The AP2/ERF transcription factor family is a class of transcription factors widely present in plants, playing a crucial role in regulating flowering, flower development, flower opening, and flower senescence. Based on transcriptome data from flower, leaf, and stem samples of two Lonicera macranthoides varieties, 117 L. macranthoides AP2/ERF family members were identified, including 14 AP2 subfamily members, 61 ERF subfamily members, 40 DREB subfamily members, and 2 RAV subfamily members. Bioinformatics and differential gene expression analyses were performed using NCBI, ExPASy, SOMPA, and other platforms, and the expression patterns of L. macranthoides AP2/ERF transcription factors were validated via qRT-PCR. The results indicated that the 117 LmAP2/ERF members exhibited both similarities and variations in protein physicochemical properties, AP2 domains, family evolution, and protein functions. Differential gene expression analysis revealed that AP2/ERF transcription factors were primarily differentially expressed in the flowers of the two L. macranthoides varieties, with the differentially expressed genes mainly belonging to the ERF and DREB subfamilies. Further analysis identified three AP2 subfamily genes and two ERF subfamily genes as potential regulators of flower development, two ERF subfamily genes involved in flower opening, and two ERF subfamily genes along with one DREB subfamily gene involved in flower senescence. Based on family evolution and expression analyses, it is speculated that AP2/ERF transcription factors can regulate flower development, opening, and senescence in L. macranthoides, with ERF subfamily genes potentially serving as key regulators of flowering duration. These findings provide a theoretical foundation for further research into the specific functions of the AP2/ERF transcription factor family in L. macranthoides and offer important theoretical insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying floral phenotypic differences among its varieties.
Plant Proteins/chemistry* ; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant ; Transcription Factors/chemistry* ; Lonicera/classification* ; Flowers/metabolism* ; Phylogeny ; Gene Expression Profiling ; Multigene Family

Slicing is critical in the processing of Chinese materia medica(CMM) processed product and the specification(thickness) is closely related to the quality of the decoction. On the basis of clarifying the concept and evolution of slicing of CMM processed product by reviewing the Chinese herbal classics of the past dynasties and general rules of local processing standards, this study discussed the development history of slicing specifications in general rules of Chinese Pharmacopoeia(2020 edition), analyzed the current situation and key problems, and proposed the thinking and suggestion on promoting the sound development of slicing of CMM processed product. Since 2000, the slicing thickness of CMM processed product in the general rules of local CMM processed product processing specifications newly revised and issued by 27 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities has been consistent with that in the general rules of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia(2020 edition). The standard that the thickness of extremely thin pieces is less than 0.5 mm is rarely retained, and the pieces in 0.5-1 mm thickness have not been found on the market, which is consistent with the provisions of the general rules of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. This study can provide a historical and modern basis for the rationality of slicing of CMM processed product.
Materia Medica ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Reference Standards

Rheumatoid arthritis(RA), as a chronic autoimmune disease, has a high incidence and disability rate, causing significant suffering to patients. Due to its complex pathogenesis, it has not been fully elucidated to date, and its treatment remains a challenging problem in the medical field. Although western medicine treatment options have certain efficacy, they require prolonged use and are expensive. Additionally, they carry risks of multiple infections and adverse reactions like malignancies. The Chinese herbal medicine Rhododendron molle is commonly used in folk medicine for its properties of dispelling wind, removing dampness, calming nerves, and alleviating pain in the treatment of diseases like rheumatic bone diseases. In recent years, modern clinical and pharmacological studies have shown that the diterpenoids in R. molle are effective components, exhibiting immune-regulatory, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic effects. This makes it a promising candidate for treating RA with a broad range of potential applications. However, R. molle has certain toxic properties that hinder its clinical application and lead to the wastage of its resources. This study reviewed recent research progress on the mechanism of R. molle in preventing and treating RA, focusing on its chemical components, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties and summarized the adverse reactions associated with R. molle, aiming to offer new ideas for finding natural remedies for RA and methods to reduce toxicity while enhancing the effectiveness of R. molle. The study seeks to clarify the safety and efficacy of R. molle and its extracts, providing a theoretical basis for its application prospects and further promoting the development and utilization of R. molle resources.
Humans ; Rhododendron/chemistry* ; Arthritis, Rheumatoid/drug therapy* ; Anti-Inflammatory Agents ; Diterpenes/pharmacology* ; Analgesics

Drug instructions,the statutory and technical documents recording effectiveness and safety information,are an important basis for guiding doctors,pharmacists,and patients to use drugs rationally,and their scientificity,standardization,and accuracy directly affect the medication safety of the public. The sections of adverse drug events,contraindications,precautions,warnings,and application for specific populations in drug instructions directly express safety information and measures for rational use of drugs. In the drug life cycle,marketing authorization holders( MAHs) need to update safety information in the instructions promptly to ensure the safety and effectiveness of clinical drug medication. At present,revising instructions is an important measure to control drug risks. In the drug life cycle,in order to standardize the revision of safety information in the instructions by MAHs and eliminate inexact terms such as " unclear",the Technical Specifications for Revision of Safety Information in Marketed Chinese Patent Medicine Instructions,a series of group standards,have been established under the guidance of Standardization Department,China Association of Chinese Medicine. Therefore,on the basis of the existing rules and regulations,the standardized technical procedures for revising instructions came into being to help clinical safe and rational medication of drugs,and implement the strategy of " Healthy China".
China ; Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal/adverse effects* ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Nonprescription Drugs/adverse effects* ; Reference Standards

Technical Specifications for Revision of Safety Information in Marketed Chinese Patent Medicine Instructions,a series of group standards,were proposed by Professor ZHANG Bing from Research Center for Pharmacovigilance and Rational Use of Traditional Chinese Medicine,and underwent centralized management by Chinese Association of Chinese Medicine. They were officially released on July 23 and implemented on July 31,2021. The series of group standards consist of six sections,including general principles,adverse drug events,contraindications,precautions,application for special populations,and warnings. The section of general principles is comprised of holistic and programmatic expressions,which explain the general technical requirements for revising the marketed Chinese patent medicine instructions. The other five sections focus on information collection,screening,transformation,and illustration of specific items,forming a standardized revision technical process. This series of standards is the result of multiple rounds of research and the suggestions of more than 200 experts in different professional fields of " medicine-pharmacy-management-law-enterprise" have been gathered therein to reach a consensus. With the purposes of establishing standardized technical specifications for the revision of safety information in the marketed Chinese patent medicine instructions,guiding marketing authorization holders in revising the instructions,filling the gaps in the research of Chinese patent medicine instructions,promoting the deve-lopment of pharmaceutical care and academic research,and encouraging the rational and safe medication of Chinese patent medicine,the series of group standards is of great significance.
China ; Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal/adverse effects* ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Nonprescription Drugs/adverse effects* ; Pharmacovigilance

Network pharmacology and the mouse model of viral pneumonia caused by influenza virus FM_1 were employed to explore the main active components and the mechanism of Pulsatilla chinensis against the inflammatory injury of influenza virus-induced pneumonia. The components and targets of P. chinensis were searched from TCMSP, and the targets associated with influenza virus-induced pneumonia were searched from GeneCards. The common targets between P. chinensis and influenza virus-induced pneumonia were identified with Venn diagram established in Venny 2.1. The herb-component-disease-target(H-C-D-T) network was constructed by Cytoscape 3.7.2. The above data were imported into STRING for PPI network analysis. Gene Ontology(GO) enrichment and KEGG pathway enrichment were performed with DAVID. BALB/cAnN mice were infected with the influenza virus FM_1 by nasal drip to gene-rate the mouse model of pneumonia. Immunohistochemistry was adopted to the expression profiling of inflammatory cytokines in the lung tissues of mice in the blank group, model group, and P. chinensis group 1, 3, 5, and 7 days after infection. The pathological changes of lung and trachea of mice in blank group, model group, and P. chinensis group were observed with light microscope and scanning electron microscope at all the time points. The network pharmacological analysis indicated that 9 compounds of P. chinensis were screened out, with a total of 57 targets, 22 of which were overlapped with those of influenza virus-induced pneumonia. A total of 112 GO terms(P<0.05) were enriched, including 81 terms of biological processes, 11 terms of cell components, and 20 terms of molecular functions. A total of 53 KEGG signaling pathways(P<0.05) were enriched, including TNF signaling pathway, influenza A signaling pathway, NF-κB signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway and other signaling pathways related to influenza/inflammation. In the P. chinensis group, the expression of TNF-α and IL-1 in the lung tissue was down-regulated on the 3 rd day after infection, and that of IL-6 in the lung tissue was down-regulated on the 5 th day after infection. Light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy showed that P. chinensis significantly alleviated the pathological damage of lung and trachea compared with the model group. This study reflects the multi-components, multi-targets, and multi-pathways of P. chinensis against influenza virus-induced pneumonia. P. chinensis may reduce the production of proinflammatory cytokines and mediators and block the pro-inflammatory signaling pathways to alleviate viral pneumonia, which provides reference for future research.
Animals ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; Mice ; Network Pharmacology ; Orthomyxoviridae ; Pneumonia/genetics* ; Pulsatilla

Objective:To investigate the spectrum of pathogenic agents in pediatric patients with acute respiratory infections (ARI) during the outbreak of coronavirus infectious diseases 2019 (COVID-19).Methods:Three groups of children were enrolled into the prospective study during January 20 to February 20, 2020 from Capital Institute of Pediatrics, including children in the exposed group with ARI and epidemiological history associated with COVID-19 from whom both pharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swabs were collected, children in the ARI group without COVID-19 associated epidemiological history and children in the screening group for hospital admission, with neither COVID-19 associated epidemiological history nor ARI. Only nasopharyngeal swabs were collected in the ARI group and screening group. Each group is expected to include at least 30 cases. All specimens were tested for 2019-nCoV nucleic acid by two diagnostic kits from different manufacturers. All nasopharyngeal swabs were tested for multiple respiratory pathogens, whilst the results from the ARI group were compared with that in the correspondence periods of 2019 and 2018 used by t or χ 2 test. Results:A total of 244 children were enrolled into three groups, including 139 males and 105 females, the age was (5±4) years. The test of 2019-nCoV nucleic acid were negative in all children, and high positive rates of pathogens were detected in exposed (69.4%, 25/36) and ARI (55.3%, 73/132) groups, with the highest positive rate for mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) (19.4%, 7/36 and 17.4%, 23/132, respectively), followed by human metapneumovirus (hMPV) (16.7%, 6/36 and 9.8%, 13/132, respectively). The positive rate (11.8%, 9/76) of pathogens in the screening group was low. In the same period of 2019, the positive rate of pathogens was 83.7% (77/92), with the highest rates for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) A (29.3%, 27/92), followed by influenza virus (Flu) A (H1N1) (19.6%, 18/92) and adenovirus (ADV) (14.1%, 13/92), which showed significant difference with the positive rates of the three viruses in 2020 (RSV A: χ 2=27.346, P<0.01; FluA (H1N1): χ 2=28.083, P<0.01; ADV: χ 2=7.848, P=0.005) . In 2018, the positive rate of pathogens was 61.0% (50/82), with the highest rate for human bocavirus (HBoV) (13.4%, 11/82) and followed by ADV (11.0%, 9/82), and significant difference was shown in the positive rate of HBoV with that in 2020 (χ 2=6.776, P=0.009). Conclusions:The infection rate of 2019-nCoV is low among children in Beijing with no family clustering or no close contact, even with epidemiological history. The spectrum of pathogens of ARI in children during the research period is quite different from that in the previous years when the viral infections were dominant. MP is the highest positively detected one among the main pathogens during the outbreak of COVID-19 in Beijing where there is no main outbreak area.

Objective To study the effect of overwork stress response on the expression of connexin 43（Cx43） and connexin 45（Cx45） in cardiomyocytes and on cardiac function. Methods The experimental animals were divided into control group, overworked 1-month group and overworked 2-month group. A overworked rat model was established by forcing swimming of overworked group. The expressions of Cx43 and Cx45 in myocardial tissues of experimental animals were detected by Western blotting, while the corresponding myocardial tissues were stained with hematoxylin-eosin （HE） staining and Masson's staining, then histologically observed. Results Western blotting results showed that, compared with the control group, Cx43 expression in myocardial tissues of overworked rats decreased while Cx45 expression increased. HE staining and Masson's staining results showed that hypertrophy, rupture and interstitial fiber tissue hyperplasia were observed in myocardial fibers of overworked rats. Conclusion Overwork stress response may affect cardiac function as an independent factor and may even cause heart failure or arrhythmias and lead to death.
Animals ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac/metabolism* ; Connexin 43/metabolism* ; Connexins/metabolism* ; Heart Failure ; Myocardium ; Myocytes, Cardiac/metabolism* ; Rats

Background:Studies on the association between spicy food intake and cancer risk have reported inconsistent results. We quantitatively assessed this association by conducting a meta-analysis based on evidence from case-control studies.

Methods:PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library were searched for eligible publications. Combined odds ratios (OR s) with their 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using a random- or fixed-effects model. The methodological quality of the included articles was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale (NOS). All data were analyzed using STATA 11.0 software (version 11.0; StataCorp., College Station, TX, USA). Subgroup analyses were also performed with stratification by region, sex, number of cases, cancer subtype, source of the control group, and NOS score.

Results:A total 39 studies from 28 articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis (7884 patients with cancer and 10,142 controls). Comparison of the highest versus lowest exposure category in each study revealed a significant OR of 1.76 (95% CI = 1.35-2.29) in spite of significant heterogeneity (P < 0.001). In the subgroup analyses, this positive correlation was still found for gastric cancer, different regions, different numbers of cases, different sources of the control group, and high-quality articles (NOS score of ≥ 7). However, no statistically significant association was observed for women, esophageal cancer, gallbladder cancer, or low-quality articles (NOS score of <7). No evidence of publication bias was found.

Conclusions:Evidence from case-control studies suggested that a higher level of spicy food intake may be associated with an increased incidence of cancer despite significant heterogeneity. More studies are warranted to clarify our understanding of the association between high spicy food intake and the risk of cancer.

Objective To investigate the therapeutic potential of adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) for limited cutaneous scleroderma (LS) in mouse models. Methods ADSCs were isolated from pathogen-free female C57BL/6 mice and LS was induced in wild type (WT) C57BL/6 mice via daily injection of bleomycin (0.1 mL × 300 μg/mL) for 4 weeks; then the ADSCs were subcutaneously injected into the dorsal area in the model treatment group, and 100 μL of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution was injected into the same site in the model control group. Green fluorescent protein (GFP) was used to track the cells using an in vivo imaging system on days 7, 14, 21, and 28 after transplantation. All mice were sacrificed and histologic analyses were performed after 4 weeks, and the skin thickness, collagen deposition and the total content of hydroxyproline were evaluated. Additionally, immunohistochemistry were performed to compare the tissue expression and distribution of TGF-β1 and VEGF between the ADSCs treatment group and the treatment control group. Results WT C57BL/6 LS mouse model were successfully established and GFP in vivo fluorescence imaging showed that the translated ADSCs survived at the local for at least 4 weeks. Compared with the control group, the ADSCs treatment group significantly attenuated bleomycin-induced dermal fibrosis, reduced the skin thickness and the total content of hydroxyproline (P < 0.05). The ADSCs treatment group displayed significantly lower levels of TGF-β1 and higher levels of VEGF than the control group (P < 0.05). Conclusions ADSCs may provide a feasible and practical treatment for autoimmune diseases such as LS and ameliorate dermal fibrosis.