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The patient, a 50-year-old male, was admitted to the hospital on April 1, 2020 with the chief complaint of "confusion with vomiting for 1 hour due to falling from height ", and the emergency craniotomy was performed. Intermittent fever with a maximum temperature of 38 ℃ occurred 3 days after the surgery, and the inflammation indexes were all higher than the upper limit of the reference values. Recurrent fever remained despite after empirical anti-infection treatment. On April 12, the patient was treated with vancomycin combined with meropenem after cerebrospinal fluid specimens routine and biochemical tests suggested intracranial infection. After 48 hours of cultivating the cerebrospinal fluid and blood specimens, some small, clear, needle-like colonies were found and they were identified as Mycoplasma humanum by using 16S rRNA gene. Eventually, the patient died due to the severity of the disease and complications.
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BACKGROUND: Increasing evidences support that the physical properties, especially stiffness, can regulate the directional differentiation of stem cells.OBJECTIVE: To review the effects of extracellular matrix on stem cell behaviors, and the research progress concerning the influence of physical properties of biomaterials on stem cell differentiation.METHODS: The first author retrieved CNKI and Web of Science databases using the keywords of extracellular matrix, bioscaffolds materials, chemical property, physical property, substrate rigidity, stem cell differentiation in Chinese and English, respectively. Finally, a total of 31 literatures were included for analysis.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The physicochemical properties expose effects on the cell proliferation, migration and differentiation, and especially the regulatory effect of stiffness on the cell differentiation has a revelation for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Searching for more biochemical and physical factors interacting with the stiffness of extracellular matrix will enable us to control cell behaviors accurately and to prepare an ideal scaffold closely similar to in vivo environment.
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ObjectiveTo examine the clinical utility of four methods in diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis.Methods A total of 60 patients with tuberculous meningitis were included as study group and another 70 patients with non-tuberculous intracranial infection as control group. Four methods, including conventional acid fast stain,Myobacterium tuberculous culture in BACTEC MGIT 960, real-time lfuorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (FQ-PCR) and modiifed acid fast stain, were used to assay the cerebrospinal lfuid specimens for diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis.ResultsThe positive rate was 11.7% (7/60), 6.7% (4/60), 48.3% (29/60), and 61.7% (37/60), respectively in the study group as tested by the four methods. There was signiifcant difference between the four methods in the positive rate (P< 0.05). Modiifed acid fast stain was more sensitive than the other 3 methods in identifying tuberculous meningitis (P< 0.05). This method also could identify the intracellularM. tuberculosis. All the 8 samples from the 4 patients who were positive for culture ofM. tuberculosis were positive in the modiifed acid fast stain.Conclusions The modiifed acid fast staining method is simple, fast, signiifcantly more senstive in detection of the acid fastM. tuberculosis in CSF, either extracellular or intracellular. It is worthwhile to further investigate its usefulness in early diagnosis of tuberculosis meningitis.
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[ ABSTRACT] AIM:To develop the cell model of polymer/liquid crystal and to study the effect of their elasticity on the adhesion of rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (rBM-MSCs).METHODS: Using the method of solvent e-vaporation induced phase separation, the cell model of polymer/liquid crystal was constructed.The surface morphology and phase separation structure were determined by polarized optical microscopy ( POM) , scanning electron microscopy ( SEM) and small angle X-ray scattering ( SAXS ) .rBM-MSCs were separated and expanded by adherent culture.The surface markers of rBM-MSCs were detected by flow cytometry.The cells were induced to osteogenic differentiation and adipogenic differentiation for 2 weeks.After 3 passages, the cells were divided into 4 groups, including total PU control group, 10%membrane group, 30%membrane group and 50%membrane group.The cells were then incubated with rhodamine phalloi-din for cytoskeleton staining and were observed under the confocal laser scanning microscope after cultured for 24 h.RE-SULTS:The cell model of polymer/liquid crystal was constructed successfully using the method of solvent evaporation in-duced phase separation.Flow cytometry results showed that the rBM-MSCs positively expressed CD29, CD44 and CD90, and negatively expressed CD34 and CD45.After stained with alizarin red S and oil red O, the calcium nodule and lipid droplets in rBM-MSCs were observed obviously.The cytoskeleton staining result indicated that the area in total PU control group, 10%membrane group and 30%membrane group were greater, and the actin microfilaments were also clearer than that in 50%membrane group.CONCLUSION:The cell model with suitable content of liquid crystal made a contribution to the rBM-MSCs’ adhesion, but too much liquid crystal inhibits cell adhesion.
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Objective To establish the modified Ziehl-Neelsen acid -fast staining method and to investigate the value of modi-fied Ziehl-Neelsen acid-fast staining method of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis(TB)with negative sputum specimen.Methods 50 cases of negative sputum pulmonary TB were performed the bronchoalveolar lavage by the fiberoptic bronchoscope before the treatment,at the same time,the bronchoalveolar lavage fluids were collected and detected by the two methods of the traditional and modified Ziehl-Neelsen staining.The diagnostic positive rates were compared between the two groups.Results The positive rates of the two kinds of acid-fast staining method were 38% and 82% respectively,the difference showing statistical significance(P <0.05 ).Conclusion The modified Ziehl-Neelsen acid-fast staining of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid can highly improve the positive diagnostic rate of pulmonary TB patients with negative sputum and deserves to be clinically promoted.
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Objective To investigate the association between vascular risk factors and the location of intracranial artery stenosis (anterior versus posterior).Methods Magnetic resonance angiography(MRA) were examined in 374 acute stroke patients.It was divided into two groups (anterior and posterior intracranial artery stenosis group).Analyzed possible risk factors.Results Univariate analysis showed there were differences between anterior and posterior intracranial artery stenosis in systolic blood pressure,history of smoking,drinking and stroke status,and national institutes of health stroke scale (NIHSS) score at discharge,short-term prognosis,serum creatinine,triglyceride,low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (P ＜ 0.05).In multivariate logistic regression analysis,high blood sugar (OR =1.135,95％ CI:1.003-1.284),history of stroke(OR =1.133,95％ CI:1.007-1.276),good short-term prognosis (OR =5.987,95％ CI:1.441-24.873) were preferentially related to anterior intracranial artery stenosis,whereas history of smoking (OR =0.003,95 ％ CI:0.000-0.376),high serum creatinine values (OR =0.509,95 ％ CI:0.328-0.790),high triglyceride values (OR =0.054,95％ CI:0.004-0.645) and high LDL-C values (OR =0.096,95％ CI:0.015-0.608) were preferentially related to posterior intracranial artery stenosis.Conclusion Vascular risk factors appeared to exert different effects of risk for anterior and posterior intracranial artery stenosis.
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BACKGROUND: Though there were many experiments addressing repairing osteochondral defects before, faulty restoration occurred at coupling interfaces. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the feasibility of repairing of osteochondral composite defects in rabbit knees with animal-origin osteochondral scaffold combined with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs)/chondrocytes.METHODS: New Zealand white rabbits were randomly divided into the experimental, control and blank groups and prepared for unilateral knee joint osteochondral defects. Animal-origin osteochondral scaffold combined with BMSCs/chondrocytes, animal-origin osteochondral scaffold and no material was implanted to repair the defects in the experimental, control and blank groups, respectively. Healing condition was evaluated by gross observation, hematoxylin-eosin staining, and toluidine blue staining at 4, 8, and 12 weeks after operation. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: At 12 weeks after operation, gross observation showed the defects were repaired completely without local depression and the regenerated tissues were fused with surrounding tissues in the experimental group. Hematoxylin-eosin staining and toluidine blue staining revealed that there were many new hyaline cartilages in the cartilage defects in which columnar cells were lined well and cartilage lacuna was obviously, also, there were many bony tissues in the bone defects. The regeneration cartilage, the underlying subchondral bone and host bone were coupled completely. The toluidine blue positive rate and histologic scores of the experimental group were superior to those of the control and blank groups (P < 0.05). It is demonstrated that animal-origin osteochondral scaffold combined with BMSCs/chondrocytes is an ideal method to repair defects between cartilage and the underlying subchondral bone.