Recent advances of the etiology and mechanism of biliary atresia / 中华实用儿科临床杂志

Biliary atresia ( BA) is a pediatric liver disease characterized by progressive inflammation and fi-brosis of both the extrahepatic and intrahepatic bile ducts. Even though Kasai portoenterostomy increases the survival of children with BA, 80% of patients with BA will eventually require liver transplantation, making this condition the leading indication for pediatric liver transplantation worldwide. Currently,the causes of this disease are largely unde-fined and theories of pathogenesis include viral infection,autoimmune-mediated bile duct destruction,and abnormalities in bile duct development.

Effect of fibrotic plates of porta hepatis on the prognosis of Kasai procedure with biliary atresia / 中华实用儿科临床杂志

Objective To investigate the correlation between the remnants of extrahepatic bilie duct with the prognosis of biliary atresia after Kasai operation.Methods From Sep.2005 to Sep.2011,93 cases of biliary atresia [51 boys and 42 girls,ages at operation:61 days(40-121 days)] in Tongji Hospital Affiliated of Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology were operated with Kasai procedure,and the diagnosis of type Ⅲ biliary atresia was based on the cholangiography and the intraoperative findings.According to whether there was fibrotic remnant plates of porta hepatis or not,type Ⅲ biliary atresia cases were grouped into 2 subtypes:subtype A,in which there was fibrotic remnant plates of porta hepatis (n =80) ; subtype B,in which there was no fibrotic remnant plates,but solid cords structure like hepatic duct was observed(n =13).Specimens of the remnants were colleted in operation and pathologic section detected the degree of bile ductular proliferation in the remnants.Postoperatively,all of the patients were followed up.The contents included the cholangitis occurrence rate,the jaundice disappearance rate and survival rate during postoperative 2 years.Results The patients had more bile ductular proliferation in subtype A (x2 =18.49,P ＜0.05).There was no significant difference in incidence of cholangitis in postoperative 1 month between the 2 groups (x2 =0.01,P ＞ 0.05).The jaundice disappearance rate in postoperative 6 months of subtype A was higher than the rate of subtype B(x2 =9.19,P ＜ 0.05).The survival rate during postoperative 2 years of subtype A was higher than the rate of subtype B(x2 =4.49,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions There are higher jaundice disappearance rate and 2 years survival rate in type Ⅲ biliary atresia with the fibrotic remnant plates of porta hepatis,which suggest that there is more bile ductular proliferation in the extrahepatic remnants which is good for biliary drainage in subtype A after Kasai operation,and it can slow down hepatic injury and have a long-term good life quality.

Application of orthogonal design in optimization of the transfection efficiency of polyethylenimine mediated gene transfer to hepatoma carcinoma cells / 生物医学工程学杂志

This study was aimed to develop non-toxic, high transfection efficiency polyethyleneimine(PEI) cationic nanoparticles. The exosyndrome of PEI cationic nanoparticles was measured by zeta sizer, ultraviolet and visible spectroscopy. The condensation ability and the resistance to DNaseI of pEGFP-N1/PEI and pEGFP-N1/PEI modified polyethylene glycol(PEG) were evaluated by agarose gel electrophoresis. The cell toxicity of polyethyleneimine cationic nanoparticles was measured by using MTT test. The orthogonal design was used to optimize the transfection efficiency with the N/P ratio, the grafting ratio and the gene dosage as the factors. The experimental results showed that pEGFP-N1/PEI nanoparticles have lower cell toxicity, better composite ability and better resistance to DNAseI. The highest transfection efficiency of PEI cationic nanoparticles was 91% by using the PEI nanoparticles with the N/P ratio 40:1 and gene dosages 6 microg/well. PEI cationic nanoparticle modified by PEG effectively transferred DNA to hepatoma carcinoma cells and it is a non-toxic, with high transfection efficiency, and a promising non-viral carrier for gene delivery. The transfection efficiency will be improved by optimizing the experiment condition.

Progress of nanometer vector polyethylenimine applied in gene therapy / 生物医学工程学杂志

Polyethylenimine (PEI) is a kind of nanometer nonviral vector frequently applied in gene transfection. It is simple and easy to prepare and to modify and relatively safe compared to viral vectors. In recent years, PEI has been utilized in many research areas for gene delivery to stem cells in vitro or targeted gene delivery to cells in the brain. This review reveals that the cytotoxicity and low transfection efficiency of PEI requires to be improved. However brain-targeted modification indicates the promising prospect of PEI for gene therapy in cerebrovascular diseases.