Research progress in tumor microenvironmentally modulating nanostructures / 药学学报

Tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex comprehensive system composed of immune cells, inflammatory cells, tumor-associated fibroblasts, microvessels, and various cytokines and chemokines. As the living environment of tumor cells, it's closely related to the occurrence, metastasis, and recurrence of tumors. The characteristics of tumor microenvironment include: weakly acidic environment, low oxygen, high concentration of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reducing substances, immunosuppression, etc. A weakly acidic environment favors metastasis of tumor cells, hypoxia is conducive to the emergence of drug resistance, high concentration of ROS and reducing substances are beneficial for tumor treatment, and immunosuppressiveness facilitates immune escape. With the rapid development of nanotechnology, more and more nanostructures have been reported to achieve tumor treatment by regulating the tumor microenvironment. This review summarizes recent advances in the nanostructures used to regulate tumor microenvironment through changing elements, including hydrogen-ion concentration (pH), the concentration of oxygen (O2) and reactive oxygen species, and the activity of immune cells. Moreover, research directions in the future are pointed out in this review.

Effects of 5 ml straws cryopreservation on the quality and ultrastructure of boar semen / 中华男科学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate damages to the quality of boar sperm frozen in 5 ml straws, pellet and 0.25 ml straws as well as the ultrastructural changes of frozen boar sperm in 5 ml straws.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>We compared 3 different freezing packages of 5 ml straws, pellet and 0.25 ml straws to determine their effects on frozen boar semen, and observed the morphological and ultrastructural changes of the boar sperm in the 5 ml straws using scanning electron microscopy.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>In the 5 ml straws, the vitality and motility of the boar sperm after freezing were not significantly different from those in the other two formulations, the normal apical ridge (NAR) was 52.65%, higher than in the pellet but not significantly different from that in the 0.25 ml straws, and the sperm membranes were mostly bubbly, some locally broken, which indicated the damage induced by freezing and thawing.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>At the present time, boar semen frozen in 5 ml straws were not significantly different from those frozen in 0.25 ml straws. The existing freezing-thawing method may cause certain damage to the quality and ultrastructure of boar sperm, and therefore needs to be further improved.</p>

Clinicopathological analysis of 141 pediatric autopsy cases / 中华儿科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To summarize the major pathological findings, causes of deaths and reasons for misdiagnosis of 141 autopsy cases and thereby to improve the diagnosis level and reduce misdiagnosis.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>A retrospective analysis of pathological reports and clinical materials of 141 pediatric autopsy cases from June, 1986 to June, 2006 of our department was performed. Classification was based on (1) international classification of diseases of the World Health Organization; (2) age: cases 28 d-3 years old were defined as infants and young children group, -7 yeas olds were defined as preschool age group, -14 years olds were school age group; (3) when statistics was conducted, the first 3 items of the clinical diagnoses were counted. If one of them was consistent with the pathological diagnosis, it was regarded as basically in accordance with the pathology, if none of the first 3 was consistent with pathological diagnosis, the case was regarded as misdiagnosed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>(1) The top three major pathological diagnosis and causes of death were: 1) Classified according to system: 41 cases had tumor (29.1%), 25 cases had respiratory diseases (17.7%), 18 cases had infectious diseases (12.7%); 2) Classified according to disease: 18 cases had malignant histiocytosis, 12 cases had sepsis, 11 cases had lobular pneumonia. (2) The causes of deaths changed gradually. The top cause of death was respiratory diseases during the former 10 years and was tumor during the latter 10 years; the materials showed that 95 cases were 28 d-3 years old (67.4%), and some rare diseases, such as mediastinal and lung chorionic epithelioma (choriocarcinoma), and pulmonary alveolar proteinosis were found. (3) In 90 cases the clinical diagnosis was basically in accordance with the pathological diagnosis (63.8%) and misdiagnosis was found in 51 cases (36.2%).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>For clinical diagnosis of critically ill patients, both common and rare diseases should be considered. Analysis of autopsy materials could confirm and/or correct clinical diagnosis and is helpful to summarize clinical diagnosis experience.</p>

Application of spindle-view in the enucleation porcine of oocytes / 生物工程学报

The Spindle-view, a specialized instrument for observing spindle image, was applied to observe the meiotic spindles of vitro matured porcine oocytes at 36, 42, 44, 48h, and enucleation from porcine, comparing to the previously methods (McGrath-Solter's method and two-step-squeezing method) in the enucleated. The results showed that: (1) there was no noticeable differences at vicinity of spindle images and 1st polar body among in vitro matured porcine oocytes at 40-48 h under the instrument; (2) Spindle-view is suitable for the observation of meiotic spindles of matured oocytes and enucleation from porcine; the modified Spindle-view method for enucleation is significantly better than McGrath-Solter' s method and two-step-squeezing method in the enucleated rates (95.5%, 42.1%, 74.2%, P < 0.0l) of absolutely removing nuclei matter; (3) the spindle images could be used to monitor the oocyte qualities.