Objective To investigate the effect of SKP2 expression on radiation induced bystander effect (RIBE) of esophageal cancer cells.Methods The esophageal cancer cell lines with different SKP2 levels were applied for the study and the SKP2 expression was identified by Western blot.Micronuclei (MN) assay and DNA foci assay were used to evaluate the effect of SKP2 on RIBE.The cells were transfected with SKP2 gene or SKP2 siRNA to further verify the effect of SKP2 on RIBE.Results MN assay showed that the bystander effect induced by the cells with a high level of SKP2 was lower than that induced by the cells with a lower level of SKP2 (t =8.06,P ＜ 0.01).These results were further confirmed by the gene transfection experiments.When the expression of SKP2 was increased,RIBE was decreased (t=11.12,10.16,P ＜ 0.01).Contrarily,when the expression of SKP2 was reduced,RIBE was increased (t =8.39,8.83,P ＜ 0.01).γ-H2AX foci formation assay disclosed that when SKP2 expression in the irradiated cells increased,the repair ability of DNA damage in the bystander cells was higher than the control (t =6.85,7.10,P ＜ 0.01).With the expression of SKP2 decreased,the repair ability of DNA damage was lower than the control (t =7.66,8.47,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusions Over-expression of SKP2 inhibits RIBE of esophageal cancer cells,at least partly through regulating DNA damage repair ability.

Objective:Study on the feature of thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT) during traumatic brain injury and the predicting performance with adverse clinical outcomes.Methods:From January 2018 to December 2019, 147 patients with traumatic brain injury(TBI) were enrolled, including 112 males and 35 females, aged 36 (26-48) years old. The plasma levels of TAT were detected on the 0th, 1st, 3rd and 7th day after TBI attack. Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for comparison among multiple groups; Mann-Whitney U test was used for data comparison between the two groups; continuous comparison of patient data in the same group using Friedman rank test; the diagnostic performance of TAT with adverse event risk predicting was evaluated by ROC analysis; Kaplan-Meier curve was used to analyze the survival curve; the risk ratio (HR) was obtained by Cox proportional hazard regression model.Results:Among the patients groups with mild, moderate and severe phenotype, the TAT levels were gradually decreased on the 0th, 1st, 3rd and 7th day after TBI attack(χ 2 values were 95.612, 133.555, and 132.453, respectively, all P values<0.001). The TAT levels on the 0th, 1st, 3rd and 7th day in the adverse event group were higher than in the group of patients with stable condition ( U values were 959.0, 321.0, 36.0 and 1.0 respectively, all P values<0.001). In the stable condition group, the TAT levels on the 0th and 1st day in the severe group were higher than in the mild group ( U values were 0 and 1.0 respectively, both P values<0.001), while there was no statistically significant difference of TAT levels between the 3rd and 7th day in the severe group ( U values were 342.5 and 272.5, P values were 0.486 and 0.065 respectively). The TAT levels of the moderate group on 0th and 1st day were higher than those of the mild group ( U values were 0 and 280.0, respectively, both P<0.001), while there was no significant difference between the TAT levels on the 3rd and 7th day ( U values were 628.0 and 647.0, P values were 0.826 and 0.996, respectively). ROC curves analysis showed that when the TAT diagnostic thresholds were 68.75 ng/ml, 29.05 ng/ml, 17.25 ng/ml and 13.85 ng/ml on the 0th, 1st, 3rd and 7th day, the diagnostic sensitivities of predicting adverse events were 86.8%, 94.3%, 100% and 100%; while the diagnostic specificities were 71.3%, 78.7%, 91.5% and 96.8%, respectively. Survival analysis showed that the cumulative probability of adverse outcomes was significantly higher in patients above the critical value. Cox analysis showed that the HR on the 0th, 1st, 3rd and 7th day to predict adverse clinical outcomes by TAT levels were 1.818, 2.257, 3.526 and 4.813, respectively ( P value<0.001). Conclusion:There was strong relationship between the plasma TAT level and the severity of the patient′s condition, and persistent increasing with TAT level could reflect the risk of adverse events, which could be used as an effective index to comprehensively predicting the development tendency of the TBI patient′s condition.

β-carotene has a wide range of application in food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. For microbial production of β-carotene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the supply of geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP) was firstly increased in S. cerevisiae BY4742 to obtain strain BY4742-T2 through over-expressing truncated 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (tHMGR), which is the major rate-limiting enzyme in the mevalonate (MVA) pathway, and GGPP synthase (GGPS), which is a key enzyme in the diterpenoid synthetic pathway. The β-carotene synthetic genes of Pantoea agglomerans and Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous were further integrated into strain BY4742-T2 for comparing β-carotene production. Over-expression of tHMGR and GGPS genes led to 26.0-fold increase of β-carotene production. In addition, genes from X. dendrorhous was more efficient than those from P. agglomerans for β-carotene production in S. cerevisiae. Strain BW02 was obtained which produced 1.56 mg/g (dry cell weight) β-carotene, which could be used further for constructing cell factories for β-carotene production.
Basidiomycota ; enzymology ; Farnesyltranstransferase ; genetics ; metabolism ; Hydroxymethylglutaryl CoA Reductases ; genetics ; metabolism ; Metabolic Engineering ; Polyisoprenyl Phosphates ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae ; metabolism ; beta Carotene ; biosynthesis

Objective:To investigate the performance of von willebrand factor antigen (vWF:Ag) and D-dimer in predicting thrombotic risk in nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients with anticoagulant therapy.Methods:From March 2017 to March 2019, 256 patients were enrolled, including 152 males and 104 females, aged (57.9±20.4) years old; according to the end-point events during the follow-up period, the patient group was further divided into 227 cases in the no-event group and 29 cases in the thrombotic event group;50 cases in the control group, including 30 males and 20 females, aged (45.0±5.3) years old. vWF:Ag was detected by blood coagulation instrument and determination of D-dimer was done by fluor-euzyme linked immunoassay Analyzer. Mann-Whitney U test was used for data comparison between any two groups, Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for comparison among multiple groups and multivariate correlation analysis was done by Logistic regression to obtain odds ratio ( OR). The prediction performance with thrombotic events of vWF:Ag and D-dimer was evaluated by ROC curve, Kaplan-Meier curve was used to analyze the survival curve and the hazard ratio ( HR) was obtained by Cox proportional hazard regression model. Results:The levels of vWF:Ag and D-dimer in the control group were 103% (86%-131%) and 249 (90-522) μg/L, 234% (102%-623%) and 744 (100-3 352) μg/L in the patient group; in the patient group, of which 225% (102%-623%) and 650 (100-3 281) μg/L in non-event group, 333% (210%-494%) and 1 325 (487-3 352) μg/L in thrombus event group; compared the healthy control, the levels of vWF:Ag and D-dimer were increased in patients group ( P<0.001), of which non-event groups were higher than healthy controls ( P<0.001), and the thrombotic event group was higher than that of the non-event group ( P<0.001). Plasma vWF:Ag level and D-dimer level in NVAF patients were higher than those in the control group ( P<0.001). Plasma vWF:Ag level and D-dimer level in the non-event group were significantly higher than those in the healthy control group ( P<0.001). The plasma vWF:Ag and D-dimer levels of patients in the thrombotic event group were significantly higher than those in the non-event group patients ( P<0.001). The result of ROC showed that the critical value of vWF: Ag for predicting thrombosis within 3 months of NVAF patients was 229% and area under the curve (AUC) was 0.839 (95% CI:0.784-0.894); When the critical value of D-dimer was 588 ng/ml, AUC was 0.803 (95% CI:0.745-0.861).While vWF:Ag combined with D-dimer, AUC was 0.868 (95% CI:0.826-0.909). Logistic regression analysis showed that plasma vWF:Ag level in NVAF patients was significantly correlated with age ( OR=10.240, 95%CI 2.773-37.820), congestive heart failure ( OR=34.779, 95%CI 8.010-151.019), hypertension ( OR=0.068, 95%CI 0.023-0.198) and type 2 diabetes ( OR=6.618, 95%CI 2.469-17.734) ( P<0.001), as well as was significantly correlated with vascular disease ( OR=4.801, 95%CI 1.204-19.145) ( P=0.026). Plasma D-dimer level was significantly correlated with congestive heart failure ( OR=0.146, 95%CI 0.036-0.588) and medication compliance ( OR=0.114, 95%CI 0.016-0.832) ( P value was 0.007 and 0.032). Survival analysis showed that the cumulative probability of thrombosis within 3 months was significantly increased (Log-rank χ2 was 11.394, 17.895 and 32.825 respectively, P value<0.001) in the patients with plasma levels above the critical value of vWF:Ag, D-dimer or vWF:Ag combined with D-dimer. Cox proportional regression model showed that neither vWF:Ag nor D-dimer could independently predict thrombotic events during anticoagulant therapy( HR was 0.866 and 0.834, P-value was 0.253 and 0.152, respectively), but it could improve the prediction performance significantly( HR=0.780, P=0.048) for combined application of both vWF:Ag and D-dimer. Conclusion:The changes with plasma vWF:Ag and D-dimer levels in NVAF patients were associated with a variety of clinicopathological factors and closely related to the risk of thrombosis within 3 months. Combined application could provide the effective basis for clinical prediction of the condition.

OBJECTIVETo obtain geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase gene of Salvia miltiorrhiza, and conduct bioinformatic and transcript expression analysis of the cloned SmGGPS1 gene.

METHODThe degenerate primers were designed based on the conservative regions of GGPS protein sequences from public databases. The target gene was obtained from root of S. miltiorrhiza by use of homologous cDNA amplification and RACE technologies. The sequence alignment was performed using BLAST. The open reading frame was identified by use of the ORF Finder. The protein domains were defined by use of Prosite software and the signal peptide sequence was predicted by Target P1.1. MEGA4.0 was used to conduct multiple amino acid sequence alignment and construct the phylogenetic tree. Roots and leaves at the seedlings stage and roots, stems, leaves, buds and flowers in the flowering stage were sampled for transcript analysis. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR was used to detect the gene expression level. The complete gene of GGPS was obtained from S. miltiorrhiza genomic DNA by PCR using the cDNA-derived specific primer. The gene structure of GGPS was analyzed by comparison of the genomic DNA and its cDNA.

RESULTThe obtained 1 298 bp SmGGPS1 cDNA sequence contains an 1095 bp ORF, encoding 364 amino acids. It is predicted that it has a plastid targeting signal peptide of approximately 52 amino acid at the N-terminal end. It is to believe that this is the polyprenyl synthetase signature, and nucleic acid sequence comparison revealed that SmGGPS1 ORF has more than 60% identity to the reported GGPS. RT-PCR semi-quantitative analysis showed that the gene expresses in the all tested tissues, and with much higher level of expression in the leaves in the flowering stage. SmGGPS1 has a 397 bp intron.

CONCLUSIONFor the first time the cloning of geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase gene from S. miltiorrhiza was reported, and it provides a good basis for further functional study of SmGGPS1.

Amino Acid Sequence ; Base Sequence ; Cloning, Molecular ; Farnesyltranstransferase ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Open Reading Frames ; Phylogeny ; Plant Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; Plants ; classification ; enzymology ; genetics ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; classification ; enzymology ; genetics

The flavonoid-metal complexes showed obviously stronger bioactivities such as antibiosis, antivirus, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor and anti-free-radical, possibly because of the stronger binding force caused by the change in complex structure and accessibility to target spots, or the synergy effect between flavonoids and metallic ions. This essay summarizes studies on bioactivity and mechanism of flavonoid-metal complexes, in order to provide reference for in-depth study and development on effective constituents contained in flavonoid traditional Chinese medicines.
Animals ; Coordination Complexes ; pharmacology ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; Flavonoids ; pharmacology ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional

Rivaroxaban is an oral direct factor FXa inhibitor with predictable pharmacokinetics and no routine monitoring, but the laboratory tests can help to assess the safety and effectiveness of rivaroxaban. The laboratory tests for rivaroxaban include liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS / MS), prothrombin time(PT), anti factor Xa activity(anti-Xa), thromboelastography(TEG) and rotational thromboelastography(ROTEM). LC-MS / MS can be used to quantitatively detect the blood concentration of rivaroxaban with good specificity and sensitivity, but the instrument is expensive,technologically complex, and lack standardization, so it belongs to the laboratory developed tests(LDTs).Because of insufficient data of TEG and ROTEM, their clinical performance still needs to be verified. PT can detect "treatment concentration" of rivaroxaban, which can be used as a primary screening method to identify the overdose and the risk of severe bleeding, but the sensitivity of different reagents is different;anti-FXa test can sensitively reflect the change of blood concentration of rivaroxaban, and its clinical efficacy is similar to LC-MS/MS, and therefore it can be used as an effective method to guide doctors to use drugs rationally.

Objective:To study the changing characteristics of the levels of plasma thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT) in atherosclerosis obliterans (ASO) patients with different conditions and the clinical value of predicting luminal restenosis after revascularization.Methods:A total of 386 ASO patients were collected, including 209 males and 177 females, aged 70 (44-97) years old, including 196 patients with intermittent claudication and 190 patients with critical limb ischemia. There were 172 patients with intermittent claudication and 185 patients with critical limb ischemia who received revascularization therapy. During the 30-day follow-up period, 23 patients with intermittent claudication and 49 patients with critical limb ischemia developed restenosis after surgery. Venous blood samples were collected before surgery, on the 3rd day after surgery, and on the 7th day after surgery. Plasma TAT levels were determined by Shine i2900-automatic chemiluminescence immunoassay analyzer; Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for comparison among multiple groups; Mann-Whitney U test was used for data comparison between the two groups; continuous comparison of patient data in the same group was done by using Friedman rank test; multivariate correlation analysis by Logistic regression was conducted to obtain odds ratio( OR). The diagnostic performance of TAT was evaluated by ROC analysis. Kaplan-Meier curve was used to analyze the survival curve, and the hazard ratio (HR) was obtained by Cox proportional hazard regression model. Results:Compared with the healthy control group, the level of plasma TAT in patients with intermittent claudication was significantly higher ( P<0.001); the level of plasma TAT in patients with critical limb ischemia was significantly higher than that in patients with intermittent claudication ( P<0.001). The plasma TAT of patients with Rutherford grade 3 >grade2, grade4 >grade3, and grade6 >grade5 ( P values were 0.038, <0.001, and 0.013, respectively).In the intermittent claudication group, the plasma TAT levels of the patients with restenosis on the 3rd and the 7th day after revascularization were both higher than that of the patients with unobstructed blood flow ( P values were 0.004 and <0.001, respectively); The plasma TAT level of patients with unobstructed blood flow on the 7th day after surgery was lower than that on the 3rd day after surgery and before surgery (both P values <0.001); the plasma TAT level of patients with restenosis on the 7th day after surgery was lower than that on the 3rd day after surgery and higher than before surgery (both P values < 0.001). In the critical limb ischemia group, before surgery, on the 3rd and the 7th day after surgery,the plasma TAT levels of the patients with restenosis were higher than that of the patients with unobstructed blood flow ( P values were 0.001, 0.013, and <0.001, respectively); The plasma TAT level of patients with unobstructed blood flow on the 7th day after surgery was lower than that on the 3rd day after surgery and before surgery (both P values <0.001); the plasma TAT level of patients with restenosis on the 7th day after surgery was lower than that on the 3rd day after surgery ( P<0.001), but was not significantly difference from that before surgery. The ROC analysis showed that the areas under the curve (AUC) of plasma TAT on the 7th day after surgery to predict postoperative restenosis in all the patients, patients with intermittent claudication and those with critical limb ischemia were 0.839, 0.783 and 0.853, respectively. Survival analysis indicated that in the critical limb ischemia group, patients with plasma TAT levels higher than the critical value (≥7.66 ng/ml) on the 7th day after surgery showed significantly higher cumulative risk of restenosis events within 30 days after surgery (Log-rank χ 2=93.674, P<0.001). Cox regression analysis showed that the plasma TAT level on the 7th day after the surgery could be used as an independent indicator to predict the occurrence of restenosis within 30 days after surgery in the critical limb ischemia group ( HR=2.259, P<0.001). Conclusion:Plasma TAT can reflect the hypercoagulable state of ASO patients in different conditions, which is helpful for stratification of disease severity. In addition, TAT is highly sensitive for luminal restenosis after revascularization and can be used as an independent marker for evaluating postoperative restenosis events in patients with critical limb ischemia.

Objective: Evaluate the diagnostic performance of three methods in testingheparin induced thrombocytopenia antibodies the clinical diagnosis performance of the three heparin induced thrombocytopenia(HIT) antibody testing. Methods: 143 patients were collected from the Tianjin Medical university general hospital and China-Japan friendship hospital from the 2017 Sep to 2018 Dec, 67 males and 76 females, with a mean age of (56.1±11.4) years, the pretest probability is estimated to be low (1-3 points) with 24 patients, intermediate (4-5 points) with 79 patients and high(6-8 points) with 40 patients. According to therapeutic regimen, the intermediate and high probability patients were divided into two groups: 31 cases in the heparin discontinuing group and 88 cases in the continuing heparin group. The three methods including:the particle immunofiltration assay to detect the plasma whole HIT antibody; the particle gel immunoassayto detect the plasma whole HIT antibody by ACL TOP 700 coagulation analyzer,; the chemiluminescent immunoassay to detect the plasma IgG-specific HIT antibody by ACL AcuStar chemiluminescent analyzer. Results: There was no significant difference between the high and intermediate probability patients for particle immunofiltration assay, particle gel immunoassay and chemiluminescent immunoassay(χ² was 3.15, 2.89 and 1.31 respectively, P>0.05). The positive rate with three assays were higher in the heparin discontinuing group than the continuing heparin group(χ² was 16.09, 43.37 and 26.94 respectively, P<0.01), the positive results of the chemiluminescent immunoassay only in the heparin discontinuing group. All of the patients with three assays positive simultaneousin the heparin discontinuing group(χ²=26.94, P<0.01); more patients in heparin discontinuing group with positive resultsby two assays (particle immunofiltration assay and particle gel immunoassay) than in the continuing heparin group(χ²=10.95, P<0.01); there was no obvious difference(χ²=1.80, P>0.05) between the continuing heparin group and the heparin discontinuing group for positive results with particle immunofiltration assay; all of the patients with there assays negative simultaneous in the continuing heparin group with a significant difference between the two groups(χ²=14.27, P<0.01). Conclusions Whole HIT antibodies had high sensitivity, and was especially suitable for excluding diagnosis, andthe diagnositic performance withtheparticle gel immunoassay precede the particle immunofiltration assay.For the patients with intermediate or high pretest probability and whole antibodies positive, even if they had been treated with alternative anticoagulant therapy, the IgG specific antibodies(chemiluminescent immunoassay) should be detected for definite diagnosis(if the conditions was appropriate), to verify the rationality of alternative anticoagulant therapy and to avoid overtreatment.