncture method of Chen's flying needling is adopted including to select Shenmen (HT 7), Sanyinjiao (SP 6) and Anmian (Extra) as the main points and take special needling technique and grading reinforcing and reducing manipulations. During treatment, he pays attention to understanding patients' psychological and mental status through "watching one's expressions and weighing his words carefully".
Acupuncture Therapy ; Heart ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Sleep ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders ; physiopathology ; psychology ; therapy ; Spirituality

Basidiomycete PM2, a lignin-degrading white rot fungus, produces lgnin peroxidase (Lip) and manganese peroxidase (Mnp) in nutrient nitrogen limited liquid cultures. This fungus was selected for its ability to decolorize azo group of dyes. In order to improve production of the peroxidases and rapid dye decolorizing activity by basidiomycete PM2, the addition of veratryl alcohol or Tween 80 to nutrient nitrogen limited liquid cultures were tested. It was found to have a large stimulatory effect on Mnp activities and decolorization rate of azo dyes. A maximum Mnp activities of 254.2 u/L with veratryl alcohol and 192.2 u/L with Tween 80 were achieved respectively. These values were about 3.4-fold and 2.5-fold higher than that obtained in the control cultures (without alcohol or Tween 80), whereas the levels of Lip activity detected were very low (about 12 u/L)in all the cultures. In further experiments using three kinds of azo dyes of congo red, orange G and orange IV, enzyme activities and dye decolorization were investigated in the above-mentioned cultures. The results showed that Mnp activities and decolorization were notably higher than those obtained in the control cultures in the presence of azo dyes. Cultures supplemented with Tween 80 were more adequate for dye decolorization. The rates of the decolorization with Tween 80 of congo red (95.4%), orange G (98.5%) and orange IV (54.4%) after 24 hours of dye incubation were higher than that supplemented with veratryl alcohol. According to the results, Mnp activities secreted by basidiomycete PM2 play an essential role in the process of dye decolorization. Tween 80 was the main factor affecting the decolorization. The analysis of structure of the three kinds of azo dyes indicats that the extent of decolorization is affected by the dye molecular structure. The types and quantity of the substituted groups on the aromatic ring of azo dyes have effect on the percentage of biological decolorization.
Azo Compounds ; metabolism ; Basidiomycota ; enzymology ; metabolism ; Benzyl Alcohols ; pharmacology ; Coloring Agents ; metabolism ; Oxygenases ; biosynthesis ; Peroxidases ; biosynthesis ; Polysorbates ; pharmacology

Danshen,an efficacious agent for cardiovascular diseases,has been found to play an essential role in kidney injury.In the present study,the effect of Danshen on cisplatin-induced renal dysfunction was investigated in a mouse model.Danshen was administered to mice at a dose of 3 g/kg 4 days before and 3 days after cisplatin treatment.A single intraperitoneal injection of 20 mg/kg cisplatin was used to induce nephrotoxicity.The mice were sacrificed 72 h after cisplatin intoxication.Biochemical parameters including serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen were analyzed.Histopathological changes of kidney tissues were detected using HE staining.Antioxidant enzymes (GSH-Px and SOD) and peroxidative product (MDA) were detected.Protein expressions of Nrf2 and its target genes including HO-1 and NQO1 were measured by Western blotting.The results showed that pretreatment with Danshen significantly reduced serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen in the cisplatin-treated mice.Histopathological examination showed that Danshen mitigated the renal damage induced by cisplatin.Moreover,Danshen restored the activities of antioxidant enzymes (GSH-Px and SOD) and normalized the MDA contents in renal tissues.Western blotting revealed that Danshen enhanced the expressions of Nrf2 and its target genes in cisplatin-exposed mice.It was suggested that Danshen protects against the cisplatin-induced renal impairment in the mice,which is potentially associated with the upregulation of Nrf2-mediated signaling pathway.

Objective To explore the clinical characteristics and treatment strategy of chronic low-er limb arterial ischemic. Methods The clinical data of 60 patients with chronic lower limb arterial ische-mic-treated from January 2017 to May 2017 were analyzed retrospectively (63 affected limbs). According to the patient's physical condition, clinical symptoms and pathological features, individualized surgical treat-ment was selected, including autogenous great saphenous vein or artificial blood vessel bypass grafting, ar-tery intima stripped, balloon dilatation, stenting, intracavity volume reduction, or hybrid procedures. The ankle brachial index of preoperative and postoperative 3 months was monitored, and patients were classified according to the Rutherford classification standard. Results Sixty cases were underwent surgery treatment, three patients were treated with bilateral lower limbs in the same period, successfully 58 cases and success rate reached 96. 67％. One case was subjected to amputation, and 1 case died (cardiovascular disease). Postoperative 3 month follow-up, the Rutherford grading of 59 affected limbs was improved markedly, aver-age ankle brachial index of postoperative was higher than preoperative ( P<0. 05 ) . Six cases of patients with ulcer were cured, the ulcer surface of 2 cases were significantly narrowed. Conclusions The inci-dence of chronic lower limb arterial ischemic is increasing year by year, the treatment ideas are constantly updated. It is safe and effective to select individualized treatment according to the patients' physical condi-tion, clinical symptoms and pathological feature. However it still needs to enlarge the sample and extend the time of follow-up to verify this point.

Objective To evaluate the impact of Shenfushu granules on cisplatin-induced renal dysfunction and explore the possible mechanisms.Methods Male institute of cancer research(ICR) mice were randomly divided into 4 groups:control group (0.9％ NaC1),Shenfushu group (Shenfushu granules 1 g · kg-1),cisplatin group(0.9％ NaC1 for 9 d and a single dose of cisplatin 20 mg · kg-1 was given by intraperitoneal injection on 7th day),Shenfushu + cisplatin group (Shenfushu granules 1 g · kg-1 gavage for 9 d and a single dose of cisplatin 20 mg · kg-1 was given by intraperitoneal injection on 7th day).Animals were euthanized 72 h following cisplatin dosing.Biochemical parametem including serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen levels were analyzed by automatic biochemical analyzer.Hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining was performed inhistopathological examination.The peroxidative product malondialdehyde (MDA) and antioxidant enzymes glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were detected according to kits.Protein expressions of nuclear factor-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2),hemeoxygenase 1 (HO-1),quinine oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1),multidrug resistance protein 2 (MRP2) and multidrug and toxic compound extrusion protein 1 (MATE1) were measured in western blot analysis.Platinum contents in kidney were determined with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) method.Results The serum creatinine in cisplatin group and Shenfushu + cisplatin group were (12.14 ± 4.64),(7.60 ± 3.49) μmol · L-1;blood urea nitrogen were (34.12 ±9.48),(15.92 ±4.33) mmol · L-1;GSH-Px were (78.26 ±7.02),(95.87 ± 14.08) U· mg-1 protein;SOD were (8.85 ±3.99),(12.68 ±3.62) U · mg-1 protein,MDA were (6.96 ±2.25),(4.33 ± 1.50) nmol · mg-1 protein;platinum contents were (12.56 ± 1.30),(9.67 ± 0.97) ng · mg-1 tissue.Western blotting analysis revealed that Shenfushu granules enhanced expressions of Nrf2-mediated antioxidant pathway and efflux transporter in cisplatin-exposed animals.Conclusion Shenfushu granules exhibited renal protective effects on cisplatin-induced renal impairment,possibly associated with its modulating on Nrf2-mediated antioxidant pathway and efflux transporters.