Current application of placebo in Chinese clinical studies in past 30 years / 中国中药杂志

To analyze and discuss placebo-related information in clinical research literatures in the past 30 years, including placebo's dosage form, ingredients, preparation process and quality control. Effort were made to research the CNKI. full-text database to preliminary find 700 placebo-related clinical research literature, screen out 301 eligible articles by hand, read the literatures to extract placebo-related information and make statistics and discussions. According to the results, Chinese randomized placebo-controlled clinical studies were characterized by diverse dosage forms of placebo with lack of reports for components, as evidenced by the only 17 literatures describing placebo's preparation or specific composition among the 301 literatures. Placebo-controlled clinical trials covered a wide range of disease spectra, but with a specific tropism of diseases in terms of system classification. Although placebo plays a key role in blinded clinical studies, researchers made less records of placebo, perhaps because they paid less attention to placebo or more attention to the research process or restricted by other objective conditions. Moreover, placebo production, quality control and quality evaluation also need to be further standardized.

Cyclosporin A inhibits the adhesion of neutrophil with ECV-304 induced by hypoxia/reoxygenation via ROS-Cyclophilin A-ERK1/2 pathway / 生理学报

To investigate the inhibition of cyclosporin A (CsA) on neutrophil adhesion to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs, ECV-304) induced by hypoxia/reoxygenation and further explore its mechanism, a 1 h hypoxia/4 h reoxygenation model was reproduced using ECV-304. The adhesion rate of neutrophils to ECV-304 was determined by measuring the activity of endogenous hexosaminidase. The expression of endothelial cell adhesion molecules of E-selectin and ICAM-1 was measured by flow cytometry. The expression of cyclophilin A (CyPA) and the activation of ERK1/2 was compared among experimental groups by Western blot. The content of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was measured by Fenton reaction. After being stimulated with 1 h hypoxia/4 h reoxygenation, ECV-304 showed an enhanced neutrophil adhensiveness in association with an increased surface expression of E-selectin and ICAM-1. In parallel, the content of ROS was also increased. These effects were significantly suppressed by the addition of CsA. Most importantly, the expression of CyPA was significantly increased following 1 h hypoxia/4 h reoxygenation, which was accompanied with an increased activation of ERK1/2. Treatment with CyPA inhibitor CsA and CyPA antisense oligonucleotides significantly inhibited the activation of ERK1/2 and decreased the adhesion of neutrophils to ECV-304. The specific ERK1/2 inhibitor PD98059 caused an inhibition of neutrophil adhesion to hypoxia/reoxygenation-stimulated ECV-304. Our data confirm that CsA inhibits neutrophil adhesion to hypoxia/reoxygenation stimulated ECV-304 by a mechanism involving inhibition of the signal transduction of ROS, CyPA and ERK1/2.