To explore the effects of intrauterine infection on early growth and neurobehavioral development in neonatal rats. (E. coli) was inoculated into uterine cervix of pregnant rats with gestation of 15 d to establish the intrauterine infection model, and the effect on the delivery of pregnant rats was observed. The neonatal rat brain tissue was stained with Hematoxylin-Eosin and the cerebral white matter damage was assessed. Immunohistochemical staining and Western blot analysis were performed to evaluate the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), 2', 3'-cyclic nucleotide 3'-phosphodiesterase (CNPase) and neurofilament (NF) in pup brains. Birth weight and early growth development indices were monitored,and neurobehavioral tests were performed to access the change of neurobehavioral development in neonatal rats. The white blood cell count increased significantly in the uterus and placenta of the pregnant rats after intrauterine E. coli infection and no significant impact was observed on the delivery of pregnant rats. Weak staining and focal rarefaction of cerebral white matter from rats at P7 in intrauterine infection group were observed. The expression of GFAP markedly increased (<0.05) in infection group, while the level of CNPase and NF in pup brains at P7 significantly decreased (<0.05 or <0.01). Compared with control group, the neonatal rats in infection group had lower birth weight and slower weight gain during the suckling period (<0.05 or <0.01), and the completion times of ear opening, eye opening, surface righting, negative geotaxis, acoustic startle and swimming test in infection group were significantly delayed (<0.05 or <0.01). Intrauterine infection in pregnant rats can induce cerebral white matter damage and retardation of early growth and neurobehavioral development in neonatal rats.
Animals ; Animals, Newborn ; Behavior, Animal ; Body Weight ; Disease Models, Animal ; Escherichia coli ; Escherichia coli Infections ; complications ; physiopathology ; Female ; Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein ; genetics ; Growth Disorders ; etiology ; Leukoencephalopathies ; etiology ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy Complications, Infectious ; physiopathology ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of MS in elderly people aged ≥60 years and its related factors in China and provide scientific evidence for prevention and control of MS in the elderly. Methods: Data used in this study were obtained from the 2013 Chinese Chronic Diseases and Risk Factor Surveillance Program. A total of 50 497 people aged ≥60 years were selected and interviewed through multistage stratified cluster sampling at 298 surveillance sites in 31 provinces. According to the Chinese MS diagnostic criteria proposed by the Chinese Medical Association Diabetes Branch in 2017, the prevalence rates of different MS forms were compared, and the main related factors were analyzed. Results: The prevalence rate of MS was 36.9% (95%CI: 35.4-38.5). The prevalence rate was higher in urban area than in the rural area, higher in females than in males, higher in eastern area than in western area. The prevalence rate of MS in elderly people aged ≥70 years was lower than that in those aged 60-69 years. The rate in the elderly with higher education and income levels was higher than that in the elderly with lower socioeconomic level. The comparison of the prevalence of the five forms of MS in the elderly showed that hypertension had the highest prevalence rate (72.8%), followed by hyperglycemia (41.7%) and central obesity (37.6%). The prevalence rates of hypertriglyceridemia and low HDL-C were 25.8% and 17.5%. The risk for MS in women was 1.20 times higher than that in men. Age, gender, education level, living area and urban or rural residence were the main factors influencing the prevalence of MS. Smoking, drinking and physical activity levels were correlated with MS. Conclusions The risk for MS was higher in women than in men in China’s elderly population, and the risk was related to socioeconomic level and life behaviors. It is recommended to carry out lifestyle interventions, such as increasing exercise and having reasonable diet for the elderly patients with MS. Hypertension and diabetes patients also need to be treated with drugs to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality.

Objective: To understand the control attempts of body weight and its related factors among overweight and obese adults in China. Methods: Data was from the 2013 Chinese Chronic Diseases and Risk Factors Surveillance Program, which covered 302 surveillance sites. 179 570 adults, selected through multistage stratified cluster sampling method, were interviewed. Demographic characteristics and weight-control attempts were collected via face-to-face interview. BMI, waist circumstance and blood pressure were individually measured under physical examination. Venous blood samples were obtained and tested for FPG, OGTT-2h, TC, TG, LDL-C and HDL-C. A total of 87 545 overweight and obese patients were included in this study, with the exclusion of 152 patients having the missed critical information. Rates on weight control and attempts were analyzed, using the complex weighting on samples to represent the overall overweight and obese adults in China. Results: The rate of weight-control attempts was 16.3% (95%CI: 14.9%-17.7%). Among all the 12 133 patients who had undergone weight-control measures, the proportions of different attempts were as follows: diet (40.9%, 95%CI: 38.4%-43.3%), combination of diet and physical activity (31.5%, 95%CI: 28.9%-34.0%), physical activity (22.8%, 95%CI: 21.0%-24.6%) and drug control (1.3%, 95%CI: 1.0%-1.7%). Factors as: being female (OR=1.26, 95%CI: 1.15-1.38), at younger age (18-44 years old, OR=1.51, 95%CI: 1.31-1.74), with high education levels (college degree or above, OR=4.52, 95%CI: 3.76-5.43), having high annual income (≥24 000 Yuan, OR=1.94, 95%CI: 1.63-2.30) etc., appeared as favorable factors for taking the measures vs. rural residency (OR=0.63, 95%CI: 0.55- 0.72) as the unfavorable one. Conclusion The rate of weight-control attempts appeared low among the overweight and obese adults who were affected by factors as age, education and income level. Personalized intervention measures should be carried out for people with different characteristics.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the data of non-invasive prenatal testing based on specific loci of circulating cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA). METHODS Selected loci of target chromosomes were analyzed by sequence capture and sequencing. Meanwhile, 600 loci were selected from other chromosomes for determining the concentration of cffDNA. RESULTS A total of 768 specific loci were captured on chromosomes 21 and 18, and used to determine whether the two were abnormal. When the minimum concentration of detected cffDNA was set at 3% and the threshold of Z score was set to [-6,6], the specificity of the analysis was 99.37% and the sensitivity was 100%. CONCLUSION A reliable, convenient and low-cost analytical method has been developed. The method requires less sequencing data for non-invasive prenatal testing, and can accurately detect abnormalities of fetal chromosomes 21 and 18, and simultaneously determine the concentration of cffDNA.

Because the pathogenesis of some hematologic malignancies (e.g., myeloproliferative disease, MPN; acute leukemia, AL;multiple myeloma, MM; and (hemophagocytic syndrome, HPS) involve abnormalities in the JAK/STAT pathway, a series of drugs that target the JAK/STAT pathway has been the subject of clinical trials. Ruxolitinib (also known as INCB018424), an inhibitor of the JAK1/2 pathway, was approved as the treatment choice for myelofibrosis (MF) and polycythemia vera (PV) by the U.S. Food and Drug Adminis-tration (FDA) in 2011. Moreover, some studies have shown that ruxolitinib can achieve exciting clinical results in the treatment of AL, MM, and HLH, making it a potential choice of treatment for those diseases. In this review, we summarize the advances in ruxolitinib therapy with regard to research and clinical results for the above-mentioned hematologic malignancies.

Objectives:To evaluate the long-term complications of percutaneous kyphoplasty(PKP) for osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCF),and to provide evidence for clinical procedure.Methods:Databases including CNK1,CBM,PubMed,The Cochrane Library(lssue 2,2017),Wiley Online Library,ELSEVIER Science Direct(SDOS) were used to collect the randomized controlled trials(RCTs) which compared PKP with conservative treatment in the treatment of OVCF from inception to February 2017.The diagnosis of thoracolumbar vertebral compression fracture was confirmed by X-ray,CT and MRI.The presence of thoracolumbar osteoporotic T which was less than or equal to-2.5,was confirmed by bone mineral density measurement.All the patients were 50 years or older,and disease duration was less than 6 months;postoperative outcomes included at least one of the following indicators:new vertebral fractures,adjacent fractures,serious adverse events,visual analogue score.Cochrane system evaluation manual 5.0.1 was referred to evaluate the quality of the included literatures.Results:Five RCT studies included four English literatures and one Chinese literature.Methodological quality assessment of 4 articles were more than or equal to 4 points,one article scored 3 points.PKP group consisted of 417 cases,conservative treatment group of 458 cases.The results of meta-analysis showed that there was statistical difference in VAS between the two groups after 3 to 6 months' treatment(mean difference=-0.36;95％CI-0.07 to-0.65;P=0.02).However,there was no statistical difference in new vertebral fractures,adjacent fractures or serious adverse events.Conclusions:Application of PKP in OVCF can reduce the patients' long-term (3-6 months) VAS pain score and does not increase the risks of new vertebral fractures,adjacent fractures and serious adverse events.

Although oxymatrine (OMT) has been shown to directly inhibit the replication of hepatitis B virus (HBV), limited research has been done with this drug. In the present study, the antiviral effect of OMT was investigated in an immunocompetent mouse model of chronic HBV infection. The infection was achieved by tail vein injection of a large volume of DNA solution. OMT (2.2, 6.7 and 20 mg/kg) was administered by daily intraperitoneal injection for 6 weeks. The efficacy of OMT was evaluated by the levels of HBV DNA, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) and hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg). The immunoregulatory activity of OMT was evaluated by serum ELISA and flow cytometry. Results shows that OMT at 20 mg/kg inhibited HBV replication, and it was more efficient than entecavir (ETV) in the elimination of serum HBsAg and intrahepatic HBcAg. In addition, OMT accelerated the production of interferon-(IFN-) in a dose-dependent manner in CD4T cells. Our findings demonstrate the beneficial effects of OMT on the enhancement of immunological function and in the control of HBV antigens. The findings suggest this drug to be a good antiviral therapeutic candidate for the treatment of HBV infection.

Objective To observe the effect of curcumin on the expression of smad7 and TGF-β1 in rats renal tubular cells of with Ang II, and discuss the mechanism of curcumin to improve renal interstitial fibrosis.Methods Cultured rat renal tubular epithelial cells were divided into the blank group, the Ang II control group and the low, medium and high dose curcumin group. The rest of the groups were intervened by 10-8 mol/L Ang II except the blank group; the low, medium and high dose groups of curcumin were intervened by 2.5, 5.0, 10.0μmol/L curcumin. Then Western blot was used to detect the expression of TGF-β1 and smad7 protein, RT-PCR was used to detect the TGF-β1 and smad7 mRNA expression.Results Compared with the blank group, the expression of TGF-β1 protein (0.23 ± 0.03vs. 0.16 ± 0.01), and TGF-β1 mRNA (1.89 ± 0.20vs. 1.00 ± 0.00) significantly increasedin AngⅡ control group (P<0.05), and the expression of smad7 protein (0.19 ± 0.03vs. 0.24 ± 0.02), and smad7 mRNA (0.48 ± 0.05vs. 1.00 ± 0.00) significantly reduced in AngⅡcontrol group (P<0.05). Compared with the AngⅡ control group, the expression of TGF-β1 protein in low, medium and high dose curcumingroup (0.18 ± 0.02, 0.17 ± 0.02, 0.16 ± 0.03vs. 0.23 ± 0.03) and TGF-β1 mRNA (1.58 ± 0.11, 1.34 ± 0.16, 0.97 ± 0.19vs. 1.89 ± 0.20) significantly decreased (P<0.05), and the expression of smad7 protein (0.28 ± 0.04, 0.31 ± 0.03, 0.34 ± 0.04vs. 0.19 ± 0.03) and smad7 mRNA (0.68 ± 0.07, 0.80 ± 0.06, 0.98 ± 0.09vs.0.48 ± 0.05) increased significantly (P<0.05).Conclusions Curcumin can thus play its role in renal protection by counteract the AngⅡ mediated renal interstitial fibrosis. Its mechanism may be related to the reduction of TGF-β1 protein and its mRNA expression, up regulation of smad7 protein and its mRNA expression.

Objective To analyze the specific peptide of cystatin C (CysC) and its characteristics by bioinformatics technology,and verify the predicted results by mass spectrometry.Methods Online software was applied to analyze the physicochemical properties and homology of CysC peptides hydrolyzed by trypsin and predict the associated parameters of ionized fragmentation of specific peptide by mass spectrometry.Precursor ion scan and product ion scan were conducted on the samples of synthetic specific peptide.The recombinant human CysC and serum samples were analyzed by mass spectrometry after trypsin digestion.The results of analysis were compared with the outcomes predicted by bioinformatics.Results T3 (ALDFAVGEYNK) was considered as the specific peptide of CysC by software analysis.When selecting[M + 2H] 2 + for product ion scan,almost all the y and b ions of fragmentation were observed using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS),showing consistency with Skyline predictions.Moreover,both the peptides from the human recombinant CysC and serum sample following the trypsin digestion were eluted at the same time with the isotope-labeled T3 * under the fixed conditions.Conclusion Bioinformatics technology could be available for picking out the specific peptides of target protein quickly and efficiently and predicting the ionized fragmentation precisely by mass spectrometry scanning.

Apolipoprotein C3 (APOC3) is a multifunctional protein.Its concentration is positively correlated with triglyceride (TG) levels and is an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease (CAD) prediction and development.Recent studies showed that APOC3 could not only regulate triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TRL) metabolism,but also regulated endothelial function,that is,it could induce endothelial dysfunction and disorders of lipid metabolism.Gradually,APOC3 induces atherosclerosis (AS),increases the risk of the occurrence of CAD and other related diseases.APOC3 polymorphisms are also closely related to related diseases.