Autophagy is an important homeostatic cellular recycling mechanism responsible for degrading injured or dysfunctional subcellular organelles and proteins in all living cells. The process of autophagy can be divided into three relatively independent steps: the initiation of phagophore, the formation of autophagosome and the maturation/degradation stage. Different morphological characteristics and molecular marker changes can be observed at these stages. Morphological approaches are useful to produce novel knowledge that would not be achieved through other experimental methods. Here we summarize the morphological methods in monitoring autophagy, the principles in data interpretation and the cautions that should be considered in the study of autophagy.
Autophagy ; Homeostasis ; Humans ; Organelles ; Phagosomes

This article expounds the existing situations in which the multimedia courseware has been applied widely in the institutions of higher learning,and emphasizes the importance and necessity of establishing and improving the assessment system of multimedia courseware.It forwards the principles of establishing the assessment criterion to be scientific,educative,technical,artistic and assistant,and furthermore lists measures to prepare and operate courseware,proposals to assess the teaching effectiveness.

Autophagy is an active research area in the biomedical field as its role has been identified in many physiological and pathological processes. Accordingly, there is a growing demand to identify, quantify and manipulate the process accurately. Meanwhile, there is great interest in identifying compounds that modulate autophagy because they may have applications in the treatment of a variety of autophagy-related diseases. In this review, we summarize the current status of autophagy screening systems to facilitate identification of autophagy modulators.
Autophagy ; Humans

Autophagy is an important homeostatic cellular recycling mechanism responsible for degrading injured or dysfunctional cellular organelles and proteins in all living cells. Aging is a universal phenomenon characterized by progressive deterioration of cells and organs due to accumulation of macromolecular and organelle damage. Growing evidences indicate that the rate of autophagosome formation and maturation and the efficiency of autophagosome/lysosome fusion decline with age. Dysfunctional autophagy has also been observed in age-related diseases. Autophagy disruption resulted accumulation of mutated or misfolded proteins is the essential feature of neurodegenerative disorders. However, in cancers, fibroproliferative diseases or cardiovascular diseases, autophagy can play either a protective or destructive role in different types of disease, and even in different stages of the same disease. The review will discuss the cellular and molecular mechanisms of autophagy and its important role in the pathogenesis of aging and age-related diseases, and the ongoing drug discovery strategies for therapeutic intervention.
Aging ; Autophagy ; Drug Discovery ; Humans ; Lysosomes ; metabolism ; Neurodegenerative Diseases ; Phagosomes ; metabolism ; Protein Folding

BACKGROUND: Peritonitis is the common detective complications at the end-stage of renal failure patients during continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) treatment, which easily repeatedly occurred if not handled properly. Although the plumbing designs of peritoneal dialysis have done a lot of effort and improved in recent years, it still hard to avoid. OBJECTIVE: To explore the relative factors and treatments of infectious peritonitis complicated with CAPD. METHODS: Totally 115 cases received CAPD were selected, including 55 males and 60 females, aged (56.2?.7) years. 68 cases of which were suffered infectious peritonitis, aged (58.5?.3) years. All received a (30.3?.5)-month CAPD treatment. The relative factors such as the nutrition situation, whether complicated with diabetes mellitus or not, culture background, domestic environment, whether operating by special person and so on were investigated, and the relationship between those factors and infectious peritonitis were analyzed. The pathogen method was used to check pathogenic bacteria, and those patients were treated with irrigation of abdominal cavity and antibiotics in two ways, that is, systemic and intra-abdominalcavity. Hemodialysis instead of CAPD was used in those infectious peritonitis patients.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Those patients with good nutrition situation, higher culture background, better domestic environment, and operating by special person had low chances to infect peritonitis. And those patients with diabetes mellitus had high chances to infect peritonitis. Treatments of abdominal cavity and anti-infection in two ways-systemic and intra-abdominal cavities were effective to those infectious peritonitis patients. Gram-positive bacteria were the most common pathogen, which were susceptive to vancomycin and cefazolin. If the pathogen was gram-negative bacteria, etimicin sulfate, amikacin, and imipenem cilastatin could be selected. Infectious peritonitis complicated with CAPD affected by many factors. CAPD patients should be provided better nutrition and domestic situation. Also patients should operate in aseptic ways. Doctors should choose proper patients who can operate CAPD right.

Objective To analyze the CT features of intestinal tumor obstruction, and explore its CT value.Methods CT manifestation and clinical materials of intestinal tumor obstruction proved by surgical findings or endoscopy biopsy in 35 cases were analyzed restrospectively, and compared with the results of surgery-pathology and endoscopy. Results CT findings were consistence with the results of surgery-pathology and endoscopy in 33 of 35 cases. The CT diagnostic accuracy of intestinal obstruction was 100%. And the accuracy of the cause was 94%, including colon carcinoma in 25, lyphoma in 5, gastrointestinal stromal tumor in 2, and lipoma in 3.Conclusion CT has unique advantage in examining intestinal tumor obstruction, not only for definiting the existence of the obstruction, but also locating the site of obstruction diagnosing the cause and chosing the appropriate treatment.

BACKGROUND:With more and more elderly patients suffering lumbar degenerative disease undergoing internal fixation, infection after spinal internal fixation is a common complication in orthopedic surgeries, but its treatment strategy remains controversial.OBJECTIVE: To explore the curative efficacy of incision infection after internal fixation in the elderly with lumbar degenerative disease.METHODS: 197 patients with lumbar degenerative disease undergoing internal fixation and followed up for more than 2 years admitted in Department of Orthopedics, Beijing Shijitan Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University from January 2012 to January 2015, were analyzed retrospectively. The follow-up time was 2-4.9 years. There were 97 cases of lumbar stenosis, 29 cases of lumbar disc herniation, 33 cases of lumbar spondylolisthesis, 17 cases of degenerative scoliosis and 21 cases of lumbar compression fractures.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: (1) Eleven patients experienced incision infection, including ten acute, and one delayed infection. (2) Among acute infected cases, three were superficial infection in three cases and seven had deep infection,who characterized as exudation (10/10), local pain (8/10) and fever (9/10). Acute infected cases received bacterial culture, drug sensitive test, antibiotic therapy, and debridement of the infected wound, and leaving all internal fixators in situ in all but one case. (3) For delayed infection, one patient had local pain, incision exudation, and intermittent fever,and then the internal fixators were removed. (4) Pseudarthrosis was not founded during 2-year follow-up in all patients.(5) These results suggest that for the elderly patients suffering lumbar degenerative disease with infection after internal fixation, intravenous antibiotics, debridement plus drainage are recommended, but without internal fixator removal, and repetitive debridement and drainage is a rational choice if necessary.

Objective:To identify the function of extracellular soluble vimentin that promotes proliferation, activation and chemotaxis of inflammatory cells. Methods: The proliferation of rat splenocytes stimulated with vimentin was evaluated in vitro. The lymphocyte counts and vimentin-antibody levels of peripheral blood in mice immunized with vimentin were detected in vivo. Peritoneal macrophages were collected and cultured with different concentrations of vimentin to detect the effect on phagocytosing chicken red blood cells. The chemotaxis of NIH3T3 fibroblast towards vimentin was observed in transwell chamber. Results:In vitro vimentin dose dependently promoted the proliferation of splenocytes. The proliferation indexes of primed and naive splenocytes cultured with 16μg/ml vimentin were reached up to ( 196. 0 ± 9. 7 )% and ( 208. 9 ± 4. 6 )% respectively without significant difference. In vivo vimentin significantly enhanced the lymphocytes number(109 L-1)of peripheral blood(5. 74±0. 51 vs. 1. 69±0. 13)and the levels of vimentin specific antibody( OD value 2. 31 ± 0. 06 vs. 0. 19 ± 0. 08 ) that shown no significant difference from immunization with vimentin plus CFA. In vitro vimentin dose dependently stimulated phagocytic ability of macrophages and performed the chemotactic effects on NIH3T3 fibroblasts. Conclusion:Extracellular soluble vimentin promotes the proliferation,activation and chemotaxis of concerned inflammatory cells and possesses the functions as an alarmin.

Boronic Acids ; adverse effects ; Bortezomib ; Humans ; Peripheral Nervous System Diseases ; chemically induced ; Pyrazines ; adverse effects

The number of people with physical disabilities is increasing year by year, and the trend of population aging is more and more serious. In order to improve the quality of the life, a control system of accessible home environment for the patients with serious disabilities was developed to control the home electrical devices with the voice of the patients. The control system includes a central control platform, a speech recognition module, a terminal operation module, etc. The system combines the speech recognition control technology and wireless information transmission technology with the embedded mobile computing technology, and interconnects the lamp, electronic locks, alarms, TV and other electrical devices in the home environment as a whole system through a wireless network node. The experimental results showed that speech recognition success rate was more than 84% in the home environment.
Computers ; Disabled Persons ; Humans ; Speech Recognition Software ; Wireless Technology