Objective To explore the association between HLA-A and B alleles and alopecia areata.Methods HLA-A and-B alleles were studied by LABTypeTM SSO in 44 patients with alopecia areata and 200 healthy controls.Results The frequencies of HLA-A＊11（χ2=6.08,P 〈 0.05）,HLA-B＊13（χ2=29.80,P 〈 0.01）,HLA-B＊40（χ2=8.04,P 〈 0.01）,HLA-B＊46（χ2=5.86,P 〈 0.05）and HLA-B＊51（χ2=8.82,P 〈 0.01）alleles were significantly increased in alopecia areata patients compared with the control.Conclusion HLA-A＊11,HLA-B＊13,HLA-B＊40,HLA-B＊46 and HLA-B＊51 might be the susceptible alleles of the patients with alopecia areata.

Objective:To understand the elderly residents' awareness,attitude and willingness-to-pay for medical institutions which provide elderly care services in Chengdu.Methods:A questionnaire survey was conducted on 350 elderly residents who were selected randomly in Chengdu city.Results:In terms of awareness,the results show that the elderly residents' awareness of medical institutions which provide elderly care services is poor.Only a small proportion of them (19.40％) are aware of those medical institutions which provide elderly care service.However,after being provided with the relevant information,the aged people's willingness to live in medical institutions which provide elderly care services was relatively higher (56.72％).Most (79.70％) of the old people are willing to pay less than 2 000 yuan per month for the elderly services provided by the medical institutions.Age,preference of family supporting,and the awareness of medical institutions providing elderly care are the statistically significant determinants of old people's willingness to utilize the elderly care provided by medical institutions.Conclusion:More efforts should be made to improve the elderly people's awareness of the medical institutions providing elderly care.The financial access to the care should be strengthened by the government intervention.To satisfy diversified demands of elderly care,various types of services would be encouraged.

AIK is a novel cationic peptide with potential antitumor activity. In order to construct the AIK expression vector by Gateway technology, and establish an optimal expression and purification method for recombinant AIK, a set of primers containing AttB sites were designed and used to create the AttB-TEV-FLAG-AIR fusion gene by overlapping PCR. The resulting fusion gene was cloned into the donor vector pDONR223 by attB and attP mediated recombination (BP reaction), then, transferred into the destination vector pDESTl 5 by attL and attR mediated recombination (LR reaction). All the cloning was verified by both colony PCR and DNA sequencing. The BL21 F. coli transformed by the GST-AIR expression plasmid was used to express the GST-AIK fusion protein with IPTG induction and the induction conditions were optimized. GST-AIR fusion protein was purified by glutathione magnetic beads, followed by rTEV cleavage to remove GST tag and MTS assay to test the growth inhibition activity of the recombinant AIR on human leukemia HL-60 cells. We found that a high level of soluble expression of GST-AIK protein (more than 30% out of the total bacterial proteins) was achieved upon 0.1 mmol/L ITPG induction for 4 h at 37 °C in the transformed BL21 F. coli with starting OD₆₀₀ at 1.0. Through GST affinity purification and rTEV cleavage, the purity of the resulting recombinant AIK was greater than 95%. And the MTS assays on HL-60 cells confirmed that the recombinant AIK retains an antitumor activity at a level similar to the chemically synthesized AIK. Taken together, we have established a method for expression and purification of recombinant AIK with a potent activity against tumor cells, which will be beneficial for the large-scale production and application of recombinant AIK in the future.
Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides ; biosynthesis ; Antineoplastic Agents ; metabolism ; Escherichia coli ; metabolism ; Genetic Vectors ; HL-60 Cells ; Humans ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Recombinant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; Sequence Analysis, DNA

Objective To understand the awareness of AIDS related knowledge, high risk behaviors, the infection status of HIV, syphilis and HSV-2, and to explore the associated factors with HSV-2 infection among whoremasters in Kaiyuan City, so as to provide scientific evidence for targeted intervention to prevent and control HIV and other STDs. Methods A self-designed questionnaire survey was conducted among whoremasters recruited through outreach activities and snowball sampling. The blood and urine were also collected for corresponding laboratory examination. Results Among the whoremasters, 98.22% had a high awareness of AIDS related knowledge, 9.33% once used drugs, and 14.67% did not use a condom during the latest commercial sex. 62.22% of the whoremasters ever had non-marital sex partners, and of those who had sex with non-marital sex partners in the past year, 59.55% reported using condoms inconsistently. The total infection rate of HIV/syphilis/HSV-2 was 18.22% and the infection rates of HIV, syphilis and HSV-2 were 3.11%, 1.33% and 16.44%, respectively. The older whoremasters were more likely to have a higher HSV-2 infection rate (AOR=1.044,95%CI:1.016-1.073,P=0.002), and those whoremasters not using a condom during the latest commercial sex were more likely to have a higher HSV-2 infection rate (AOR=3.125,95%CI:1.229-7.945,P=0.017). Conclusions Though whoremasters in Kaiyuan City had a high awareness of AIDS related knowledge, they had high-risk behaviors and relatively high HIV and other STDs infection rates. Targeted interventions are needed to improve the risk awareness of STDs infection to promote consistent condom use in both commercial and non-marital sexual behaviors among whoremasters.

OBJECTIVEViral hepatitis remains a major public health problem and the most common type of liver disease worldwide. There are an increasing number of patients with chronic hepatitis B who develop acute hepatitis on chronic condition (AOC) and die of acute hepatic failure both as a result of lack of understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease and lack of effective treatment. The hallmark of AOC is the extreme rapidity of the necromicroinflammatory process resulting in widespread or total hepatocellular necrosis in weeks or even days. Our previous studies have shown in an experimental animal model of fulminant viral hepatitis caused by murine hepatitis virus strain 3, the importance of macrophage activation, and expression of a unique gene mfgl 2 which encodes a serine protease capable of directly cleaving prothrombin to thrombin, resulting in widespread fibrin deposition within the liver and hepatocyte necrosis. The undergoing study in this report is designed to identify the role of hfgl 2 (human fibrinogen like protein 2) /fibroleukin in patients with viral hepatitis.

METHODSLiver tissues were obtained from 23 patients with AOC hepatitis B, and from 13 patients with inactive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and 14 patients with chronic hepatitis B with cirrhosis during the year of 1995 to the end of 2001. Liver biopsies were performed within 30 min after the patients were diagnosed with death as a result of acute hepatic failure. Liver samples were also obtained from 4 liver donors as normal controls. In addition, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were isolated from 30 patients (unpaired) with AOC hepatitis B and 10 patients with CHB during the May of 2001 to March of 2002 and 10 healthy volunteer as negative control. PBMCs were freshly isolated and smeared on slides and kept at -80 degree C for further use. Histological sections were stained with hemotoxylin and eosin. A 169 bp of hfgl 2 cDNA probe and a polyclonal or monoclonal antibody against hfgl 2 were used to detect the expression of hfgl 2 mRNA and protein in liver samples as well as PBMC by immune histochemistry separately.

RESULTSLiver tissues from the patients with acute on chronic hepatitis had classical pathological features of acute necroinflammation. Hfgl 2 was detected by immune histochemistry in 21 of 23 patients (91.3%) in liver sections from patients with acute on CHB, while only 1 of 13 patients (7.7%) with CHB and cirrhosis and no evidence of active disease had hfgl 2 mRNA or protein expression. 28 of 30 patients (93.3%) with acute on CHB and 1 of 10 with CHB were detected with hfgl 2 expression in PBMC. There was no hfgl 2 expression in either the liver tissue or the PBMC from the normal donors. There was positive correlation of hfgl 2 expression and the severity of the disease displayed by the value of bilirubin and PT.

CONCLUSIONThe molecular and cellular results reported here in patients with acute on chronic hepatitis and who died of acute hepatic failure correlates with previous report in 8 patients with fulminant hepatic failure (FHF) and mimic closely the changes observed in the murine model of fulminant viral hepatitis in which the pathogenesis of the disease has been studied in a stepwise fashion. This study further suggests that virus induced hfgl 2 prothrombinase/fibroleukin expression and the potent function of the protein it encodes plays a pivotal role in initiating acute severe hepatitis on the baseline of chronic hepatitis. The measurement of hfgl 2/fibroleukin expression in PBMC may serve as a useful marker to monitor the severity of disease in patients with the AOC hepatitis B and a target for therapeutic intervention.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Fibrinogen ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Hepatitis B, Chronic ; metabolism ; pathology ; Humans ; Infant ; Leukocytes, Mononuclear ; metabolism ; Liver ; metabolism ; pathology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prognosis ; RNA, Messenger ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Severity of Illness Index ; T-Lymphocytes ; metabolism

Objective To investigate the safety and efficacy of splitting liver transplantation (SLT). Methods Clinical data of 10 donors and 19 recipients undergoing SLT in Institute of Organ Transplantation, General Hospital of Chinese People's Armed Police Forces from January 2008 to August 2013 were analyzed retrospectively. Of these 19 recipients, 9 were male, 10 were female and 9 were children,10 were adults. The age ranged from 7 months to 62 years with a median age of 31 years. The graft recipient weigh ratio (GRWR) was 1.0%to 4.3%. The informed consents of all patients were obtained and the ethical committee approval was received. The 10 cadaveric donor livers were split in vitro, in which 9 pair grafts were transplanted in 9 children and 8 adults respectively. The left lateral lobes (segmentⅡ,Ⅲ) were transplanted in children and the extended right lobes (segmentⅠ,Ⅳ-Ⅷ) in adults. The other donor liver was split in left and right half lobes and were transplanted in 2 adults. Piggyback liver transplantation was performed in the 9 children receiving left lateral lobes and 1 adult receiving right half lobe. Classic orthotopic liver transplantation was performed in the 8 adults receiving extended right lobes and 1 adult receiving left half lobe. Peri-operative death and complications of the patients were observed. The patients were followed up regularly for observing the survival situation. Results All the operations of 19 recipients were completed successfully. Seventeen cases were cured and discharged from hospital and 2 cases died during the peri-operative period. The 2 dead cases were both children. One died of septic shock 2 weeks after operation and the other died of primary liver graft nonfunction 2 d after liver retransplantation. Biliary leak of liver section occurred in 2 pediatric recipients and was cured by puncture drainage. One adult recipient with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma died of lung and bone multiple metastases 15 months after operation. Conclusions SLT is a safe and feasible transplant operation and it can help to alleviate the shortage of donor livers to some extent.

Objective To explore the mechanism and protective effect of ulinastatin on vascular endothelial cells ( VEC) in sepsis rats.Methods Forty SD male rats were randomly divided into four groups:sham oper-ation group, model group and low and high dose test groups ( ulinastatin, 10 ×104 ,20 ×104 U? kg -1 ) .The sepsis rat models were established with cecal ligation and puncture ( CLP).The level of tumor nuclear fac-tor-α( TNF-α) , interleukin 1β( IL-1β) and IL-6 in serum was assayed by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay method.The level of ni-trogen ( NO) and inducible nitric oxide synthase ( iNOS) was determina-ted by kits.VEC apoptosis was detected by flow cytometry.The activity of cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase 3 ( Caspase 3) was measured by spectrophotometry.The expression of B-cell lymphoma-2 ( Bcl-2 ) , Bcl-2 associated X protein ( Bax ) and the activation of nuclear factor kappa B ( NF -κB ) signal pathway were assayed by Western blot. Results Compared with sham operation group, the level of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, NO, iNOS was higher, the number of apoptotic VEC was higher, the activity of Caspase 3 and the expression of Bax was higher, the expression of Bcl-2 was lower, the phosphorylation of NF -κB p65 and IκBαwas higher in the model group, the difference was significant ( all P<0.01) .Compared with model group, low and high dose test groups could inhibit the change, the difference was significant (P<0.05).The ratio of Caspase 3 activity was (1.00 ±0.21,3.70 ±0.25,1.83 ±0.14,1.53 ±0.13). Conclusion These results suggested ulinastatin inhibited the injury of VEC in sepsis rats via resisting to inflammation and VEC apoptosis, which might be associated with NF-κB signal pathway.

Objective To explore the protective role of ursolic acid (UA) on hypertrophy and proliferation of renal glomerrular mesangial cells and extracellular matrix production accumulation induced by high glucose was investigated.Methods The logaritumic growth plase cells were divided into blank control group (5.5 mmol · L-1 glucose),model group (30.0 mmol · L-1 glucose),control group (5.5 mmol · L-1 glucose + 24.5 mmol · L-1 mannitol),test A group (30.0 mmol · L-1 glucose + 0.5 μmol · L-1 ursolic acid),test B group (30.0 mmol · L-1 glucose + 1.0 μmol · L-1ursolic acid),and test C group (30.0 mmol · L-1 glucose + 2.0 μmol · L-1 ursolic acid),and treated for 48 h.Mesangial cell proliferation was detected by MTT method.Cell cycle and cell hypertrophy were tested by PI single dye flow cytometry.Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Western Blot were used to evaluate transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1),fibronectin (FN) mRNA and protein expression.Results After 48 h,the cell proliferation rates of blank control group,model group,control group,test A group,test B group,and test C group were (3.66 ± 0.32),(4.33 ±0.23),(3.50 ±0.22),(3.93 ±0.11),(3.59 ±0.06) and (0.67 ±0.16).The comparison between the model group and the blank control group was statistically significant(P ＜ 0.05);the comparisons between the test B,C groups and the model group were statistically significant (all P ＜ 0.05);and there were no statistically significant differences between the test A group and the blank control and control groups (all P ＞ 0.05).Most of the cells in the test C group were dead,and the test B group was set up to be the final test group.The main indexes in blank control group,model group,control group and test group were compared:TGF-β1 mRNA were (24.80 ± 0.90),(29.89±1.06),(23.72±0.87) and (25.06 ±0.11),FN mRNA were (42.03 ±0.57),(54.55 ± 1.20),(42.72 ± 0.40) and (45.32 ± 0.51),TGF-β1 protein expression were (54.92 ± 3.28),(125.93 ± 3.58),(25.11 ± 0.51) and (101.23 ± 7.55),FN protein expression were (46.44 ± 7.90),(66.13 ± 13.10),(34.98 ± 5.52) and (28.70 ± 5.70).The comparisons between the model group and the blank control and test groups were statistically significant (all P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion UA can alleviate the injury ofmesangial cell induced by high glucose by inhibiting mesangial cell proliferation,hypertrophy and extracellular matrix deposition.

OBJECTIVETo investigate the efficacy and adverse effects of dapoxetine in the treatment of premature ejaculation.

METHODSWe randomly assigned outpatients with premature ejaculation in the proportion of 2:1 to receive 30 mg dapoxetine on demand (n =78) or 50 mg sertraline qd for one month (n = 39). Follow-up was accomplished in 95 cases, 63 in the dapoxetine group and 32 in the sertraline group. We recorded the intravaginal ejaculatory latency time (IELT), clinical global impression of change (CGIC) score, and adverse reactions of the patients and compared them between the two groups.

RESULTSIELT was significantly increased in both the dapoxetine (from [0.87 ± 0.31] to [2.84 ± 0.68] min, P < 0.05) and the sertraline group (from [0.84 ± 0.28] to [2.71 ± 0.92] min, P < 0.05) after medication. Based on the CGIC scores in premature ejaculation, the rate of excellence or effectiveness was 36.5% in the dapoxetine and 37. 5% in the sertraline group, and the rate of improvement was 63.5% in the former and 71.9% in the latter. The incidence rates of dizziness, nausea, headache, and diarrhea were slightly higher (P > 0.05) while those of fatigue, somnolence, and dry mouth significantly higher (P < 0.05) in the sertraline than in the dapoxetine group.

CONCLUSIONOn-demand oral medication of dapoxetine is effective and well-tolerated for the treatment of premature ejaculation.

Benzylamines ; adverse effects ; therapeutic use ; Double-Blind Method ; Ejaculation ; drug effects ; physiology ; Humans ; Male ; Naphthalenes ; adverse effects ; therapeutic use ; Outpatients ; Premature Ejaculation ; drug therapy ; Reaction Time ; drug effects ; physiology ; Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors ; adverse effects ; therapeutic use ; Sertraline ; administration & dosage ; adverse effects ; Time Factors ; Treatment Outcome

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore factors affecting the dental aesthetic social psychology of patients with skeletal malocclusion and to measure the relationship between the objective orthodontic requirements and the subjective treatment requirements of patients. This work provides a reference for doctors to measure patients' orthodontic treatment needs. METHODS: Adult patients with skeletal malocclusion were chosen as the research object. Questionnaire survey was used to analyze factors influencing the psychosocial impact of dental aesthetics questionnaire (PIDAQ), index of orthodontic treatment need (IOTN), and Eysenck personality questionnaire-revised short scale for Chinese (EPQ-RSC). The relationship among PIDAQ, IOTN, EPQ-RSC, and treatment options was also evaluated. RESULTS: Seventy-two valid questionnaires were collected from adult patients with skeletal malocclusion. 1) The PIDAQ scores significantly differed among different occupations (P<0.05) but were not affected by other general conditions such as gender and age. 2) Patients of different dental health component (DHC) grade and ages had different AC self-assessment scores (P<0.01, P<0.05). The AC self-assessment score was positively correlated with the PIDAQ score (P<
0.05). 3) Males accounted for a higher proportion of patients who received treatment. Younger patients (18-28 years old) were more likely to receive treat-ment when their own dental aesthetics were poor. People with the higher monthly expenditure accounted for the larger proportion of surgical patients. 4) The PIDAQ score had no significant effects on the choice of opera-tion (P>0.05). People with low educational level were more likely to receive surgery if their psychosocial impacts of dental aes-thetics were serious. 5) The score of psychoticism scale of EPQ-RSC and the educa-tional level had a mutual influence on the PIDAQ score (P<0.01). Moreover, the neuroticism scale and AC self-assessment scores had a mutual influence on the PIDAQ score (P<0.05). However, this study did not find a correlation between personality traits and treatment options. CONCLUSIONS Many factors, such as personal natural conditions, subjective aesthetic evaluation of teeth, and psychosocial impacts of dental aesthetics, affect patients' treatment options. Personality characteristics can play a certain role in dental aesthetics social psychology.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Esthetics, Dental ; Humans ; Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need ; Male ; Malocclusion ; Psychology, Social ; Quality of Life ; Self Concept ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Young Adult