Berberine exerts antidepressant-like effects via regulating miR-34a-synaptotagmin1/Bcl-2 axis / 中草药·英文版

Objective: Berberine, a cationic alkaloid first isolated in 1917, has been approved by the China Drug Administration for decades. Accumulating evidence demonstrated its antidepressant-like activities in vivo. Our previous study has shown that chronic stress leads to the upregulation of miR-34a in the hippocampus of mice. This study aims to evaluate the underlying miR-34a mediated mechanism of berberine in chronic stress-induced depression in mice. Methods: In the present study, mice were administered with berberine during chronic stress. Levels of miR-34a, dendritic density, mitochondrial morphology, and neurogenesis were assessed in the hippocampus. Subsequently, miR-34a agomir was used as a pharmacological intervention for the investigation of berberine. Results: The results showed that berberine reversed the decrease in sucrose preference and the increase in latency to feed without altering total food consumption. Furthermore, chronic stress-induced overexpression of miR-34a decreased synaptotagmin-1 and Bcl-2 levels, thereby impairing spinal morphology, mitochondria and neurogenesis. Berberine inhibited miR-34a expression, in turn restored synaptotagmin-1 and Bcl-2 levels, and thus improved spinal morphology, mitochondria and neurogenesis in the hippocampus. However, the improvements induced by berberine were totally blocked by the pretreatment of miR-34a agomir, which caused the elevation of miR-34a levels in the hippocampus. Conclusion: This finding demonstrated that miR-34a downregulation was involved in the antidepressant-like effects of berberine in mice exposed to chronic stress.

Meta-analysis of the role of two common prostheses in total hip replacement / 中国医学科学院学报

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To systematically review the role of two common prostheses(metal on metal and metal on polythene)in total hip replacement.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Studies on two prostheses(metal on metal and metal on polythene)in total hip replacement were searched in databases including PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane library, CNKI database, WANFANG database, and VIP database using key words including"metal on metal", "metal on polythene", and "total hip replacement". Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.2 software.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Metal on metal group was superior to metal on polythene group in terms of Harris function evaluation(WMD＝4.40, 95%CI: 3.50-5.31, P<0.01), operation time(WMD＝6.82, 95%CI: 4.50-9.13, P<0.01), whereas other indicators showed no significant difference between these two groups.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Compared with the prosthesis, metal on metal is better than metal on polythene in improving the Harris function when applied for total hip replacement. However, more high-quality large-scale randomized controlled trials are required to further verify it.</p>

Effect of pathoanatomic diagnosis on the quality of birth defects surveillance in China / 生物医学与环境科学（英文）

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To provide evidence for more accurate diagnosis of birth defects based on the pathoanatomy of congenital malformations.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Data used in this study were obtained from Luliang City Hospital and three county hospitals of Shanxi province between February 2004 and March 2006. Autopsy and pathological examination of 160 dead fetuses and stillbirths were performed. Photos of dead fetuses and stillbirths were taken, tissues were cut into sections for pathological examination under microscope, all pathological information was recorded, and percentage of birth defects was calculated.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The proportion of dead fetuses and stillbirths with or without congenital malformations was 84.4% (135/160) and 15.6% (25/160), respectively. There were 16 categories of major external and internal birth defects in 135 cases of such defects. Congenital heart defects, anencephaly and spina bifida had a higher prevalence rate in the study period. The prevalence rate of non-malformation death and birth defects < 28 gestational weeks and internal anomalies > or = 28 gestational weeks was 14.61% (61/4175) and 17.25% (72/4175), respectively. A total of 413 in situ anomalies were found in 135 cases of autopsy. Spina bifida, anencephaly, congenital heart defects, aplasia or accessory lobe of lung, renal agenesis and dysplasis and congenital hydrocephaly were more closely associated with severe malformations than with mitis malformations. The cases of dead fetuses and stillbirths with multiple malformations (> or = 2 in situ anomalies) had a higher proportion (74.1%), whereas those with isolated malformations had a lower proportion (25.93%).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The occurrence of congenital malformations in different embryonic developmental stages affects multiple organs. Postmortem examination of internal and multiple malformations of fetal deaths and stillbirths can provide more accurate diagnostic information for birth defects.</p>

Application of 'Family-Based Association Test' in studying genetic epidemiology / 中华流行病学杂志

To introduce the application of Family-Based Association Test (FBAT) in detecting the association or linkage between marker alleles and phenotype or traits in genetic epidemiology. A brief overview on basic steps involved in design, implementation, principles of application, available software as well as the use and feature of FBAT method, were explained based on data from nuclear family. Advantages of FBAT were compared to conventional genetic statistics approaches. Data showed that this approach might make the most use of parental genotype,genotype of affected offspring and their phenotype to test the association between biallelic or multi-allelic markers, phenotype or traits to their conditional distributions given the minimal sufficient statistics under the null hypothesis for the genetic model. Covariates, such as traits or environmental exposures, might be included into this proudure so as to effectively control the bias of population admixture through adjustment of variables. FBAT could be used for genetic analysis with data from nuclear family since it is more advantageous than the conventional statistical methods.

Spatiotemporal property analysis of birth defects in Wuxi, China / 生物医学与环境科学（英文）

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To describe the temporal trends and spatial patterns of birth defects occurring in Wuxi, a developed region of China.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Wavelet analysis was used to decompose the temporal trends of birth defect prevalence based on the birth defect rates over the past 16 years. Birth defect cases with detailed personal and family information were geo-coded and the relative risk in each village was calculated. General G statistic was used to test the spatial property with different scales.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Wavelet analysis showed an increasing temporal trend of birth defects in this region. Clustering analysis revealed that changes continued in the spatial patterns with different scales.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Wuxi is confronted with severe challenges to reduce birth defect prevalence. The risk factors are stable and show no change with spatial scale but an increasing temporal trend. Interventions should be focused on villages with a higher prevalence of birth defects.</p>

The relationships between exposure of periconceptional environmental risk factors and risks of common, structural birth defects / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>This paper is to explore the relationships between the occurrence of structural birth defects and environmental risk factors on birth defects.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A survey was conducted by using a population-based case control study. A total number of 388 structural birth defects, which were detected after 28 weeks' gestational age to 7th day after birth in various hospitals were recruited in Wuxi from 2002 to 2004. The control group consisted of 1607 normal live births born in the same period. Multiple logistic regression model was used to analyze relationships between environmental risk factors and occurrence of structural birth defects after controlling women's education level and childbearing age.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Among those factors which affected birth defects, the exposure to toxic substances in working environment was the highest risk factor, with OR value as 5.37 (95 % CI : 3.60-7.99). Suffering from reproductive tract infections, high fever during first trimester gestation, and taking potential teratogenic drugs such as hypnotics and anti-convulsion drug agents, might significantly increase the risk of structural birth defects, with OR values (95% CI) as 3.38 (1.33-8.56), 3.57 (1.73-7.37) and 2.75 (1.57-4.83) respectively. However, the correlation between oral contraceptives intake within six months before pregnancy and risk of birth defects had no statistical significance. In addition, pollution of the residential environment, staying up all night and raising pets at home, had relatively lower association with birth defects, with OR values (95% CI) as 2.28 (1.75-2.98), 1.96 (1.21-3.18) and 2.50 (1.66-3.76) respectively, yet with a higher proportion of exposure to those factors in pregnant women. There was a significant increase in occurrence risks of birth defects with increase in the number of exposure to environmental risk factors. OR values for having one, two, three kinds of environmental risk factors were 1.60, 4.32 and 10.23 respectively.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The common structural birth defects were affected by a number of environmental risk factors. There was also a dose-response relationship between the number of environmental risk factors and occurrence risks of structural birth defects noticed in our study.</p>

Study on the differences of exposure levels to the environmental risk factors during periconceptional period between intended and unintended pregnancies / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>This paper was to analyze the difference of exposure levels of the environmental risk factors on birth defects during peri-conceptional period between intended and unintended pregnancies, and to estimate the role of intended pregnancies in reducing exposure of environmental risk factors.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Data used in this paper were from a retrospective survey of maternal women from 2002 through 2004 conducted in Wuxi city. The total number of women under study was 1628. Logistic regression model was employed to control women's childbearing age and education level for analysis of the role of intended pregnancies in reducing risk of unsafe use of medicine during pregnancy, exposure to toxic substance in working or living environments and unhealthy lifestyles.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The proportion of intended pregnancies was 73.2%. The proportion of intended pregnancies in urban women was slightly lower than that in rural women,and the proportion of intended pregnant women whose childbearing age was over 30 years old,was significantly higher than that whose childbearing age was under 30 years old. There were significant differences in exposure risks of unsafe use of medicine and some unhealthy lifestyles between the intended and the unintended. In the intended group, the proportions of taking the suspicious teratogenic drugs and staying up were 2.5% and 2.9% respectively, significantly lower than those in unintended group whose proportion were 6.0% and 5.5%. When compared with the unintended pregnant women, the exposure risk of taking the suspicious teratogenic drugs and staying up in intended pregnant women decreased by 60% and 50% respectively.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Intended pregnancies could significantly reduce the risk of taking the suspicious teratogenic drugs and unhealthy lifestyles. Reducing the incidence of unwanted pregnancy and increasing the proportion of intended pregnancies were both cost-effective methods for preventing birth defects.</p>

The Research of Enzymology Characterization about Arginine Deiminase from Enterococcus faecalis / 微生物学通报

Arginine Deiminase(ADI) was purified to homogeneity using ammonium sulfate precipitation,Q-Sepharose Fast Flow anion exchange chromatography and SephadexG-75 gel filtration chromatography. This purification protocol resulted in a 34.5-fold purification of ADI with 31.4% final yield. A molecular weight of about 190 kD determined by native gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The enzyme has only one kind of 46 kD subunit determined by SDS-PAGE. Combining the results from the two kinds of electrophoresis,the authors deduce that the enzyme may be a tetramer. The optimum pH and temperature for lipolytic activity of ADI was pH 6.5 and 50℃,respectively. It was extremely stable at 45℃ and retained 97.9% of its original activity for 30 min. The stability declined rapidly as soon as the temperature rose over 50℃. ADI was highly stable in the pH range from pH 5-8. ADI acted on L-arginine but not on D-arginine. ADI catabolism was dependent on metal ions. At their adequate concentration,Mn2+,Mg2+ and Co2+ were the effective promoter,while superfluous Zn2+and Co2+ inhibited ADI activity. L-citrulline did not act on ADI,but L-ornithine inhibited ADI activity. The degradation of L-arginine with ADI catalysis was according to simple Michaelis-Menten equation. The Michaelis constant was 3.2686 mmol/L and the maxi-mum velocity was 2.44 ?mol/min.