Melatonin Attenuates Mitochondrial Damage in Aristolochic AcidInduced Acute Kidney Injury

Aristolochic acid (AA), extracted from Aristolochiaceae plants, plays an essential role in traditional herbal medicines and is used for different diseases. However, AA has been found to be nephrotoxic and is known to cause aristolochic acid nephropathy (AAN).AA-induced acute kidney injury (AKI) is a syndrome in AAN with a high morbidity that manifests mitochondrial damage as a key part of its pathological progression. Melatonin primarily serves as a mitochondria-targeted antioxidant. However, its mitochondrial protective role in AA-induced AKI is barely reported. In this study, mice were administrated 2.5 mg/kg AA to induce AKI. Melatonin reduced the increase in Upro and Scr and attenuated the necrosis and atrophy of renal proximal tubules in mice exposed to AA. Melatonin suppressed ROS generation, MDA levels and iNOS expression and increased SOD activities in vivo and in vitro. Intriguingly, the in vivo study revealed that melatonin decreased mitochondrial fragmentation in renal proximal tubular cells and increased ATP levels in kidney tissues in response to AA. In vitro, melatonin restored the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) in NRK-52E and HK-2 cells and led to an elevation in ATP levels. Confocal immunofluorescence data showed that puncta containing Mito-tracker and GFP-LC3A/B were reduced, thereby impeding the mitophagy of tubular epithelial cells. Furthermore, melatonin decreased LC3A/B-II expression and increased p62 expression. The apoptosis of tubular epithelial cells induced by AA was decreased. Therefore, our findings revealed that melatonin could prevent AA-induced AKI by attenuating mitochondrial damage, which may provide a potential therapeutic method for renal AA toxicity.

Research progress of melatonin on pulmonary hypertension / 中国临床药理学与治疗学

Pulmonary hypertension is a severe disease with a wide spectrum of underlying etiologies, which was characterized by increased pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance, and eventually leads to right heart dysfunction and even death with a high mortality rate. Melatonin, as a neuroendocrine hormone, is produced primarily by the pineal gland. Melatonin, a pleotropic molecule, plays a key role in the pathophysiology of various cardiovascular diseases.The effects of melatonin which can attenuate pulmonary vascular remodeling and pulmonary artery pressure have been widely concerned by researchers in recent years. This review summarized the progress of melatonin on pulmonary hypertension.

An overview on sleep research based on functional near infrared spectroscopy / 生物医学工程学杂志

Sleep is a complex physiological process of great significance to physical and mental health, and its research scope involves multiple disciplines. At present, the quantitative analysis of sleep mainly relies on the "gold standard" of polysomnography (PSG). However, PSG has great interference to the human body and cannot reflect the hemodynamic status of the brain. Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is used in sleep research, which can not only meet the demand of low interference to human body, but also reflect the hemodynamics of brain. Therefore, this paper has collected and sorted out the related literatures about fNIRS used in sleep research, concluding sleep staging research, clinical sleep monitoring research, fatigue detection research, etc. This paper provides a theoretical reference for scholars who will use fNIRS for fatigue and sleep related research in the future. Moreover, this article concludes the limitation of existing studies and points out the possible development direction of fNIRS for sleep research, in the hope of providing reference for the study of sleep and cerebral hemodynamics.

Effects of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell therapy on the immune function and prognosis in patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis due to hepatitis B / 中国组织工程研究

BACKGROUND: A large number of experiments in vivo and in vitro have shown that mesenchymal stem cells may obviously inhibit the lymphocytes and other immunocytes.OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell transplantation on the immune function and prognosis of patients suffering decompensated liver cirrhosisn due to hepatitis B.METHODS: 118 patients with decompensated cirrhosis due to hepatitis B were randomly divided into control group (n=59) and observation group (n=59). The two groups all received normal medical treatment, and in addition, the observation group also received human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell transplantation. (4.0-4.5)×108 stem cells were transplanted twice by intervention via proper hepatic artery (10 mL) and intravenous infusion (10 mL) within 1 week after admission. The levels of serum interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-10, transforming growth factor-β and the percentage of lymphocyte subsets in the peripheral blood were determined in the two groups before and 1, 4 weeks after treatment. The model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score and Child-Pugh score of 118 patients after treatment for 12 weeks were observed and recorded, and liver failure, complications and survival during follow-up period in the two groups were observed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: After treatment for 1 and 4 weeks, the levels of serum interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05 or P <0.001), but the levels of serum interleukin-10 and transforming growth factor-β in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05 or P < 0.001). After treatment for 1 week, the percentagesof CD3+CD4+T cell and CD4+CD25+Treg cells in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P < 0.001), but the percentages of CD3+CD8+ T cells and CD3-CD19+ B cells were significantly lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05 or P < 0.001). After treatment for 4 weeks, the percentages of CD3+ T cell ,CD3+CD4+ T cells and CD4+CD25+ Treg cells in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05 or P < 0.001), but the percentages of CD3+CD8+ T cell and CD3-CD19+ B cells were significantly lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05 or P < 0.001). After treatment for 12 weeks, the MELD and Child-Pugh scores in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05).During the follow-up period, none of the cases in the observation group developed liver failure, but five cases in the control group did. In addition, the incidence of complications and cumulative mortality in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05). These results show that the human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell transplantation may alleviate liver inflammation and improve liver function, and then may reduce the incidence of hepatic failure and mortality for patients with decompensated cirrhosis due to hepatitis B.

The investigation on the study effect of new teaching methods of acupuncture on non-acupuncture master postgraduate in the background with dual-track in resident standardization training / 国际中医中药杂志

A total of 60 non-acupuncture master postgraduates were divided into control class and experimental class randomly, 30 postgraduates in each class. The control class was taught by traditional teaching methods and experimental class was taught by new teaching methods. The test was conducted after one month later. All the scores were analyzed by SPSS17.0. The result showed that the oretical score ,the practical score and disease recognition rates in the experimental class were significantly higher than those in the control class (P<0.05). The questionnaires showed experimental class had obvious advantage than control class (P<0.05). The new teaching methods of acupuncture has obvious advantage than traditional teaching methods and can provide a new way for teaching acupuncture during resident standardization training.

"Research on the new model and scheme under the background of ""dual-track to one"" training mode on the acupuncture standardization training of Chinese medicine master's degree" / 国际中医中药杂志

Under the background of dual-track training mode, the current clinical program of professional master's graduate education lacks complete and unified content and requirements. We set out a unified teaching scheme of subspecialty, in the main subject acupuncture. We identified the teaching management and innovated the teaching and examination methods in the scheme. Our research gradually formed a multidisciplinary talents training system, as the foundation of developing the standardization training. This method could help to cultivate qualified graduates as the high quality talents for the national medicine development.

The practice and exploration of integration of clinical teaching pattern management in traditional Chinese medicine / 国际中医中药杂志

Current undergraduate education in traditional Chinese Medicine combines classroom teaching with a small number of practical courses, which has showed its limitations of increasingly bad medical environment and employment situation. Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine explored new ways and means of medical education in recent years. Therefore, reforming based on the integration of clinical teaching pattern for TCM Bachelor has been carried out step by step. It meant that classroom teaching and clinical practice were fully integrated by moving classroom in the affiliated hospitals. It has been proved to work. With the experiences of the development, we have successfully explored a mature mean for the integration clinical teaching pattern. Here, we discussed the codes of such practice in order to strive to maximize the effectiveness of such practice.

Clinical utility of aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio index in chronic hepatitis B virus infection with transaminase less than two times of upper limits of normal / 中华传染病杂志

Objective To evaluate the performance of aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio index (APRI) in the assessment of fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection patients with transaminase level less than two times of upper limits of normal (ULN),and to analyze the clinical utility in antiviral therapy.Methods A total of 349 clinically diagnosed chronic HBV infection with alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) level less than 2 × ULN were enrolled.Liver biopsy and routine laboratory tests were performed to calculate the ratio of AST to platelet (PLT),namely the APRI,and to compare the relationship between liver fibrosis and APRI.Diagnostic performance of APRI model was assessed by using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and area under the ROC curve (AUC) analysis.Correlation between APRI and liver fibrosis was determined by Spearman rank correlation analysis.Results The AUC of APRI≥0.273 for significant liver fibrosis was 0.641 with sensitivity of 48.3％,specificity of 75.7％ and positive predictive value of 73.9％.The AUC of APRI≥0.311 for cirrhosis was 0.771 with sensitivity of 68.6％,specificity of 76.8％,and negative predictive value of 93.5％.In patients with HBV DNA level ranging from 1 × 103 to 1 × 105 copy/mL,the optimal cut-off value of APRI was 0.179 for significant fibrosis (P＝0.00) and 0.283 for cirrhosis (P=0.00).By Spearman rank correlation analysis,APRI was positively correlated with histologic stages of fibrosis (r=0.370,P＜0.01).Conclusions APRI can be utilized to assess liver fibrosis in HBV infection with ALT and AST level less than 2 × ULN.APRI≥0.273 (pathologic stages of fibrosis ≥S2) has obvious hepatic fibrosis,which may help physician to select the optimal time for antiviral therapy.APRI may serve as a potential tool for assessing liver fibrosis according to HBV DNA levels.