OBJECTIVETo study the effect of Wu-He Dipsacus asper (WHDA), Traditional Chinese Medicine, injection on mice-aging model induced by D-galactose.

METHODSForty-eight Kunming mice (24 male and 24 female) were randomly divided into control group, model group, positive control group, 7.2 g/kg WHDA group, 3.6 g/kg WHDA group and 1.8 g/kg WHDA group with eight in each group. The model was induced through injecting D-galactose into peritoneal cavity and Morris water maze was used to detect the learning and cognitive ability of mice. The skin hydroxyproline, brain tissue malondialdehyde (MDA), lipofuscin (LP), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) levels of mice were detected; the IL-2 and IL-6 levels in serum of mice were detected by using double antibody sandwich ELISA method.

RESULTSEach WHDA group was significantly reduced in latency period compared with the model group during Morris water maze test (P < 0.05) and the number of mice in model group through the platform was less than other mice in each group (P < 0.05). The levels of MAD and LP of the control group and each WHDA group were less than model group in the detection of heart, brain tissue oxidation index (SOD, MAD, LP and GSH-Px, P < 0.05). The activity of SOD and GSH-Px in the control group and each WHDA group was significantly higher than that in the model group (P < 0.05). The skin hydroxyproline content of mice which had been injected with D-galactose was significantly lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05) and the skin hydroxyproline content of mice of WHDA group was significantly higher than that in the model group (P < 0.05). The IL-2, IL-6 levels in serum of mice in WHDA group were significantly higher than those in the control group and the model group (P < 0.05) and the IL-2, IL-6 levels in serum of mice in the model group were lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe effective constituents of WHDA have a variety of biological activity which can have a good effect on anti-aging by different ways, improving learning and memory function, eliminating free radicals antioxidant, and enhancing the body immunity and other aspects.

Aging ; drug effects ; physiology ; Animals ; Brain ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Dipsacaceae ; chemistry ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; Female ; Galactose ; toxicity ; Glutathione Peroxidase ; metabolism ; Hydroxyproline ; metabolism ; Interleukins ; blood ; Learning ; drug effects ; Lipofuscin ; metabolism ; Male ; Malondialdehyde ; metabolism ; Memory ; drug effects ; Mice ; Skin ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Superoxide Dismutase ; metabolism

Objective To investigate the clinical value of serum procalcitonin (PCT) in diagnosis of urinary tract infection(UTI) in elderly patients.Methods 114 elderly patients with UTI in the department of infectious diseases of a hospital from January 2013 to December 2014 were analyzed retrospectively, clinical data of patients with abnormal and normal serum PCT were compared, PCT levels in patients with positive and negative blood cultures were compared, PCT receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for the diagnosis of bacteremia were drawn.Results Among 114 elderly patients with UTI, 46 were with abnormal PCT, 68 were with normal PCT.In abnormal PCT group, the proportions of patients with highest body temperature within 24 hours of admission, white blood cell count, neutrophil granulocyte percentage, C-reactive protein (CRP), blood urea nitrogen(BUN), creatinine(Cr), and urinary tract obstructive disease were all higher than those with normal PCT (all P<0.05).Among 42 patients with blood culture, PCT level in positive blood culture group(n=12) was higher than negative blood culture group(n=30)(1.93 [0.57-8.32] μg/L vs 0.36[0.15-1.01]μg/L, P=0.028).The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the patients with bacteremia diagnosed by PCT was 0.72(95%CI:0.54-0.90),at the optimal value of 0.52 g/L, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 83.3%, 63.3%, 47.6%, and 90.5% respectively.Conclusion Serum PCT level can well reflect the severity of elderly patients with UTI, and is of great value in early diagnosis of bacteremia in elderly patients with UTI.

Objective To observe the therapeutic effect of consciousness-restoring needling combined with comprehensive rehabilitation training on motor function and the activities of daily living of poststroke patients with hemiplegia. Methods Sixty qualified patients were evenly randomized into observation group and control group. All of the patients were given conventional medicine treatment and conventional rehabilitation training, and the treatment group was given consciousness-restoring needling additionally. The therapeutic effects were compared at the end of first session of treatment for 4 weeks and 12 weeks after the first session of treatment. The Fugl-Meyer motor assessment scale (FMA), modified Barthel Index (MBI) and Stroke-Specific Quality of Life Scale ( SS-QQL) were taken as the main evaluation indexes. Results The differences of FMA, MBI and SS-QOL scores were insignificant between the two groups before treatment ( P>0.05). At the end of treatment for 4 weeks, FMA, MBI and SS-QOL scores were increased in the two groups (P<0.05), and the increase was more obvious in the observation group (P<0.05). The results of follow-up till the 12th week showed that FMA, MBI and SS-QOL scores were still higher than the baseline level ( P<0.05). Conclusion Consciousness-restoring needling combined with comprehensive rehabilitation training has better effect on improving motor function and the activities of daily living of poststroke hemiplegia patients than comprehensive rehabilitation training alone.

This article firstly established a new efficient method for screening anti-osteoporosis ingredients, which used two-dimensional zebrafish model combined with hyphenated chromatographic techniques to evaluate anti-osteoporosis activities of epimedin A and its metabolite baohuoside I. Adult zebrafish was used for metabolism of epimedin A in 0.5% DMSO, and LC-MS was used for analysis of the metabolite, which was captured by HPLC, and prednisolone-induced osteoporosis model of zebrafish was used to evaluate the anti-osteoporotic activities of trace amounts of epimedin A and baohuoside I. The results indicated that epimedin A and baohuoside I can prevent prednisolone-induced osteoporosis in zebrafish. The developed method in this paper enables the separation, enrichment and analysis of micro-amount metabolite of epimedin A, and anti-osteoporosis activities in vivo of epimedin A and baohuoside I was simple and efficient screening resorting to zebrafish osteoporosis mode. This paper would provide new ideas and methods for a rapid and early discovery of anti-osteoporosis activities of micro-ingredients and its metabolite of traditional Chinese medicine.
Animals ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Chromatography, Liquid ; Drug Evaluation, Preclinical ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; Flavonoids ; metabolism ; pharmacology ; Mass Spectrometry ; Osteoporosis ; drug therapy ; Zebrafish

OBJECTIVETo break through the restrictions of the evaluation model and the quantity of compounds by using the two-dimensional zebrafish model combined with chromatographic techniques, and establish a new method for the high-throughput screening of active anti-osteoporosis components.

METHODAccording to the research group-related studies and relevant foreign literatures, on the basis of the fact that the zebrafish osteoporosis model could efficiently evaluate the activity, the zebrafish metabolism model could efficiently enrich metabolites and the chromatographic techniques could efficiently separate and analyze components of traditional Chinese medicines, we proposed that the inherent combination of the three methods is expected to efficiently decode in vivo and in vitro efficacious anti-osteoporosis materials of traditional Chinese medicines.

RESULT AND CONCLUSIONThe method makes it simple and efficient in the enrichment, separation and analysis on components of traditional Chinese medicines, particularly micro-components and metabolites and the screening anti-osteoporosis activity, fully reflects that efficacious materials of traditional Chinese medicines contain original components and metabolites, with characteristic of "multi-components, multi-targets and integral effect", which provides new ideas and methods for the early and rapid discovery of active anti-osteoporosis components of traditional Chinese medicines.

Animals ; Chromatography ; methods ; Disease Models, Animal ; Drug Evaluation, Preclinical ; methods ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; trends ; Osteoporosis ; drug therapy ; physiopathology ; Phytotherapy ; methods ; trends ; Reproducibility of Results ; Zebrafish ; physiology

Objective To explore the possible effects of nutritional supplements on brain function as reflected by Water Maze test performance in mice after +Gz exposure.Method Mice were arranged into control group (group A),+Gz group without nutritional supplementation (group B) and +Gz plus nutritional supplementation group (group C).Each group contains 12 mice.Mice in group A were not exposed to +Gz while mice in both group B and group C were exposed to 8 min +10 Gz.Distilled water was gavaged to group B mice 3 h before +Gz exposure.On the day before +Gz exposure pyridoxol fortified water was given and 3 h before exposure mixed amino acids solution were gavaged to group C mice.Water Maze test was done and scores were recorded in all groups.After the Water Maze test was completed,blood was collected through the eyes for serum amino acid determinations and brain tissue was collected by decollation for monoamine determination and γ-glutamyl transferase (GGT) activity evaluation. Result After +Gz exposure,longer completion time and more mistakes were observed in Water Maze test in group B as compared with group A and a trend of improvement in group C was noticed. The ratio of brain 5-HT to dopamine(DA) was significantly reduced in group C as compared with group B.Gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) activity in brain tissue in group C and group B increased significantly. Conclusion High sustained +Gz exposure significantly reduces Water Maze test performance in mice (longer completion time and more mistakes).It seems that there is a trend of improvement in Water Maze performance in mice in dietary nutritional supplementation group,which might be due to significant reduction in ratio of brain 5-HT to DA in mice with nutritional supplementation.

Objective With density in healthy people pharyngeal flora of the reference[1],study the respiratory tract infection and the treatment process of the change of density and pharyngeal flora infection treatment of correlation analysis,by using the density of the pharyngeal flora changes to evaluate the treatment of patients with respiratory tract infection and progno-sis.Methods Collected 102 cases of patients with upper respiratory tract infection and 219 cases of lower respiratory tract infection in patients with pharyngeal swab for bacterial culture,study clinical symptom change with the change of pharyngeal bacteria density of correlation.Results 62 cases of upper respiratory tract infection and the treatment group patients with pharyngeal flora normal no treatment group on the symptoms improved and recovered,no statistical difference (P >0.05), and 60 patients with upper respiratory tract infection and pharyngeal abnormal bacterium group the treatment group and treatment group in pharyngeal flora and CPIS score was statistically difference (P <0.05).For 219 patients with lower re-spiratory tract,including 121 cases of bacterial pneumonia,74 cases of severe pneumonia,and 24 cases of patients with lung abscess treatment observation,found that when back to normal pharyngeal flora,the accuracy of clinical pathological changes were 92.6%,86.5% and 87.5%,respectively.Conclmion Pharyngeal bacteria density between healthy people maintained a certain bacteria species and the number of stable,but when respiratory infections bacteria can disorders with the application of broad-spectrum antibiotics can lead to serious result in pharyngeal dysbacteriosis should be combined with pharyngeal bacteria in respiratory anti-infection treatment density changes to evaluate the clinical treatment,can reduce the number of days with antibiotics,patients with avoid induce drug-resistant bacteria and respiratory dysbacteriosis.

Objective To investigate antimicrobial resistance and ceftriaxone resistance mechanisms in clinically isolated nontyphoidal Salmonella(NTS),and provide evidence for the prevention and control of NTS infection and rational use of antimicrobial agents.Methods 108 NTS isolates were isolated from stool specimens of outpatients with acute diarrhea in the Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University and Tianjin Medical University General Hospital from May to October of 2014,NTS were performed antimicrobial susceptibility testing;non-ceftriaxone-susceptible isolates were typed by serological,multilocus sequence (MLST),and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE)methods,extended-spectrumβ-lactamase (ESBL)detection and AmpC genes were detection.Results Among 108 NTS isolates,mono-drug resistance rate to 11 antimicrobial agents was 49.07% (n= 53),multidrug resistance rate was17.59% . Susceptibility rates to nalidixic acid,levofloxacin,ciprofloxacin,ceftriaxone,and ertapenem were 61.11% ,66.67% ,68.52% ,97.22% ,and 100.00% respectively. Three non-ceftriaxone-susceptible NTS isolates were detected,2 were ST11 Salmonellaenterica serotype (Sa8709,Sa8771),1 was ST34 Salmonellatyphimurium serotype(Sa8763). Cluster analysis of PFGE revealed that Sa8709 was highly similar to Sa8771 strains(91 .70% ), but the similarity to Sa8763 was low(55.80% );Sa8709 strain carried CTX-M gene,Sa8771 strain carried CTX-M and TEM genes,Sa8763 strain carried OXA gene. Conclusion Clinically isolated NTS in this area are low resistant to fluoroquinolones,multidrug resistant strains carrying ESBLs have emerged.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the bone development activity and differences in safety of ethanol extract (EE) and water decoction (WD) of Psoralea corylifolia L.efficiently.METHODS Zebrafish larvae were co-exposed to prednisolone 25 μmol· L-1 and different concentrations of EE and WD (0.1,1.0,10 and 100 mg crude drug· L-1),and etidronate disodium (ED) 30 mg·L-1.All these groups were incubated at 28.5℃ until 9 dpf.The medium solution was changed every other day.Zebrafish skeleton at 9 dpf was stained with alizarin red and inspected under an optical microscope,in addition,the death toll and organ toxicity of zebrafish were also observed.The mRNA expression of osteoprotegrin (OPG) and receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL) in 9 dpf zebrafish were determined with fluorescence quantitative PCR.Zebrafish embryos (1 dpf) were exposed to various concentrations of EE (10,20,30,35,40,50 and 60 mg crude drug· L-1),WD (10,50,100,125,150,175,200 and 500 mg crude drug· L-1),psoralen (12.5,25.0,50.0,100.0,200.0 and 400.0 μmol·L-1) and bakuchiol (1,5,10,25 and 50 μmol· L-1).Embryonic morphology of zebrafish (3 dpf) was inspected with an optical microscope and the death toll of embryos or larvale was counted from 2 dpf to 9 dpf and LC50was calculated.Components of EE and WD ware analyzed by HPLC method.RESULTS Both EE (0.1 mg crude drug· L-1) and WD (1.0 mg crude drug· L-1) groups could increase the staining area and optical density values of zebrafish skeleton compared with prednisolone group (P＜0.01),indicating the increase in bone mineralization;the OPG mRNA expression in both EE and WD (1.0 mg crude drug· L-1) groups increased,while the RANKL mRNA expression decreased (P＜0.01) and the ratio of OPG/RANKL improved obviously (P＜0.01).Embryos exposed to EE,WD,psoralen and bakuchiol showed swelling of the heart and yalk sac,and decrease in GOT.The LC50 of WD and psoralen was 5～8 and 5～21 times that EE and bakuchiol,respectively.The composition and relative content of EE and WD also varied considerably.CONCLUSION Bone development activity and toxicity of EE are both stronger than those of WD.The lipid soluble characteristic components of Psoralea corylifolia L.,may be critical components of toxicity.

Objective To investigate the effects of four tyrosine metabolites on the proliferation, cell cycle and chemosensitivity of lung cancer cells.Methods A549 cells were cultured with different concentrations of tyrosine metabolites:tyrosine, 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate(HPPA), homogentisic acid(HGA) and fumaric acid (FA) in vitro.High content imaging analysis system was used to monitor cell proliferation.Flow cytometry was used to detect cell cycle and apoptosis.Protein and mRNA level of Bax and Bcl-2 were measured by Western blot.Results Tyrosine metabolites had no effect on cell cycle and proliferation of A549 cells.HGA decreased the cell apoptosis of A549 cells induced by Gefitinib with depressed Bax expression and elevated Bcl-2 expression.However, FA increased the apoptosis of A549 cells induced by Gefitinib with up-regulation of Bax and down-regulation of Bcl-2.No obvious effect of tyrosine and HPPA was detected on Gefitinib induced cell apoptosis.Conclusion HGA and FA may play an important role in drug sensitivity of lung cancer cells, indicating a critical role of tyrosine metabolism in lung cancer.