1.Ameliorative effect and mechanism of vitexin on inflammation in ulcerative colitis mice
Lin ZHOU ; Pengfei XIA ; Yuling LIU ; Zhichao MENG ; Geng LI ; Yuanyuan YU
China Pharmacy 2026;37(6):758-763
OBJECTIVE To explore the ameliorative effect and potential mechanism of vitexin on inflammation in ulcerative colitis (UC) mice. METHODS The UC mice model was established by continuous administration of 3% dextran sulfate sodium solution for 5 days. Mice with successful modeling were randomly divided into UC group, vitexin low- and high-dose groups (vitexin-L and vitexin-H groups, 40, 80 mg/kg), mesalazine group (400 mg/kg), and vitexin-H+recombinant Jagged canonical Notch ligand 1 (rJagged-1) group (vitexin-H+rJagged-1 group, 80 mg/kg vitexin+1 mg/kg rJagged-1), with 12 mice in each group. Another 12 normal mice were used as the control (CK) group. Mice in each group were administered the corresponding drugs or the corresponding drugs and normal saline by gavage and intraperitoneal injection once daily for 7 consecutive days. General conditions were observed during the experiment. At 24 h after the last administration, the disease activity index (DAI) score was evaluated. Colonic histopathological morphology was observed and scored. Macrophage polarization levels in the spleen and colon tissues were measured. The protein expressions of interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-10, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), transforming growth factor-β 1 (TGF-β 1 ), Jagged-1, Notch1 and Notch intracellular domain (NICD) in colonic tissues were determined. RESULTS Compared with the UC group, the symptoms (reduced food and water intake, dull fur, etc.) and pathological changes (epithelial cell shedding, inflammatory cell infiltration, etc.) were significantly improved in the vitexin-L, vitexin-H and mesalazine groups. DAI scores, colonic histopathological scores, M1 macrophage contents in spleen tissue, M1/M2 macrophage ratios, M1 macrophage proportions in colon tissue, and protein expressions of IL-6, TNF-α, Jagged-1, Notch1 and NICD in colon tissue were significantly decreased ( P <0.05). Meanwhile, the M2 macrophage contents in spleen tissue, M2 macrophage proportions in colon tissue, and protein expressions of IL-10 and TGF-β 1 in colon tissue were significantly increased ( P <0.05). Moreover, the improvement effects in the vitexin-H and mesalazine groups were significantly superior to those in the vitexin-L group ( P <0.05). Compared with the vitexin-H group, the above symptoms and pathological changes were aggravated, and all quantitative indicators were significantly reversed in the vitexin-H+rJagged-1 group ( P <0.05). CONCLUSIONS Vitexin can ameliorate the inflammation of UC mice, which is associated with its inhibition of the Jagged-1/Notch1 pathway and regulation of macrophage polarization (inhibition of M1-type polarization and promotion of M2-type polarization).
2.Role of Macrophage Activation and Polarization in Diabetes Mellitus and Its Related Complications and Traditional Chinese Medicine Intervention
Zhichao CHEN ; Qiaoni LIN ; Liya SUN ; Jinxi WANG ; Zishan FU ; Yufeng YANG ; Yan SHI
Chinese Journal of Experimental Traditional Medical Formulae 2025;31(6):311-320
The occurrence of diabetes mellitus (DM) is closely related to insulin resistance and islet β cell dysfunction. Modern studies have found that macrophages are widely present in the liver,fat,skeletal muscle,islets, and other tissues and organs. Macrophage M1/M2 polarization plays an important role in the occurrence and development of diabetes mellitus and its related complications by intervening in inflammatory response,improving insulin resistance,and promoting tissue repair. Most of the traditional Chinese medicines that regulate the activation and polarization of macrophages are Qi-replenishing and Yin-nourishing,heat-clearing, and detoxicating medicinal,which are consistent with the etiology and pathogenesis of diabetes and its related complications. Therefore,by summarizing the mechanisms between macrophage activation,polarization, and insulin resistance in various tissues,this paper reviewed traditional Chinese medicine and its effective components and compounds in improving diabetes mellitus and its related complications through multi-channel regulation of macrophage polarization and regulation of M1/M2 ratio,providing references for the future treatment of DM and its related complications with traditional Chinese medicine.
3.Study on Zhao Jinxi's Medication Law in Treating Diabetic Kidney Disease Based on Multivariate Data Mining
Jiangteng LIU ; Zhichao RUAN ; Yuanyuan LIN ; Xingru PAN ; Ying TANG ; Zhixun GUO ; Jinxi ZHAO
Chinese Journal of Information on Traditional Chinese Medicine 2025;32(11):71-76
Objective To explore the medication law of Professor Zhao Jinxi in the treatment of diabetic kidney disease(DKD).Methods The outpatient prescriptions of Professor Zhao Jinxi from Dongzhimen Hospital of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in the treatment of DKD were collected from Jan 2021 to May 2024.The Ancient and Modern Medical Case Cloud Platform 2.3.9,Origin 2024,R 4.4.2,SPSS Modeler 18.0,SPSS Statistics 26.0 and Cytoscape 3.10.2 were used to count the frequency,property and taste,meridian tropism,efficacy and dosage of drugs.Association rules,complex networks and clustering analysis were carried out.Results Totally 1 168 prescriptions were included,involving 237 kinds of Chinese materia medica.The high-frequency drugs were Astragali Radix,Salviea Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma,Dioscoreae Spongiosae Rhizoma,Smilacis Glabrae Rhizoma,etc.The medicinal properties were mostly warm,neutral and cold.The medicinal tastes were mainly bitter,sweet and pungent.They mainly belonged to the liver meridian,spleen meridian and lung meridian.The efficacy was mainly heat-clearing drugs,tonic drugs,and water-clearing and dampness-percolating drugs.18 and 12 drug combinations were obtained by association rules and cluster analysis,respectively.Conclusion Professor Zhao Jinxi's treatment of DKD pays attention to the formation of pathogenesis of"micro abdominal mass",emphasizes"treatment from wind",commonly uses"five methods of kidney treatment"such as tonifying qi,activating blood circulation,dispelling wind,promoting qi and detoxification,and attaches importance to the treatment idea of"three-dimension maintenance kidney",which can provide references for clinical treatment of DKD.
4.Evaluating generic and domain-specific large visual models for T staging of esophageal cancer using CT:a study of zero-shot performance and the impact of prompt engineering
Dabing ZHU ; Wei GAO ; Yanghao LIN ; Wuhao LAI ; Zhichao LIANG ; Xianyi ZENG ; Xikai DENG ; Jun AN
Chinese Journal of Medical Physics 2025;42(11):1532-1540
Background Accurate T-staging is critical for esophageal cancer therapy,but CT-based assessment has significant limitations.Large vision models(LVMs)hold promise,yet their zero-shot clinical diagnostic capability without fine-tuning remains unvalidated.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on the chest CT images from 98 esophageal cancer patients and 50 normal controls.Using radiologist-consensus as the gold standard,the zero-shot T-staging performance of 3 LVMs(GPT-5,Gemini,and MedGemma)was evaluated with prompts of varying complexity.Results GPT-5 exhibited the highest accuracy and stability.Significant biases were observed among models:Gemini tended to over-stage,while MedGemma showed a tendency to under-stage.All models faced challenges in identifying early-stage tumors,but structured prompts improved diagnostic performance for mid-to-late stage lesions.Conclusion LVMs have potential for zero-shot T-staging,but their performance highly depends on model choice and prompt design.The generic model GPT-5 show superior zero-shot generalization.However,current model performance is not yet clinically viable,especially for early diagnosis.Future work should focus on fine-tuning with high-quality clinical data and developing standardized prompt frameworks.
5.Study on Zhao Jinxi's Medication Law in Treating Diabetic Kidney Disease Based on Multivariate Data Mining
Jiangteng LIU ; Zhichao RUAN ; Yuanyuan LIN ; Xingru PAN ; Ying TANG ; Zhixun GUO ; Jinxi ZHAO
Chinese Journal of Information on Traditional Chinese Medicine 2025;32(11):71-76
Objective To explore the medication law of Professor Zhao Jinxi in the treatment of diabetic kidney disease(DKD).Methods The outpatient prescriptions of Professor Zhao Jinxi from Dongzhimen Hospital of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in the treatment of DKD were collected from Jan 2021 to May 2024.The Ancient and Modern Medical Case Cloud Platform 2.3.9,Origin 2024,R 4.4.2,SPSS Modeler 18.0,SPSS Statistics 26.0 and Cytoscape 3.10.2 were used to count the frequency,property and taste,meridian tropism,efficacy and dosage of drugs.Association rules,complex networks and clustering analysis were carried out.Results Totally 1 168 prescriptions were included,involving 237 kinds of Chinese materia medica.The high-frequency drugs were Astragali Radix,Salviea Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma,Dioscoreae Spongiosae Rhizoma,Smilacis Glabrae Rhizoma,etc.The medicinal properties were mostly warm,neutral and cold.The medicinal tastes were mainly bitter,sweet and pungent.They mainly belonged to the liver meridian,spleen meridian and lung meridian.The efficacy was mainly heat-clearing drugs,tonic drugs,and water-clearing and dampness-percolating drugs.18 and 12 drug combinations were obtained by association rules and cluster analysis,respectively.Conclusion Professor Zhao Jinxi's treatment of DKD pays attention to the formation of pathogenesis of"micro abdominal mass",emphasizes"treatment from wind",commonly uses"five methods of kidney treatment"such as tonifying qi,activating blood circulation,dispelling wind,promoting qi and detoxification,and attaches importance to the treatment idea of"three-dimension maintenance kidney",which can provide references for clinical treatment of DKD.
6.Evaluating generic and domain-specific large visual models for T staging of esophageal cancer using CT:a study of zero-shot performance and the impact of prompt engineering
Dabing ZHU ; Wei GAO ; Yanghao LIN ; Wuhao LAI ; Zhichao LIANG ; Xianyi ZENG ; Xikai DENG ; Jun AN
Chinese Journal of Medical Physics 2025;42(11):1532-1540
Background Accurate T-staging is critical for esophageal cancer therapy,but CT-based assessment has significant limitations.Large vision models(LVMs)hold promise,yet their zero-shot clinical diagnostic capability without fine-tuning remains unvalidated.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on the chest CT images from 98 esophageal cancer patients and 50 normal controls.Using radiologist-consensus as the gold standard,the zero-shot T-staging performance of 3 LVMs(GPT-5,Gemini,and MedGemma)was evaluated with prompts of varying complexity.Results GPT-5 exhibited the highest accuracy and stability.Significant biases were observed among models:Gemini tended to over-stage,while MedGemma showed a tendency to under-stage.All models faced challenges in identifying early-stage tumors,but structured prompts improved diagnostic performance for mid-to-late stage lesions.Conclusion LVMs have potential for zero-shot T-staging,but their performance highly depends on model choice and prompt design.The generic model GPT-5 show superior zero-shot generalization.However,current model performance is not yet clinically viable,especially for early diagnosis.Future work should focus on fine-tuning with high-quality clinical data and developing standardized prompt frameworks.
7.Ginsenoside Rb1 induces hepatic stellate cell ferroptosis to alleviate liver fibrosis via the BECN1/SLC7A11 axis
Lin LIFAN ; Li XINMIAO ; Li YIFEI ; Lang ZHICHAO ; Li YEPING ; Zheng JIANJIAN
Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis 2024;14(5):744-757
Liver fibrosis is primarily driven by the activation of hepatic stellate cells(HSCs),a process associated with ferroptosis.Ginsenoside Rb1(GRb1),a major active component extracted from Panax ginseng,inhibits HSC activation.However,the potential role of GRb1 in mediating HSC ferroptosis remains un-clear.This study examined the effect of GRb1 on liver fibrosis both in vivo and in vitro,using CCl4-induced liver fibrosis mouse model and primary HSCs,LX-2 cells.The findings revealed that GRb1 effectively inactivated HSCs in vitro,reducing alpha-smooth muscle actin(a-SMA)and type Ⅰ collagen(Col1A1)levels.Moreover,GRb1 significantly alleviated CCl4-induced liver fibrosis in vivo.From a mechanistic standpoint,the ferroptosis pathway appeared to be central to the antifibrotic effects of GRb1.Specifically,GRb1 promoted HSC ferroptosis both in vivo and in vitro,characterized by increased glutathione depletion,malondialdehyde production,iron overload,and accumulation of reactive oxygen species(ROS).Intriguingly,GRb1 increased Beclin 1(BECN1)levels and decreased the System Xc-key subunit SLC7A11.Further experiments showed that BECN1 silencing inhibited GRb1-induced effects on HSC ferroptosis and mitigated the reduction of SLC7A11 caused by GRb1.Moreover,BECN1 could directly interact with SLC7A11,initiating HSC ferroptosis.In conclusion,the suppression of BECN1 counteracted the effects of GRb1 on HSC inactivation both in vivo and in vitro.Overall,this study highlights the novel role of GRb1 in inducing HSC ferroptosis and promoting HSC inactivation,at least partly through its modulation of BECN1 and SLC7A11.
8.Study on the effect of Peer Balint-style group on empathy ability of third-year long-term medical students
Xueying LIN ; Luolin ZHOU ; Haohui LIU ; Ran SANG ; Zhichao LIN ; Tianzhu CHEN ; Huaifeng LIANG ; Yu GONG ; Ping LI
Chinese Journal of Medical Education Research 2024;23(6):791-795
Objective:This study aimed to assess the effects of Peer Balint-style group on the empathy ability of third-year long-term medical students and to provide a theoretical and practical reference for effectively improving their humanistic quality.Methods:Ninety third-year Chinese long-term medicine students participated. Volunteers received either ten sessions of 1.5-h Peer Balint-style group which were led by specially trained peers from June 2019 to August 2019. The College Students' Empathy Ability Questionnaire was used before the experiment and the second day after the experiment. The total score of the scale from the pre-test and post-test and the scores of each dimension conformed to a normal distribution, with equal variance, describing in the form of ( x± s). Paired t-tests were performed to compare the total score and each dimension score before and after the intervention, using SPSS 22.0. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 peer-group leaders and group members after the clinical practice period. The interview materials were analyzed by traditional content analysis. The content of the qualitative research was open-coded to obtain 10 categories, suggesting the role and inadequacy of Peer Balint-style groups. Results:A total of 63 valid samples were obtained. There was no significant difference of ( t=-0.44, P=0.661, P>0.05) between the total score of the post-test (118.00±11.98) and the total score of the pre-test (117.38±12.36). In each dimension, the reverse comprehension score of post-test (9.06±1.97) was significantly different ( t=-2.08, P=0.041, P>0.05) from the pre-test's (8.57±2.15), which increased compared to the pre-test score. Conclusions:Peer Balint-style group had a positive effect on improving empathy among medical students. Compared with the traditional Balint group, it has wider coverage, higher affinity and greater mobility. However, the design of the Peer Balint-style group still needs to be further improved.
9.A case report of renal foreign-body
Xianshen SHA ; Zheng CHEN ; Zhichao LIN ; Zexiong GUO ; Yumin ZHUO
Chinese Journal of Urology 2024;45(9):709-710
Renal foreign-body is rare in clinical practice. This article reports a case of 12-year-old male patient who presented with intermittent right lumbar stabbing pain for one year. Physical and laboratory examinations showed no significant abnormalities. Enhanced CT and three-dimensional angiography indicated a metal object in the anterior superior pole of the right kidney. The patient had a history of consuming vermicelli frequently over the past year. Considering the medical history and clinical examinations, it was hypothesized that a foreign body had penetrated the duodenum and lodged into the kidney. A foreign body extraction was performed via 3D laparoscopy, confirming the object to be a 25 mm long metallic needle. The patient was discharged on the third postoperative day. Follow-up at six months showed the patient to be in good condition.
10.Naoxinqing Alleviates Non-alcohol Fatty Liver Disease by Promoting Fatty Acid Oxidation via AMPK/SIRT1 Pathway
Shushu WANG ; Guiting ZHOU ; Liwen LIN ; Kachun LU ; Zhichao LIN ; Yuling ZHANG ; Danling CHENG ; Yuxin HAN ; Chun ZHOU ; Rui PENG ; Min LIU ; Chuanjin LUO
Traditional Chinese Drug Research & Clinical Pharmacology 2024;35(10):1531-1541
Objective This study aims to investigate the therapeutic effect and mechanism of Naoxinqing on non-alcohol fatty liver disease (NAFLD) induced by a high-fat diet through network pharmacology,molecular docking and in vitro and in vivo experiments. Methods ApoE-/-mice were given a high-fat diet for 12 weeks to establish the NAFLD model,followed by a 12-week Naoxinqing administration. To evaluate the therapeutic effect of Naoxinqing on NAFLD induced by a high-fat diet,biochemical and histopathological experiments were performed,including assessment of blood lipids,liver function,serum inflammatory factors,as well as Hematoxylin and eosin (HE),Oil red O,and Sirius red staining of liver. Subsequently,network pharmacology and molecular docking techniques were employed to predict the key targets of Naoxinqing. Finally,the mechanism of Naoxinqing was validated by Western Blot in HepG2 cells and liver tissue. Results The results of serum biochemistry and liver tissue pathology showed that Naoxinqing can significantly improve high-fat diet-induced hepatic lipid accumulation,hepatocellular injury,and inflammation. Network pharmacology and molecular docking analysis results suggested that Naoxinqing may affect lipid metabolism through the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)/Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) pathway. Finally,in vitro cell experiment confirmed that the main mechanism of Naoxinqing is to activative the AMPK/SIRT1 pathway,upregulate the expression of downstream carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 (CPT1A),promote fatty acid oxidation,and ultimately improve NAFLD. Conclusion This study demonstrated that Naoxinqing improved NAFLD by promoting fatty acid oxidation through the activation of the AMPK/SIRT1 pathway.

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