Objective:To investigate impacts of usnic acid(UA)on malignant behavior of gastric cancer cells by regulating the chemokine(C-C motif)ligand 2(CCL2)-CCL2 receptor(CCR2)signal axis.Methods:SGC-7901 cells,a well growing human gastric cancer cell line,were treated with different concentrations of UA,which were grouped into low concentration(UA-L)group(62.5 μmol/L UA),medium concentration(UA-M)group(125 μmol/L UA)and high concentration(UA-H)group(250 μmol/L UA);meantime,the cells were transfected with CCL2 overexpression vector(pc DNA3.1 CCL2),empty vector(pc DNA3.1),silenced CCL2(si CCL2)and negative control(si control),and SGC-7901 cells were treated with 250 μmol/L UA,labeled as UA-H+pc DNA3.1 CCL2 group,UA-H+pc DNA3.1 group,UA-H+si control group and UA-H+si CCL2 group,another untreated SGC-7901 cells were taken as the control group.Flow cytometry,MTT and qRT-PCR were applied to detect cell apoptosis,proliferation,and expres-sion levels of CCL2 and CCR2 mRNA;Western blot was applied to detect expression levels of PD-L1,apoptotic protein(Bax),proli-ferative protein(CyclinD1,CCL2,CCR2)and immune escape related protein(B7H1);after co-culturing with CD8+T cells isolated and cultured in vitro,ELISA was applied to detect levels of IL-4,IFN-γ and IL-10 in the supernatant.Gastric cancer cells in each group were co-cultured with activated peripheral blood mononuclear cell(PBMC)1∶1 for 72 hours,and the sensitivity of gastric can-cer cells in each group to T-cell-mediated killing was compared.Results:Compared with control group,cell proliferation rate,IL-10 level,CyclinD1,PD-L1,CCL2,CCR2 and B7H1 protein and mRNA expressions,cell counts after co-culturing with activated PBMC 1∶1 for 72 hours in UA-L group,UA-M group and UA-H group were obviously reduced,while apoptosis rate,IL-4 and IFN-γ levels,Bax protein expression were obviously increased(P<0.05);compared with UA-H+pc DNA3.1 group,cell proliferation rate,IL-10 level,CyclinD1,PD-L1,CCL2,CCR2 protein and mRNA expressions,cell counts after co-culturing with activated PBMC 1∶1 for 72 hours in UA-H+pc DNA3.1 CCL2 group were obviously increased,while apoptosis rate,IL-4 and IFN-γ levels,and Bax protein ex-pression were obviously reduced(P<0.05);compared with UA-H+si control group,cell proliferation rate,IL-10 level,CyclinD1,PD-L1,CCL2,CCR2 and B7H1 protein and mRNA expressions,cell counts after co-culturing with activated PBMC 1∶1 for 72 hours in UA-H+si CCL2 group were obviously reduced,while apoptosis rate,IL-4 and IFN-γ levels and Bax protein expression were obviously increased(P<0.05).Conclusion:UA can inhibit gastric cancer cells proliferation,immune escape,and induce apoptosis,which may be related to the inhibition of the CCL2-CCR2 signaling axis.

Bungarus Parvus, a precious animal Chinese medicinal material used in clinical practice, is believed to be first recorded in Ying Pian Xin Can published in 1936. This study was carried out to analyze the names, geographical distribution, morphological characteristics, ecological habits, poisonousness, and medicinal parts by consulting ancient Chinese medical books and local chronicles, Chinese Pharmacopeia, different processing standards of trditional Chinese medicine(TCM) decoction pieces, and modern literatures. The results showed that the earliest medicinal record of Bungarus Parvus was traced to 1894. In 1930, this medicinal material was used in the formulation of Annao Pills. The original animal, Bungarus multicinctus, was recorded by the name of "Bojijia" in 1521. The morphological characteristics, ecological habits, and poisonousness of the original animal are the same in ancient and modern records. The geographical distribution is similar between the ancient records and modern documents such as China Medicinal Animal Fauna. The dried body of young B. multicinctus is used as Bungarus Parvus, which lack detailed references. As a matter of fact, it is still inconclusive whether there are differences between young snakes and adult snakes in terms of active ingredients, pharmacological effects, and clinical applications. This study clarified the medicinal history and present situation of Bungarus Parvus. On the basis of the results, it is suggested that systematic comparison on young and adult B. multicinctus should be carried out to provide references for revising the medicinal parts of B. multicinctus.
Animals ; Bungarus ; Snakes ; China ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal

Objective: To investigate the epidemiological characteristics of human adenovirus (HADV) 2, 3 and 7 in hospitalized children with respiratory infection. Methods: A total of 25 686 children with respiratory infection hospitalized at Children's Hospital of Hebei Province from January 2018 to December 2020 were retrospectively included.Deep sputum or nasopharyngeal aspirates of those children were collected. Then thirteen common respiratory pathogens were detected by multiplex PCR. 510 HADV positive specimens were randomly selected via random number and classified for type 2, 3 and 7 using a multiplex real-time quantitative PCR. SPSS 21.0 software was used to perform all of the statistical analyses. Enumeration data were expressed by frequency and percentage. χ² test was used for comparison between groups. Results: The HADV-positive rate was 7.99% (2 052/25 686). Children at age 3-<6 years had the highest HADV-positive rate (11.44%). The HADV-positive rate in 2019 was highest (10.64%). Among the 510 HADV-positive specimens, the proportion of type 3 was the highest (31.16%), followed by type 7 (21.37%) and type 2 (11.18%). The rate of type 2 in 2019 was significantly lower than that in 2018 and 2020 (χ²=8.954 and 16.354; P=0.003 and <0.01), while the rate of type 3 was significantly higher than that in 2018 and 2020 (χ²=5.248 and 4.811; P=0.022 and 0.028). The rate of type 2, type 3 and type 7 were lowest in winter, spring and autumn, respectively. The rate of type 2 increased significantly in autumn and the rate of type 3 and type 7 increased significantly in winter.The co-detection rate of HADV with other respiratory pathogens was 43.33%(221/510). Among, the co-detection rate of type 3 was highest (47.32%), and the co-detection rate of type 2, 3 and 7 was significantly higher than the alone detection rate (χ²=20.438, P<0.01; χ²=42.105, P<0.01; χ²=27.573, P<0.01).The proportion of severe pneumonia in children with type 7 positive (15.89%) was higher than that in children with non-type 7 positive (8.23%) (χ²=5.260, P=0.022). Conclusion: HADV is one of the important pathogens of children with respiratory infection in Children's Hospital of Hebei Province. The susceptible population of HADV is preschool children aged 3 to 6 years. HADV often co-detects with other respiratory pathogens. Type 3 and 7 is likely to be the dominant genotypes in this region, and type 7 may be one of the risk factors of severe pneumonia in children.
Child, Preschool ; Child ; Humans ; Infant ; Adenoviruses, Human/genetics* ; Child, Hospitalized ; Retrospective Studies ; Adenovirus Infections, Human/epidemiology* ; Respiratory Tract Infections/epidemiology* ; Pneumonia ; Hospitals

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease with a high disability rate and unknown etiology.Early diagnosis and early treatment are essential to prevent the further development of the disease.In reeent years, metabolomics teeh- niques have been widely used in various fields of life sciences because of its wholism, dynamics, high sensitivity and high throughput.This artiele reviews the progress of metabolomics technology in various aspects of RA investigations sueh as early diagnosis, disease classification as well as drug efficacy prediction in order to provide new ideas for clinical diagnosis and treatment of RA from the metabolic perspective.

Objective:To explore the characteristics of the changes in risk score for intensive care unit (ICU) patients during hospitalization by the intelligent calculation method, and to provide evidence for the risk prevention.Methods:In this retrospective study, ICU patients of the Fifth Central Hospital in Tianjin from November 3, 2021 to March 28, 2022 were enrolled and divided into ≥ 14 days group, 10-13 days group, 7-9 days group, and 3-6 days group according to the ICU length of stay. Risk scores assessed by the intelligent calculation method of the ICU patients were collected, including nutritional risk screening 2002 (NRS 2002), Caprini score and Padua score. NRS 2002 score for all patients, Caprini score for surgical patients and Padua score for internal medicine patients were selected. Trends in change of each score were compared between patients admitted to ICU 1, 3, 7 (if necessary), 10 (if necessary), and 14 days (if necessary).Results:A total of 138 patients were involved, including 79 males and 59 females, with an average age of (61.71±18.86) years and an average hospital stay of [6.00 (4.00, 9.25)] days. ① in the group with ICU length of stay ≥ 14 days (21 cases): there was no significant change in the NRS 2002 scores of the patients within 10 days, but the NRS 2002 score was significantly decreased in 14 days as compared with 1 day [3.00 (2.50, 3.50) vs. 4.00 (3.00, 5.00), P < 0.05]; both Caprini and Padua score were increased with prolonged hospital stay and compared with 1 day, the scores at the other time points were significantly increased, especially at 14 days [Caprini score: 5.00 (3.25, 7.00) vs. 2.50 (1.25, 5.50), Padua score: 6.00 (6.00, 7.00) vs. 3.00 (1.00, 3.00), both P < 0.05].② in the group with ICU length of stay from 10-13 days (15 cases): with the prolonged hospital stay, there was no significant change in NRS 2002 score, but both Caprini and Padua score were increased at 3, 7, 10 days, especially at 10 days [Caprini score: 3.00 (2.00, 4.75) vs. 2.00 (0.25, 2.75), Padua score: 5.00 (3.50, 6.00) vs. 2.00 (0.50, 4.00), both P < 0.05].③ in the group with ICU length of stay from 7-9 days (23 cases): compared with 1 day, the NRS 2002 score at 3 days and7 days were decreased, but the Caprini and Padua score were increased, especially at 7 days [NRS 2002 score: 2.00 (1.00, 4.00) vs. 2.00 (2.00, 4.00), Caprini score: 3.00 (2.00, 5.50) vs. 2.00 (0.25, 3.00), Padua score: 5.00 (4.00, 6.00) vs. 2.00 (0, 2.00), all P < 0.05]. ④ in the group with ICU length of stay from 3-6 days (79 cases): compared with 1 day, the NRS 2002 score at 3 days was decreased [NRS 2002 score: 2.00 (1.00, 3.00) vs. 2.00 (1.00, 3.00), P < 0.05], Caprini and Padua score were significantly increased [Caprini score: 3.00 (2.00, 4.00) vs. 2.00 (1.00, 3.00), Padua score: 5.00 (4.00, 5.00) vs. 2.00 (1.00, 3.00), both P < 0.05]. Conclusion:Based on dynamic assessment of intelligent calculation methods, the risk of thrombosis in ICU patients increased with hospital length of stay, and the nutritional risk was generally flat or reducing in different hospitalization periods.

Compared with human insulin, insulin lispro shows a faster hypoglycemic effect and a higher peak plasma concentration, which can better control postprandial hyperglycemia. In this study, we used a solid phase extraction pretreatment method and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to quantify insulin lispro in rat plasma. Bovine insulin was used as an internal standard. Plasma samples were separated on an ACQUITY UPLC Peptide CSH C₁₈ column (2.1 mm × 50 mm, 1.7 μm) after solid phase extraction. Positive electrospray ionization was performed using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) with transitions of m/z 1 162.5→217.2 for insulin lispro and m/z 1 157.5→136.0 for insulin bovine (internal standard). The method validation results showed that the linear range was 0.1 ng·mL^-1 - 100 ng·mL^-1; intra- and inter-day accuracy and precision met the acceptance criteria for biological sample analysis. The recovery of insulin lispro ranged from 63.1% to 68.1%. The method was applied in a pharmacokinetic study of insulin lispro following a single-dose subcutaneous administration to rats. Animal experiments were approved by the Experimental Animal Ethics Committee of Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Neuropsychiatric disorders are the leading cause of mental and intellectual disabilities worldwide. Current therapies against neuropsychiatric disorders are very limited, and very little is known about the onset and development of these diseases, and their most effective treatments. MIR137 has been previously identified as a risk gene for the etiology of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. Here we generated a forebrain-specific MIR137 knockout mouse model, and provided evidence that loss of miR-137 resulted in impaired homeostasis of potassium in mouse hippocampal neurons. KCC2, a potassium-chloride co-transporter, was a direct downstream target of miR-137. The KCC2 specific antagonist VU0240551 could balance the current of potassium in miR-137 knockout neurons, and knockdown of KCC2 could ameliorate anxiety-like behavior in MIR137 cKO mice. These data suggest that KCC2 antagonists or knockdown might be beneficial to neuropsychiatric disorders due to the deficiency of miR-137.

To address the increasing need for detecting and validating protein biomarkers in clinical specimens, mass spectrometry (MS)-based targeted proteomic techniques, including the selected reaction monitoring (SRM), parallel reaction monitoring (PRM), and massively parallel data-independent acquisition (DIA), have been developed. For optimal performance, they require the fragment ion spectra of targeted peptides as prior knowledge. In this report, we describe a MS pipe-line and spectral resource to support targeted proteomics studies for human tissue samples. To build the spectral resource, we integrated common open-source MS computational tools to assemble a freely accessible computational workflow based on Docker. We then applied the workflow to gen-erate DPHL, a comprehensive DIA pan-human library, from 1096 data-dependent acquisition (DDA) MS raw files for 16 types of cancer samples. This extensive spectral resource was then applied to a proteomic study of 17 prostate cancer (PCa) patients. Thereafter, PRM validation was applied to a larger study of 57 PCa patients and the differential expression of three proteins in prostate tumor was validated. As a second application, the DPHL spectral resource was applied to a study consisting of plasma samples from 19 diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients and 18 healthy control subjects. Differentially expressed proteins between DLBCL patients and healthy control subjects were detected by DIA-MS and confirmed by PRM. These data demonstrate that the DPHL supports DIA and PRM MS pipelines for robust protein biomarker discovery. DPHL is freely accessible at https://www.iprox.org/page/project.html?id=IPX0001400000.

Postmenopausal women, who have reduced circulating estrogen levels, are more prone to develop obesity and related metabolic diseases than premenopausal women. The absence of safe and effective treatments for postmenopausal obesity has changed the focus to natural products as alternative remedies. Total salvianolic acids (TSA) are the major water-soluble ingredients of Danshen. Salvianolic acid (SA) is the major constituent of the TSA. Salvianolic acids, including TSA and SA, are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine. In the present study, ovariectomized rats and LO2 cells were used to study the effects of salvianolic acids on body weight gain and hepatic steatosis. Salvianolic acids reduced ovariectomy (OVX)-induced body weight gain, attenuated the expressions of hepatic lipogenic genes, such as sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP)1, fatty acid synthase (FAS), and stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD)1, and decreased the liver triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol (TC). For the molecular mechanisms, OVX and high glucose-induced phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT)-3 was inhibited by salvianolic acids treatment. In LO2 cells, inhibition of STAT-3 by siRNA attenuated the increased expression of SREBP1 and TG induced by high glucose. Salvianolic acids reduced the upregulation of SREBP1 and TG induced by high glucose in LO2 cells. In conclusion, these findings illustrated that salvianolic acids markedly alleviated the lipid metabolism disorders and protected against the postmenopausal obesity. The underlying mechanism was probably associated with the regulation of STAT-3 signaling.
Alkenes ; administration & dosage ; Animals ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; administration & dosage ; Female ; Humans ; Lipid Metabolism ; drug effects ; Liver ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Obesity ; drug therapy ; genetics ; metabolism ; Ovariectomy ; Polyphenols ; administration & dosage ; Postmenopause ; drug effects ; genetics ; metabolism ; Rats ; STAT3 Transcription Factor ; genetics ; metabolism ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; chemistry ; Signal Transduction ; drug effects ; Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Protein 1 ; genetics ; metabolism ; Triglycerides ; metabolism

The application of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the screening and diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa) has improved the clinical management of PCa patients.However,the PSA assay has been faced with criticism due to its potential association with over-diagnosis and subsequent overtreatment of indolent patients.Matrix metalloproteinase-26 (MMP26) is a member of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and has been reported to be highly expressed in many cancers.This investigation evaluated the potential of serum MMP26 as a biomarker for PCa.The level of serum MMP26 was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in 160 subjects including PCa group (n=80),benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) group (n=40) and control group (n=40).Furthermore,we evaluated the expression of MMP26 in tissues by immunohistochemistry.The results showed the serum MMP26 levels were significantly higher in PCa group than in BPH group and control group.Similarly,the MMP26 protein was positive in PCa tissues and negative in BPH tissues and control tissues.In conclusion,these results suggested MMP26 could be used as a potential serum biomarker in the diagnosis of PCa.