This study aims to analyze the molecular epidemiological characteristics of HIV-1 strains prevailing among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Beijing, China. The pol gene fragments from 250 newly diagnosed HIV-1-infected MSM individuals during 2006-2010 in Beijing were amplified by RT-nested PCR, sequenced, and phylogenetically analyzed. HIV-1 pol gene from 189 individuals were amplified and analyzed; 81 (42. 9%), 3 (1. 6%), 2 (1.0%), 88 (46. 6%), and 15 (7.9%) individuals were infected with HIV-1 subtypes B, B', C, CRF01_AE, and CRF07_BC, respectively. The subtypes B and CRF01_AE could both be grouped into two clusters, and CRFO7_BC strains shared high homology and were presumed to originate from a common ancestor. The HIV-1 circulating in MSM in Beijing had a lower genetic diversity than in heterosexuals. The HIV-1 epidemic (2006-2010) in MSM in Beijing was actually a rapid spread of HIV-1 CRF01 AE and B, or rather native strains of the two viruses.
Adult ; China ; epidemiology ; Epidemics ; Genetic Variation ; HIV Infections ; diagnosis ; epidemiology ; virology ; HIV-1 ; classification ; genetics ; isolation & purification ; Homosexuality, Male ; statistics & numerical data ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Molecular Epidemiology ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Phylogeny ; Young Adult

Objective To determine the expression levels of zinc finger antisense 1 (ZFAS1) in tumor tissues of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and investigate the biological roles of ZFAS1 in NSCLC.Methods The relative expression levels of ZFAS1 in tumor tissues of NSCLC patients were determined by using real-time fluorescent qRT-PCR.RNA interference was used to knock down ZFAS1 expression in A549 cells.The proliferations of A549 cells with ZFAS1 knockdown were determined by cell counting and cell colony formation assays.Flow cytometric analysis was used to determine the cellular cycle distribution and apoptosis of the A549 cells with ZFAS1 knockdown.Transwell migration and matrigel invasion assays were used to determine the migration and invasion of the A549 cells with ZFAS1 knockdown.The gene expression levels of cyclin D1,Bcl2,N-cadherin,ZEB1,Slug and Twist were determined by real-time fluorescent qRT-PCR.Results The mean expression levels of ZFAS1 in tumor tissues of NSCLC patients [0.01 (0.002 to 0.054)] were significantly higher than those in the adjacent non-cancerous tissues [0.002 (0.001 to 0.012)] (Z =-2.638;P ＜ 0.01).After ZFAS1 knockdown,the proliferation of A549 cells was remarkably retarded (P ＜ 0.01).The percentage of cells at G1 phase was increased while the cells at S phase was decreased (P ＜ 0.01).The rate of apoptotic cells was significantly increased in A549 cells with ZFAS1 knockdown (P ＜ 0.01).A549 cells showed decreased migration and invasion abilities after ZFAS1 knockdown (P ＜0.01).The expression levels of cyclin D1,Bcl2,N-cadherin,ZEB1,Slug and Twist genes were decreased in ZFAS1 knockdown A549 cells (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion ZFASI was highly expressed in the tumor tissues of NSCLC patients.ZFAS1 knockdown induced cell cycle arrest,cell apoptosis and suppression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT),leading to the inhibition of proliferation,migration,and invasion of NSCLC cells.

To separate and identify the chemical constituents from the leaves of Broussonetia papyrifera (Linn.) Vent, various columns including Diaion HP-20, Toyopearl HW-40C, Sephadex LH-20, silica gel were employed for the isolation and purification of compounds from the leaves of B. papyrifera. The structures of the compounds were elucidated by their physiochemical characteristics and spectral data. Nineteen compounds were isolated from the leaves of B. papyrifera and their structures were identified as apigenin (1), apigenin-7-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (2), chrysoerid-7-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (3), apigenin-7-O-beta-D-glucopyranuronide (4), vitexin-7-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (5), luteolin (6), 5,7,4'-trihydroxyl-6-C-[a-L-rhamnopyranosyl (1-->2)]-beta-D-glucopyranosyl flavone (7), 5,7,4'-trihydroxyl-8-C-[a-L-rhamnopyranosyl (1-->2)]-beta-D-glucopyranosyl flavone (8), saponaretin (9), vitexin (10), benzyl benzoate-2, 6-di-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (11), (2R, 3R, 5R, 6S, 9R)-3-hydroxy-5,6-epoxy-beta-ionol-2-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (12), (2R, 3R, 5R, 6S, 9R)-3-hydroxyl-5,6-epoxy-acetyl-beta-ionol-2-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (13), ficustriol (14), (6S, 9S)-roseoside (15), 3beta-hydroxy-5alpha,6alpha-epoxy-beta-ionone-2alpha-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (16), icariside B1 (17), sammangaoside A (18), 3-hydroxy-5alpha,6alpha-epoxy-beta-ionone (19). Compounds 11, 12 and 13 are new compounds, the others are isolated from this genus Broussonetia for the first time.
Apigenin ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Broussonetia ; chemistry ; Glucosides ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Luteolin ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Molecular Structure ; Plant Leaves ; chemistry ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry

OBJECTIVETo understand the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency (VAD) among children under six years of age in Tibet, China.

METHODSTotally, 1 257 children under six years of age were selected from two cities, two farming counties, two semi-farming counties and two livestock farming counties with stratified cluster sampling to asses VAD status in Tibet. Family information, children's feeding and disease history in the previous two weeks were collected by questionnaire. Blood specimen was collected from each child and serum was separated for detection of vitamin A concentration with microfluorescent spectrophotometry.

RESULTSTotally, 1 257 children under six years of age were surveyed, with 635 boys, 622 girls, 862 aged over two years, and 98.5% of Tibet nationality. Six cases of night blindness and two cases of xerophthalmia were detected from them, with prevalence of clinical VAD of 0.96%. Eighteen of 1071 mothers with children under six years of age were found suffering from night blindness, accounting for 1.7%. Clinical cases of VAD both in children and mothers came from all four sampling strata. Average serum concentration of vitamin A and prevalence of subclinical VAD (serum vitamin A lower than or equal to 0.70 micromol/L) was 1.15 micromol/L and 5.4% and 1.12 micromol/L and 4.7% in cities and livestock farming counties, respectively, significantly higher than those in farming (1.04 micromol/L and 11.0%) and semi-farming counties (1.05 micromol/L and 12.3%), respectively, as compared to average levels of 1.09 micromol/L and 8.4% in the autonomous region as a whole. Prevalence of subclinical VAD in children under six months and those aged six to eleven months were 22.2% and 13.3%, respectively, significantly higher than those in children aged one year (8.5%), two to three years (5.4%) and four to five years (7.9%), respectively. There was also significant difference in serum level of vitamin A between children at varied ages, but no significant difference both in serum level of vitamin A and prevalence of subclinical VAD between gender was found.

CONCLUSIONSIn general, status of VAD in children of Tibet was milder than that at national level. But, moderate subclinical VAD in some areas, such as farming and semi-farming counties, did exist, so vitamin A supplementation aiming to children, especially those under one year of age, in those areas should be urged.

Age Factors ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Sex Factors ; Tibet ; epidemiology ; Vitamin A ; blood ; Vitamin A Deficiency ; epidemiology

OBJECTIVETo explore the role of Notch signaling in human breast cancers, the expression of Notch1 and its ligand JAG1 in human breast cancers and their relationships with clinical stages of breast cancers were analyzed.

METHODSRT-PCR was used to detect the expression of Notch1 and JAG1 in 62 breast cancer specimens and 22 normal breast tissues at the margin of tumor sections, and the statistical difference of expression rates and standardized coefficient between the two groups were analyzed. To compare the expression intensity of Notch1 and JAG1 at different development stages of the illness and at different stages with or without axillary node metastasis.

RESULTSThe expression rate and standardized coefficient of Notch1 in human breast cancers were significantly higher than those of normal breast tissues at the margin of tumor sections. The expression rate of JAG1 in human breast cancers was 15%, while JAG1 was not detected in normal breast tissues at the margin of tumor sections. The standardized coefficient of Notch1 in cases with axillary node metastasis was significantly higher than that in cases without axillary node metastasis. The standardized coefficient of Notch1 at stage I was significantly lower than that at stage II, and stage II was significantly higher than stage III. There was no statistically significant difference between stage I and stage III.

CONCLUSIONNotch1 and JAG1 are highly expressed in human breast cancers, indicating that the aberrant expression and activation of Notch1 may be related with tumorigenesis of human breast cancer. Notch1 may play different roles at different developmentl stages of human breast cancer.

Adult ; Aged ; Breast ; metabolism ; pathology ; Breast Neoplasms ; genetics ; pathology ; Calcium-Binding Proteins ; genetics ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Female ; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic ; Humans ; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins ; genetics ; Jagged-1 Protein ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; Membrane Proteins ; genetics ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Staging ; Receptor, Notch1 ; genetics ; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Serrate-Jagged Proteins ; Signal Transduction ; genetics

Aim To observe the protective effect of ginsenoside Re pretreatment on rats with isoproterenol-induced acute myocardial ischemia via JAK 2/STAT3 signaling pathway .Methods SD rat model with acute myocardial ischemia was established using isoprotere-nol.Seventy-five rats were randomly divided into five groups: control group, model group , puerarin group (PUE), high dose group (Re-H, 20 mg· kg -1) and Re low-dose group ( Re-L, 10 mg kg -1 ) .The blood flow on the heart surface of rats in each group was ob-served by moor laser blood flow imaging system .The levels of CK , LDH, SOD, MDA and GSH in myocar-dium were measured by ELISA .The expressions of Bax and Bcl-2 proteins were detected by immunohistochem-istry.The expressions of JAK , p-JAK, STAT3 and p-STAT3 proteins were detected by Western blot .Re-sults Compared with the control group , the mean blood flow on the heart surface of rats in the model group significantly decreased , the levels of CK , LDH and MDA in the myocardium increased , the levels of GSH and SOD decreased , the ratio of Bcl-2/Bax de-creased ( P <0.05 ) , and the expression of JAK 2/STAT3 pathway related proteins was enhanced ( P <0.05 ) . The mean blood flow on the heart surface markedly increased , the levels of CK , LDH and MDA decreased , the level of GSH-Px increased , the ratio of Bcl-2/Bax increased, and the expression of JAK2/STAT3 pathway proteins evidently increased in the Re-H group compared with those of the model group ( P<0.05 ) .Conclusion Ginsenoside Re pretreatment has a good protective effect on the myocardium in rats with acute myocardial ischemia , which may be related to the activation of JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway .

BACKGROUND:The connection between high-level central nervous system and spinal cord and peripheral nerve under injury level is blocked by traumatic spinal cord injury,and the whole function of the body is thereby influenced.The loss of motor function and feeling both severely affect the patient's life quality in views of physiology,psychology,function and social economics.RNA interference is an effective method to silence target genes,which provides a new treatment strategy for spinal cord injury.OBJECTIVE:To explore the application status of RNA interference in spinal cord injury.METHODS:PubMed and CNKI databases were retrieved using the keywords of "RNA interference,RNAi,spinal cord injury" in English and Chinese,respectively.The articles addressing the application of RNA interference in spinal cord injury were collected and reviewed.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Totally 44 articles were enrolled.It is urgent to find a new way to treat spinal cord injury.Compared with the traditional gene silencing technology,RNA interference owing to high specificity,high efficiency,high stability and high penetrability is considered to be a new direction for the studies on the pathogenesis and treatment of spinal cord injury.

Anti-tumor traditional Chinese medicine has a long history of clinic application, in which the star molecules have always been the hotspot of modern drug research, but they are limited by the solubility, stability, targeting, bioactivity or toxicity of the monomer components of traditional Chinese medicine anti-tumor star molecules and other pharmacokinetic problems, which hinders the traditional Chinese medicine anti-tumor star molecules for further clinical translation and application. Currently, the nanosystems prepared by supramolecular technologies such as molecular self-assembly and nanomaterial encapsulation have broader application prospects in improving the anti-tumor effect of active components of traditional Chinese medicine, which has attracted extensive attention from scholars at home and abroad. In this paper, we systematically review the research progress in preparation of supramolecular nano-systems from anti-tumor star molecule of traditional Chinese medicine, and summarize the two major categories and ten small classes of carrier-free and carrier-based supramolecular nanosystems and their research cases, and the future development direction is put forward. The purpose of this paper is to provide reference for the research and clinical transformation of using supramolecular technology to improve the clinical application of anti-tumor star molecule of traditional Chinese medicine.

Objective To investigate the main components and antioxidant activity of the extract of corn silk.Methods The extraction of proteins was determined by the Kjeldahl method,total sugar was determined by the phenol-sulfuric acid assay,reducing sugar by 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) assay,respectively.Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis assay (SDS-PAGE) profile was used to show the composition of the protein of the extract of corn silk.The antioxidant activity of the extract of corn silk was evaluated by the ABTS · + radical scavenging rate and oxygen free radical absorption capacity.Results The contents of total sugar,reducing sugar and protein were 51.70％,10.43％ and 21.80％,respectively.SDS-PAGE profile showed that the extract of corn silk contained soluble protein,and its molecular weight was between 9.5 kD and 20 kD.The experimental results showed that the free radical scavenging rate of ABTS · + had reached 70.29％ when the extract concentration was 0.40 mg · mL-1 In the reaction system,the half inhibition rate (IC50) of ABTS free radical scavenging activity was 0.23 mg · mL-1.The total antioxidant activities evaluated by ORAC assay were 3.40 mmol Trolox equivalents · g-1,equivalent to 1/3 of absorption capacity of Vitamin C free radical.Conclusion The extract of corn silk has prominent antioxidant activity.

Objective To determine the predictive value of HATCH score on recurrence of atrial fibrillation (AF) after radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA).Methods The data of 123 consecutive AF patients (74 paroxysmal and 49 persistent AF) who underwent RFCA between April 2009 and December 2010 in our department were retrospectively analyzed.Of theses patients,65 (52.9％) patients had HATCH score =0,41 (33.3％) patients had HATCH score =1,and 17 (13.8％) patients had HATCH score ≥2 (HATCH =2 in 11 patients,HATCH =3 in 5 patients,HATCH =4 in 1 patient).The recurrence was defined as atrial tachyarrhythmia lasting more than 30 seconds after 3 months post RFCA.The patients were divided into recurrence group and no recurrence group.Relationship between HATCH score and recurrence was observed.Results There were 43 cases in recurrence group and 80 cases in no recurrence group.After 12 months follow-up,HATCH score was significant higher in recurrence group than in nonrecurrence group[(0.91 ±0.94) score vs.(0.53 ± 0.80) score,P ＜ 0.05].The ratio of patients with HATCH≥2 in recurrence group was higher than in non-recurrence group [23.3％ (10/43) vs.8.8％ (7/80),P ＜ 0.01].The sensitivity and specificity of HATCH ≥ 2 to define the risk of recurrence was 25.0％,92.4％ respectively.Cumulative non-recurrence rate of patients with HATCH score≥2 was lower than patients with HATCH score =0 and 1 (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion Higher HATCH score is associated with increased risk of AF recurrence post RFCA.