Objective:To investigate whether biochanin A(BCA)has a protective effect against dextran sodium sulfate(DSS)-in-duced ulcerative colitis(UC)in mice.Methods:Thirty C57BL/6N mice were randomly divided into normal control group,DSS model group,sulfasalazine(SASP)-positive drug control group,and low/medium/high-dose(5 mg/kg,10 mg/kg,and 20 mg/kg)BCA groups.The mouse model of UC was induced by administering 2.5%DSS aqueous solution for 7 days.During the experimental period,both the normal control and model groups were given 0.5%carboxymethyl cellulose sodium solution daily by gavage.The positive control group was given 100 mg/kg SASP,while the BCA groups were given BCA suspensions at doses of 5 mg/kg,10 mg/kg,and 20 mg/kg.The ad-ministration lasted for 10 days.Body weight changes and fecal status of the mice were recorded every day;the colon was dissected,col-lected,and measured for its length.The colon was stained with Hematoxylin-Eosin for pathomorphological study.Quantitative poly-merase chain reaction was used to determine the levels of tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α),interleukin-6(IL-6),and interleukin-10(IL-10)in the colon.Immunofluorescence was used to determine the expression of tight junction proteins,zonula occluden-1(ZO-1)and occludin,in the colon.Results:It showed that 5 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg BCA significantly alleviated weight loss in mice with UC,while 5 mg/kg,10 mg/kg,and 20 mg/kg BCA reduced the disease activity index scores.Additionally,BCA showed similar effects to SASP in improving the structure and reducing the shortening of the colon in mice with UC.Compared with the model group,all BCA groups had significantly decreased TNF-α(P=0.024、P=0.060、P=0.003)and IL-6(P=0.002、P<0.001、P<0.001)and significantly increased IL-10(P=0.006、P=0.003、P<0.001),with varying degrees of up-regulated expression of tight junction proteins.Conclusion:BCA can effectively alleviate DSS-induced symptoms,reduce intes-tinal damage,and protect the intestinal barrier in mice with UC.

Helicobacter pylori(Hp)infection is widely prevalent in the world and is a Group Ⅰ carcinogen announced by WHO.Colorectal polyps can be classified as non-adenomatous polyps and adenomatous polyps,and adenomatous polyps is recognized as precancerous lesion of colorectal cancer.More and more studies have found that Hp infection is associated with the formation of colorectal polyps.This article reviewed the progress of research on correlation between Hp infection and colorectal polyps,so as to provide reference for the formulation of clinical diagnosis and treatment strategies for gastrointestinal diseases.

ObjectiveHost mitochondrial DNA （mtDNA） and chloroplast DNA （cpDNA） contamination severely affects high-throughput sequencing of endophytic bacteria in plants. This study aims to explore and evaluate a novel strategy of inhibiting host gene amplification in high-throughput sequencing of endophytic bacteria in medicinal plants. MethodGreen Shield Sequencing （GSS） was introduced in the 16S rDNA polymerase chain reaction （PCR） of endophytic bacteria to shield the non-target amplification of genes in the host （Ligusticum chuanxiong）. The performance was compared between GSS-PCR and conventional PCR in the high-throughput sequencing of endophytic bacteria and rhizosphere soil bacteria. ResultCompared with conventional PCR， GSS-PCR significantly reduced the amplification of mtDNA and cpDNA in L. chuanxiong in high-throughput sequencing， decreasing the non-target genes by more than 60%. Moreover， this strategy significantly increased the diversity of endophytic bacteria and multiplied the species without compromising the extraction of the information about the dominant bacteria. The GSS amplification of 16S rDNA V4 region of L. chuanxiong showed lower host contamination rate and higher endophytic bacterial diversity than that of V3-V4 regions. ConclusionGSS can significantly reduce host gene contamination in the high-throughput sequencing of L. chuanxiong endophytic bacteria and improve the accuracy of endophytic bacterial diversity analysis at the same sequencing depth， thus improving the high-throughput analysis quality of endophytic bacteria in plants. Accordingly， this strategy improves the feasibility and reliability of high-throughput sequencing for the 16S rDNA V3-V4 and V4 regions of endophytic bacteria. GSS used in this study provides a method reference for studying the endophytic bacteria in other medicinal plants.

Emblic medicine is a popular natural source in the world due to its outstanding healthcare and therapeutic functions. Our preliminary results indicated that the quality of emblic medicines might have an apparent regional variation. A rapid and effective geographical traceability system has not been designed yet. To trace the geographical origins so that their quality can be controlled, an integrated spectroscopic strategy including spectral pretreatment, outlier diagnosis, feature selection, data fusion, and machine learning algorithm was proposed. A featured data matrix (245 × 220) was successfully generated, and a carefully adjusted RF machine learning algorithm was utilized to develop the geographical traceability model. The results demonstrate that the proposed strategy is effective and can be generalized. Sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE) and accuracy (ACC) of 97.65％, 99.85％ and 97.63％ for the calibrated set, as well as 100.00％ predictive efficiency, were obtained using this spectroscopic analysis strategy. Our study has created an integrated analysis process for multiple spectral data, which can achieve a rapid, nondestructive and green quality detection for emblic medicines originating from seventeen geographical origins.

Objective To investigate the effect of high active antiretroviral therapy ( HAART) on growth and development of infants born to pregnant women infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the effect on blocking mother to children transmission.Methods Totally 165 pregnant women diagnosed with HIV infection from May 2006 to May 2017 and their 169 infants, including four pairs of twins were enrolled, and 82 infants born to HIV negative pregnant women in the same period were enrolled as control .All of the pregnant women in the experimental group were administrated with HAART when HIV antibody test was positive.The delivery intervention and artificial feeding were carried out as well.The weight, height, hemoglobin (Hb), serum iron and serum calcium level of infants at birth , 12 months and six years old were monitored and compared between the two groups.Apgar scores of newborns and intelligence tests at six-year-old were also recorded.Statistical analysis was performed by t test.Results Pregnant women were generally in good conditions and well tolerated to the drugs.There were no significant differences in neonatal Apgar scores , body weight, body length, Hb, serum iron, serum calcium and CD4+T lymphocyte count between HIV positive experimental group and control group (t ＝-1.27,-1.12,-3.41,-5.62,-0.89,-3.02 and-0.74, respectively, all P＞0.05).At the age of 12 months, there were no significant differences in body weight , length, Hb, serum iron, serum calcium and CD4+T lymphocyte count between the two groups ( t ＝1.02, 1.41, 1.32, 1.03, 0.89 and 1.06, respectively, all P ＞0.05).At the age of six years, there were no significant differences in all indexes between the two groups (t＝1.02, 0.87, 1.58, 1.03, 0.92 and 2.07, respectively, all P ＞0.05).Intelligence assessment was performed in 78 children of the experimental group and 45 children of the control group at the age of six years , and there was no significant difference between the two groups ((89.7 ±12.5) score vs (91.2 ±13.7) score, t＝1.67, P＝0.43).All the children in the experimental group were positive for HIV antibody at birth , and six cases were positive for HIV RNA who were diagnosed with neonatal HIV infection.HAART was initiated for the six cases , while HIV antibody tests were still positive until the age of 18 months after HAART.The rest of the children′s HIV antibody tests became negative with the mother to children tramsission rate of 3.55%(6／169).Conclusion HAART could not only block mother to children tramsission of HIV , but also has no effect on growth and intellectual development of children during the observation period.

This article was aimed to survey the use of Chinese minority medicine, in order to provide differences and similarities among different Chinese minority medicine, and to analyze the relations among species resources, using range, functions and indications. It provided a basic scientific platform for the development, research and use of minority medicine. The books and journals published since the late 1970s (the country after the reform and opening up) had been collected, classified. And reference books on current Chinese minority medicine had been compiled. The results showed that the first draft of the book had been completed and delivered to the press. The dictionary had cited 53 traditional medicine used by minority groups. The total number of minority medicine was 7 734. The total characters amount in the book was 1 700 000 words. It was concluded that the species of minority medicine were various. There was rich information on their harvest, medicinal parts, functions and indications with prominent features. The existing major problems were to clarify the standard of the species as well as their major functions and indications.

This study was aimed to analyze the volatile oil of Mentha crispata Schrad. ex Willd. in order to provide evidence for its chemotype and guidance for its production application. The chemical analysis was detected by headspace GC-MS. The results showed that 64 chemical compounds were detected. It was concluded that the volatile oil of M. crispata Schrad. ex Willd. mainly contained eucalyptol (35.58%), limonene (16.92%) and pinene (15.33%). It was concluded that the analysis on composition characteristics and main compounds of M. crispata Schrad. ex Willd. can provide evidences in its production application and chemotype.

This study aims at trying to establish a novel method of sterility test for injections based on biothermodynamics, in order to overcome the deficiencies of routine sterility tests such as long detecting cycle, low sensitivity and prone to misjudgments. A biothermodynamics method was adopted to rapidly detect the microorganism contamination of injections by monitoring the heat metabolism during the growth of microbe. The growth rate equal to or greater than zero and the heat power difference of P(i) and P(0) with three folds higher than the noise of baseline were chosen as indexes to study the heat change rule of microbe. In this way, the effectiveness of the new method to detect strains required by conventional sterility test or in injection samples was also investigated. Results showed that the Gram-positive bacteria, Gram-negative bacteria and fungi demanded by sterility testing methodology could be detected by biothermodynamics method within 10 hours, with the sensitivity lower than 100 CFU x mL(-1). Meanwhile, this method was successfully applied to the sterility test of Compound Yinchen injection (FFYC), Shuanghuanglian powder injection (SHL) and Compound Triamcinolone injection (TAND) which were sterilized with different degrees. Therefore, the biothermodynamics method, with advantages of fast detection and high sensitivity, could be a complementary solution for conventional sterility tests.

In this review, the authors summarized the new technologies and methods for identifying traditional Chinese medicinal materials, including molecular identification, chemical identification, morphological identification, microscopic identification and identification based on biological effects. The authors introduced the principle, characteristics, application and prospect on each new technology or method and compared their advantages and disadvantages. In general, new methods make the result more objective and accurate. DNA barcoding technique and spectroscopy identification have their owner obvious strongpoint in universality and digitalization. In the near future, the two techniques are promising to be the main trend for identifying traditional Chinese medicinal materials. The identification techniques based on microscopy, liquid chromatography, PCR, biological effects and DNA chip will be indispensable supplements. However, the bionic identification technology is just placed in the developing stage at present.
DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis ; Polymerase Chain Reaction

OBJECTIVETo investigate the history of the medicinal uses, resources, distribution, habitat and population characteristic of Coptis deltoidea, and provide basis for the protection and rational development and utilization of Radix Coptidis Deltoideae.

METHODThe relevant literature and data was scrutinized and herbarium was compared, interview and field survey methods were carried out.

RESULTThe medicinal history, resources, distribution, population characteristic and protective strategy of C. deltoidea were summarized. The sustainable development of C. deltoidea was discussed.

CONCLUSIONThe resource is endangered, the germplasm resources should be intentionally protected and ensure the sustainable development and utilization of C. deltoidea.