Objective To investigate the effect of local injection of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells(hUC-MSCs)combined with sodium hyaluronate gel in the treatment of intrauterine adhesion in rats and its possible mecha-nisms.Methods Twenty-five specific pathogen-free female Sprague Dawley rats were divided into a blank control group,an intrauterine adhesion group,a sodium hyaluronate group,an hUC-MSCs group,and an hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group according to the random number table method,with 5 rats in each group.The rats in the blank control group received no treatment,while the rats in the rest four groups were injected with 950 mL·L-1 ethanol to prepare intrauterine adhesion models.One week following the establishment of the intrauterine adhesion models,100 μL of 1 × 1010 L-1 hUC-MSCs suspension was injected into the bilateral uterine horns of rats in the hUC-MSCs group and hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group;and 100 μL of normal saline was injected into the bilateral uterine horns of rats in the intrauterine adhesion group and sodium hyaluronate group.Subsequently,300 μL of sodium hyaluronate gel was injected into the bilateral uterine horns of rats in the sodium hyaluronate group and hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group;while,the same amount of normal saline was injected into the bilateral uterine horns of rats in the intrauterine adhesion group and hUC-MSCs group.After three days of intervention,all female rats in the five groups were combined with mature male rats possessing reproductive ability at a ratio of 1∶2 and then mated.The vaginal plugs of the female rats were observed for seven days to confirm successful mating.The abdominal aortic blood from pregnant rats in the five groups was extracted,and the serum levels of interleukin-6(IL-6)and interleukin-8(IL-8)were determined by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.After blood collection,the rats were euthanized with excessive anesthesia,and subsequently,the uterus was removed and rinsed with normal saline.Firstly,the quantity of gestational sacs was counted;then,the endometrial tissues were meticulously separated,and the expression levels of matrix metalloproteinase-9(MMP-9)and transforming growth factor β,(TGF-β1)in the endometrial tissues of the rats were detected by using Western blot.Results The number of gestational sacs in rats in the intrauterine adhesion group,sodium hyaluronate group,hUC-MSCs group,and hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group was significantly fewer than that in the blank control group,the number of gestational sacs in rats in the sodium hyaluronate group,hUC-MSCs group,and hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group was significantly more than that in the intrauterine adhesion group,and the number of gestational sacs in rats in the hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group was significantly higher than that in the sodium hyaluronate group and the hUC-MSCs group(P＜0.05);there was no significant difference in the number of gestational sacs in rats between the sodium hyaluronate group and the hUC-MSCs group(P＞0.05).The serum IL-6 and IL-8 levels of rats in the intrauterine adhesion group,sodium hyaluronate group,hUC-MSCs group,and hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group were significantly higher than those in the blank control group,the serum IL-6 and IL-8 levels of rats in the sodium hyaluronate group,hUC-MSCs group,and hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group were significantly lower than those in the intrauterine adhesion group,and the serum IL-6 and IL-8 levels of rats in the hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group were significantly lower than those in the sodium hyaluronate group and the hUC-MSCs group(P＜0.05);there was no significant difference in the serum IL-6 and IL-8 levels of rats between the sodium hyaluronate group and the hUC-MSCs group(P＞0.05).The relative expression level of TGF-β,in the endometrial tissues of rats in the intrauterine adhesion group,sodium hyaluronate group,hUC-MSCs group,and hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group was significantly higher than that in the blank control group,while the relative expression level of MMP-9 was significantly lower than that in the blank control group(P＜0.05).The relative expression level of TGF-β,in the endometrial tissues of rats in the sodium hyaluronate group,hUC-MSCs group,and hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group was significantly lower than that in the intrauterine adhesion group,while the relative expression level of MMP-9 was significantly higher than that in the intrauterine adhesion group(P＜0.05).The relative expression level of TGF-β,in the endometrial tissues of rats in the hUC-MSCs+sodium hyaluronate group was significantly lower than that in the sodium hyaluronate group and the hUC-MSCs group,while the relative expression level of MMP-9 was significantly higher than that in the sodium hyaluronate group and the hUC-MSCs group(P＜0.05).There was no significant difference in the relative expression levels of TGF-β,and MMP-9 in the endometrial tissues of rats between the sodium hyaluronate group and the hUC-MSCs group(P＞0.05).Conclusion The combined injection of hUC-MSCs and sodium hyaluronate gel may up-regulate the expression level of MMP-9 protein and reduce the levels of TGF-β1 and inflammatory factors IL-6 and IL-8 in the endometrial tissues of rats with intrauterine adhesion,thereby repairing the damaged endometrium and increasing the number of gestational sacs.

Persistent Chlamydia trachomatis urogenital tract infection may lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and tubal infertility in women, and urethritis, epididymitis and other complications in men, which is a hotspot and chanllenge in disease control at home and abroad. In recent years, many researches have shown that Chlamydia trachomatis aberrant reticulate body may be one of the major causes of persistent infection. This review summarized the genomic and proteomic characteristics of Chlamydia trachomatis aberrant reticulate body induced under various conditions in vitro, aiming to elucidating its role in antimicrobial resistance. The identification of persistent infection-related factors, providing new diagnostic targets for the detection of subclinically refractory long-term infections, is a prerequisite for finding appropriate methods to diagnose and treat the complications of Chlamydia trachomatis infection and is crucial for identifying new targets in the post-genomic era.

Background::Urticaria is a common skin disease characterized by episodes of wheals, and it has a negative effect on patients’ quality of life. Large-scale population-based epidemiological studies of urticaria are scarce in China. The aim of this survey was to determine the prevalence, clinical forms, and risk factors of urticaria in the Chinese population.Methods::This survey was conducted in 35 cities from 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities of China. Two to three communities in each city were selected in this investigation. Participants completed questionnaires and received dermatological examinations. We analyzed the prevalence, clinical forms, and risk factors of urticaria.Results::In total, 44,875 questionnaires were distributed and 41,041 valid questionnaires were collected (17,563 male and 23,478 female participants). The lifetime prevalence of urticaria was 7.30%, with 8.26% in female and 6.34% in male individuals ( P < 0.05). The point prevalence of urticaria was 0.75%, with 0.79% in female and 0.71% in male individuals ( P < 0.05). Concomitant angioedema was found in 6.16% of patients. Adults had a higher prevalence of urticaria than adolescents and children. Living in urban areas, exposure to pollutants, an anxious or depressed psychological status, a personal and family history of allergy, thyroid diseases, and Helicobacter pylori infection were associated with a higher prevalence of urticaria. Smoking was correlated with a reduced risk of urticaria. Conclusion::This study demonstrated that the lifetime prevalence of urticaria was 7.30% and the point prevalence was 0.75% in the Chinese population; women had a higher prevalence of urticaria than men. Various factors were correlated with urticaria.

Objective:To explore the clinical effect of multidisciplinary cooperative intervention in improving self-management and improving fluid retention in the elderly patients with chronic heart failure.Methods:Totally 130 cases of the elderly patients with chronic heart failure from January to December 2018 were enrolled and were divided into control group and observation group with 65 cases randomly. The control group received routine nursing instruction and telephone follow-up. The observation group was given multidisciplinary team guidance to patients self-management in addition to routine nursing instruction and telephone follow-up. After 3 months, the self-management and fluid retention of the two groups were compared.Results:After 3 months of intervention, the scores and total scores of the observation group in the four dimensions of drug management, diet management, psychological and social adaptation management, symptom management were 19.43±0.71,11.51±0.59,19.07±0.65,25.24±1.31, 72.65±7.16, the control group was 11.09±3.40, 6.05±1.71, 12.73±2.49, 15.72±4.18, 46.35±7.83. The scores and total scores of the observation group were better than those of the control group ( t value was 4.835-13.727, all P < 0.05).After intervention for 3 months, the proportion of severe edema, moderate edema and mild edema in the observation group was 4.61% (3/65), 13.85% (9/65), 81.54% (53/65), respectively, and the control group was 38.46% (25/65), 52.31% (34/65) and 9.23% (6/65) respectively. The degree of fluid retention in the observation group was better than that in the control group ( Z value was -2.373, all P < 0.05). Conclusion:Multidisciplinary cooperative intervention can improve self-management and improve fluid retention in elderly patients with chronic heart failure.

Proteases are enzymes that cleave and hydrolyse the peptide bonds between two specific amino acid residues of target substrate proteins. Protease-controlled proteolysis plays a key role in the degradation and recycling of proteins, which is essential for various physiological processes. Thus, solving the substrate identification problem will have important implications for the precise understanding of functions and physiological roles of proteases, as well as for therapeutic target identification and pharmaceutical applicability. Consequently, there is a great demand for bioinformatics methods that can predict novel substrate cleavage events with high accuracy by utilizing both sequence and structural information. In this study, we present Procleave, a novel bioinformatics approach for predicting protease-specific substrates and specific cleavage sites by taking into account both their sequence and 3D structural information. Structural features of known cleavage sites were represented by discrete values using a LOWESS data-smoothing optimization method, which turned out to be critical for the performance of Procleave. The optimal approximations of all structural parameter values were encoded in a conditional random field (CRF) computational framework, alongside sequence and chemical group-based features. Here, we demonstrate the outstanding performance of Procleave through extensive benchmarking and independent tests. Procleave is capable of correctly identifying most cleavage sites in the case study. Importantly, when applied to the human structural proteome encompassing 17,628 protein structures, Procleave suggests a number of potential novel target substrates and their corresponding cleavage sites of different proteases. Procleave is implemented as a webserver and is freely accessible at http://procleave.erc.monash.edu/.

Objective To assess the efficacy and side effects of intravesical instillation of BCG after transurethral resection of the bladder tumor (TURBT) in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) patients.Methods The clinical data of patients treated with BCG 120 mg per course induced perfusion or more after TURBT from December 2013 to October 2016 in 18 hospitals of northeast China region,were analyzed retrospectively.The first part,data of 106 patients with moderate,high-risk NMIBC were collected.A total of 83 patients were male,while the other 23 patients were female.The average age was 66.7 years old.The clinical staging were T1 in 86(81.1％) cases,Ta in 20(18.9％) cases and carcinoma in situ in 6 (5.7％) patients.Intravesical instillation of BCG was executed after transurethral resection of the bladder tumor.The incidence rate of recurrence and progression during more than 6 months' follow-up time were observed.Multivariate analyses were done by using logistic analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression model with Kaplan-Meier method.The second part,treatment compliance of 276 patients with bladder cancer,including moderate/high-risk NMIBC in 263 cases,moderate/high-risk NMIBC followed with renal pelvis/ureteral carcinoma in 8 cases were and moderate/high-risk NMIBC with renal pelvis/ureteral carcinoma in 5 cases who treated with BCG after the surgeries,were observed.Patients consisted of 211 males and 65 females with average age of 68.3 years.Results With a median follow-up of 12 months,9 (8.5％) patients experienced tumor recurrence and 2 (1.9％) patients were found progression in the first part.The one-year cancer free recurrence rate of the patients was 91.5％.Statistically significant prognostic factors for recurrence identified by multivariable analyses were prior recurrence of the tumors (OR =3.214,95％CI0.804-12.845,P =0.099).In the second port,an incidence rate of adverse effects was 64.1％ (177/276).The Ⅲ/Ⅳ degree complications were occurred in 11 patients and satisfactory outcomes achieved with active treatment.A total of 36 patients withdrawal with the major causes were recurrence and progression of bladder tumor in 12 cases (4.4 ％),9 cases (3.3 ％) with economic reasons and 11 cases (4.0％) with serious complications.Conclusions NMIBC patients treated with intravesical BCG therapy have approving cancer free recurrence rates and acceptable adverse effects.Prior recurrence may be prognostic factor of recurrence after intravesical BCG therapy.

Objective To construct active phages against Chlamydia trachomatis,and to evaluate its effect on Chlamydia trachomatis.Methods The M13 phage was recombined with the IN5 sequences encoding the capsid protein VP1 of chlamydiophage phiCPG1,and then the recombinant M13-IN5 phage was obtained.PCR amplification,enzyme digestion and sequencing were performed to verify whether the target fragment was inserted into the phage successfully.The viability of the phage was evaluated by plaque formation assay.Cell counting kit-8 (CCK8) assay was conducted to evaluate the effect of M13 phage and recombinant M13-IN5 phage at the titer of 1011 plaque-forming units (PFU)/ml on the proliferation of Hela cells,and Hela cells uninfected with chlamydia served as the blank control group.Western blot analysis was performed to determine the expression of the IN5 loop protein in the recombinant M13-IN5 phage,M13 phage and Escherichia coli ER2738 at exponential growth phase.Cultured standard Chlamydia trachomatis serovar E strain was treated with M13 phage and recombinant M13-IN5 phage at the titer of 1011 PFU/ml separately,and chlamydia control group without the treatment with phages was set up.After 36-hour infection,confocal microscopy was performed to detect the location of the M13 phage and the recombinant M13-IN5 phage.Moreover,iodine staining was conducted to count inclusion bodies at 36,48,60 and 72 hours separately after infection.Statistical analysis was carried out by a two-sample t-test for comparisons between two groups,one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for intergroup comparison,and Bonferroni test for multiple comparisons.Results The bioactive recombinant M13 phage containing the IN5 loop gene was constructed successfully,and Western blot analysis confirmed that the recombinant phage expressed IN5 loop/p Ⅲ fusion protein with a high titer of 3.05 × 1011 PFU/ml.As CCK8 assay showed,there was no significant difference in proliferation of Hela cells among the blank control group,M 13 phage group and recombinant M13-IN5 phage group (A450 values:3.63 ± 0.01,3.55 ± 0.02,3.70 ± 0.01,respectively,F =12.0,P ＞ 0.05).Confocal microscopy showed overlap between the phage fluorescence and chlamydial inclusion body fluorescence.The M13-IN5 phage group and M13 phage group both showed significantly decreased number of inclusion bodies compared with the control group (both P ＜ 0.05) at 36 and 72 hours after chlamydial infection,and the number of inclusion bodies was significantly lower in the M 13-IN5 phage group than in the M13 phage group (P ＞ 0.05).After 48,and 60 hours of chlamydial infection,the number of inclusion bodies did not differ among the M13 phage group,M13-IN5 phage group and control group (both P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions The recombinant M13-IN5 phage was bioactive and could successfully express the IN5 loop protein.In the in vitro experiments,the recombinant phage could enter into chlamydia inclusion bodies,and markedly inhibited the infection of Chlamydia trachomatis.

Objective To investigate the relationship between serum 25-OH vitamin D3 (25-OHD3)levels and carpal tunnel syndrome(CTS)in type 2 diabetes.Methods Data from 102 patients with type 2 diabetes were collected,and patients were divided into a CTS group(n=29)and a non-CTS group(n=73)according to clinical symptoms,signs,and electrophysiological testing.Fasting venous blood was collected to assay serum 25-OHD3 levels that were compared between the two groups.The correlation between 25-OHD3 and clinical parameters for type 2 diabetes was analyzed.Results The incidence of vitamin D3 deficiency was 65.5％ (n=19)in the CTS group and 46.6％(n=34)in the non CTS group,and the difference was statistically significant(x2 =16.85,P＜0.01).Levels of 25-OHD3 were lower in the CTS group(14.13±4.91) μg/L than in the non-CTS group(17.08±3.35)μg/L(t =4.067,P ＜ 0.01).Levels of 25 OHD3 were negatively correlated with those of glycosylated hemoglobin(HbA1c)(r =-0.176,P =0.041)and the duration of diabetes(r=-0.29,P=0.01) Conclusions Low 25-OHD3 is a risk factor for carpal tunnel syndrome in type 2 diabetes and is negatively associated with the duration of diabetes and HbA1c in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Objective To compare the safety and efficacy of stent-assisted coil and non-stent-assisted coil for the treatment of ruptured posterior communicating artery aneurysms.Methods A total of 121 consecutive patients with ruptured posterior communicating artery aneurysm treated at the Department of Neurosurgery,Heze Municipal Hospital between June 2014 and June 2017 were enrolled retrospectively.They divided into either a stent group (n =63) or non-stent group (n =58) according to whether they used stent treatment or not.The two groups were compared,and their clinical data,surgical related complications,the degree of embolism immediately after aneurysm surgery,and the follow-up results of clinical and imaging were analyzed.Results Interventional embolization therapy was successfully performed in all the patients.(1) The proportion of wide-necked aneurysms of the stent group was higher than that of the non-stent group.There was significant difference (92.1％ [58/63] vs.8.6％ [5/58],x2 =84.249,P ＜ 0.01).There were no significant differences in age,aneurysm size,sex,and HuntHess grade (all P ＞ 0.05).(2) The incidences of intraoperative aneurysm rupture of the stent group and non-stent group were 4.8％ (3/63) and 3.4％ (2/58) respectively.There was no significant difference (x2 =0.132,P =0.717).The incidence of thromboembolie complication was 12.7％ (8/63) and 5.2％ (3/58)respectively.There was no significant difference (x2 =2.070,P =0.150).In the stent group,1 patient disabled and 1 died,and in the non-stent group,there were no cases with surgical related disability,and 1 died.(3) The comparison of immediate results after procedure between the stent group and non-stent group:there were no significant differences in the complete embolic rate (39.7％ [25/63] vs.37.9％[22/58],x2 =0.039),aneurysm neck residual rate (25.4％ [16/63] vs.39.7％ [23/58],x2 =2.811],and residual rate of aneurysm (34.9％ [22/63] vs.22.4％ [13/58],x2 =2.298,all P ＞ 0.05).(4) The recurrence rate of aneurysms (4.3％ [2/46]) of the stent group was lower than that of the non-stent group (31.8％ [14/44]).There was significant difference between the two groups (x2 =112.610,P =0.01).No rebleeding occurred in all aneurysms after procedure.Conclusion Compared with the non-stent-assisted coil embolization,the stent assisted embolization of ruptured posterior communicating artery aneurysms in acute phase may reduce the recurrence rate of aneurysms and without significantly increasing the incidence of surgery-related complications.

Objective To investigate the value of automatic spectral imaging mode selection and adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction(ASIR) in upper abdominal enhanced CT with low contrast agent dose, and to optimize the combination of monochromatic energy level and ASIR percentage.Methods 100 patients underwent upper abdominal enhancement CT were randomly assigned into control group (n=50) and study group (n=50).In the control group, tube voltage of 120 kVp and contrast medium of 450 mg I/kg were used with the images reconstructed using 40% ASIR.In the study group, CT spectral imaging with automatic spectral imaging mode selection and contrast medium of 300 mg I/kg were used,and monochromatic images (40-65 keV,intervals of 5 keV) were reconstructed using 40%-60% ASIR (intervals of 10%), respectively.CT value, image noise and contrast-to-noise ratio of the liver, pancreas, aorta and portal vein and radiation dose were compared using two independent samples t test.Overall image quality was assessed by Mann-Whitney U test.Results All image quality indexes in 60 keV with 40% ASIR, 55-60 keV with 50% ASIR in the study group were equal to or better than the control group.There was no significant difference in radiation dose between control group and study group.Conclusion Combined automatic spectral imaging mode selection with ASIR, upper abdominal enhanced CT with low contrast agent dose could improve image quality compared to 120 kVp with 40% ASIR, without increasing radiation dose.