ABSTRACT
Acorus tatarinowii is the dried rhizome of the Araceae plant Acorus tatarinowii Schott.Acorus tata-rinowii was first recorded in Shennong's Classic of Mate-ria Medica.It was used for the treatment of epilepsy,amnesia,insomnia,tinnitus,deafness,silent diarrhea,and other diseases.Alzheimer's disease(AD),also known as senile dementia,is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system.It is mainly manifested as neuropsychiatric symptoms such as progressive memory impairment,cognitive dysfunction,personality changes and language disorders.Acorus tatarinowii mainly con-tains phenylpropylene,lignans,alkaloids,sugars,organic acids and amino acids,among which volatile compo-nents such as β-asarone are the main active compo-nents.The main mechanism of action of Acorus tatari-nowii in the prevention and treatment of AD is as follows:① Improve memory ability.Increasing the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor(BDNF),extracellular signal-regulated kinase(ERK)and adenosine cyclic phosphate response element binding protein(CREB)can improve cognitive dysfunction.Studies have shown that Acorus tatarinowii can increase the expression of BDNF,ERK,CREB and tyrosine receptor kinase B in the hippo-campus of mice to varying degrees.It can significantly improve the memory ability of memory-impaired mice,so as to achieve the purpose of prevention and treatment of AD.② Anti-oxidative stress.Studies have shown that Acorus tatarinowii can reduce the production of malondi-aldehyde in skeletal muscle,increase superoxide dis-mutase activity and total antioxidant capacity,and repair the balance of oxidative stress.③ Acetylcholinesterase inhibition.The loss of consciousness caused by deficiency of kidney essence in AD patients is related to the patho-logical changes of the cholinergic nervous system.The results showed that Acorus tatarinowii could significantly increase the contents of glutamate and acetylcholine in the cerebral cortex of AD model mice,and decrease the activity of acetylcholinesterase,to achieve the anti-AD effect.④ Anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects.The damage of neurons in the brain of AD patients is related to the excessive inflammatory immune response of nerve cells including microglia and astrocytes.The results showed that Acorus tatarinowii can inhibit the autophagy of microglia in rats with cerebral hemorrhage,and has neuroprotective effect,to achieve the effect of anti-AD.In this study,the effects of Acorus tatarinowii on AD were reviewed to further clarify its pharmacological ef-fects,and to provide a basis for clinical application and research.
ABSTRACT
Alzheimer's disease(AD)is a neurode-generative disease with insidious onset and progressive development.In recent years,the prevalence of AD has shown a linear upward trend.At present,its pathogene-sis is not clear.Lycium barbarum polysaccharide(LBP)is one of the main effective components extracted from the dried ripe fruit of Lycium barbarum L.,a solanaceae plant.It has many pharmacological effects such as anti-aging,anti-oxidation,anti-fibrosis,anti-inflammation,neu-roprotection and immunomodulation.LBP has been widely studied in the field of prevention and treatment of AD because of its good anti-aging and neuroprotective effects.Its prevention and treatment mechanism mainly includes the following points:① Regulating the apoptosis of nerve cells.Studies have shown that the signal pathway com-posed of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B(PI3K/Akt)participates in a series of processes such as the growth,proliferation and apoptosis of neurons and plays an important regulatory role.LBP can reduce the number of cell apoptosis,increase the expression levels of autophagy protein Beclin1 and microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3Ⅱ(LC3Ⅱ),and decrease the expres-sion levels of p-Akt and phosphorylated mammalian target protein of rapamycin(p-mTOR),which indicates that Lycium barbarum polysaccharide can prevent and treat AD by inhibiting PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway and improv-ing the autophagy level of cells.②Inhibition of amyloid β-protein(Aβ)production.Aβ is the main component of senile plaque,which is regarded as the main biomarker of AD.It is found that the neurotoxicity of Aβ plays a role by increas-ing the influx of Ca2+ mediated by N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor in the process of signal transduction in the brain,and then generating reactive oxygen species(ROS)and apoptosis signals.LBP can promote autophagy of HT22 cells by inhibiting PI3K/Akt pathway,which has a protec-tive effect on Aβ-induced toxicity.③ Inhibit the produc-tion of inflammatory cytokines.In the pathogenesis of AD,microglia are activated when they feel pathological accumulation of Aβ,and then cell surface immune and adhesion molecules such as cluster of differentiation 45(CD45),CD40,CD36 and integrins are activated,thereby recruiting Src family kinases and activating MAPK path-way,leading to over-expression of proinflammatory fac-tors.A large number of cytokines and chemokines are produced,which may lead to synapse damage and loss.For example tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α)can induce neuronal apoptosis and injury.The production of interleu-kin,and other cytokines and chemokines may also lead to microglia activation,astrocyte proliferation,and further secretion of proinflammatory factors and amyloid deposi-tion,thus making the neuroinflammatory cascade perma-nent.LBP can down-regulate the expression of TNF-α and IL-1β genes,reduce the level of intracellular ROS,and improve the learning and memory ability of AD patients.In this paper,the mechanism of Lycium barbarum polysaccharide in preventing and treating AD is reviewed,in order to provide basis for drug development and clini-cal application.
ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the difference in efficacy between multiparametric MRI (Mp-MRI) based on prostate imaging reporting and data system version 2 (PI-RADS v2) and abbreviated biparametric MRI (Bp-MRI) in detecting prostate cancer (PCa) and clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa), and to evaluate the consistency of image interpretation between different readers. Methods The imaging, pathological and clinical data of patients with prostatic Mp-MRI in our hospital from February 2015 to June 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. At the beginning, 250 patients were randomly selected. Two radiologists visually evaluated the images of those patients using two 5-point scoring schemes based on Mp-MRI and Bp-MRI. The remaining cases were independently proceeded by one of the radiologists using two schemes respectively. Weighted Kappa test was used to assess the consistency of the results interpreted by the two radiologists. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the efficiency of the two scoring schemes in detecting PCa and csPCa, and with Z test to investigate whether there was any difference in detection efficiency between the two schemes. Results Nine hundred and seventy eight patients were eventually enrolled in the study. The results of the consistency assessment showed that there was good agreement between the two radiologists, whether using Mp-MRI or Bp-MRI, with the weighted Kappa coefficient of 0.800 and 0.812, respectively. The ROC curve analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of PCa detected by Mp-MRI and Bp-MRI was 0.873 and 0.879, respectively, and the AUC of csPCa detected was 0.922 and 0.932, respectively. In addition, there was no statistically significant difference between the AUC of PCa and csPCa detected by the two schemes (P>0.05). Conclusion The Bp-MRI scoring scheme has good stability in the evaluation of benign and malignant prostate, and its detection efficiency of PCa or csPCa is not lower than that of standard Mp-MRI based on PI-RADS v2.
ABSTRACT
Objective@#To evaluate the current status of the primary and secondary schools’ teaching environment in China and associated factors,and to provide the support for making differentiated interventional stategies.@*Methods@#Data regarding to information of the primary and secondary schools was obtained by random inspection from the National Health and Family Planning Commission in 2018. Chi-square test was used to compare differences of qualified rates between groups. Spearman correlation analyses was applied to examine the correlations among population density, per capita GDP and qualified rates.@*Results@#Among the total of 37 531 schools, the overall qualified rate of teaching environmental sanitation of primary and secondary schools in 2018 was 59.1%. The qualifying rate in urban areas (60.3%) was higher than that of rural areas (59.4%) and towns (56.7%). Primary schools (59.8%) had higher qualifying rates than junior high schools (58.2%) and senior high schools (51.8%). In terms of each evaluation item, the qualifying rates of school furniture equipment including desks and chairs were the lowest, while the qualifying rates of dormitory ventilation ranked highest. Large variations among provinces were observed for the qualifying rates for school furniture equipment, as well as blackboard illumination. Those provinces with higher per capita GDP and higher population density had higher the qualifying rates for school furniture equipment.@*Conclusion@#The overall qualifying rate of Chinese primary and secondary schools’ teaching environment is low. Among all the evaluation measures, qualifying rates of dormitory ventilation are relatively good, while school furniture equipment needs to be improved. Notably, strengthened and targeted management should be applied to improve schools’ teaching environment in new era.
ABSTRACT
We proposed a new algorithm for automatic identification of fluorescent signal. Based on the features of chromatographic chips, mathematic morphology in RGB color space was used to filter and enhance the images, pyramid connection was used to segment the areas of fluorescent signal, and then the method of Gaussian Mixture Model was used to detect the fluorescent signal. Finally we calculated the average fluorescent intensity in obtained fluorescent areas. Our results show that the algorithm has a good efficacy to segment the fluorescent areas, can detect the fluorescent signal quickly and accurately, and finally realize the quantitative detection of fluorescent signal in chromatographic chip.