Trends and Prospects of Stem Cell Research in China / 中国医学科学杂志(英文版)

Great progresses have been made in fundamental and clinical stem cell research in China in recent years. The official policy on stem cells, which was announced in 2015, seems as the spring of stem cell therapy in China. However, the regulation, governance, and management of clinical expectations are still challenging. This review summarized the current stem cell research and development in the field, as well as its rapidly evolving commercial, regulatory and ethical environment in China. As expected, the prospects of stem cells in China look prospective.

Molecular identification of Corni Fructus and its adulterants by ITS/ITS2 sequences / 中国天然药物

UNLABELLED@#The DNA barcoding method was used to accurately and rapidly identify Corni Fructus and its adulterants.@*METHODS@#Genomic DNA extracted from Corni Fructus and its adulterants were used as templates. The ITS (internal trascribed spacer) regions were amplified using polymerase chain reaction. Sequence assembly was performed using CodonCode Aligner V 3.5.4. Genetic distances were computed using MEGA V 5.0. Species identification was conducted using neighbor-joining (NJ) trees.@*RESULTS@#The ITS sequence length of Corni Fructus was 659 bp. The average intra-specific genetic distance of Corni Fructus was 0.005, markedly lower than the inter-specific genetic distance between Corni Fructus and its adulterants (0.357). The ITS2 sequence length of Corni Fructus was 250 bp. No variation was found among the different samples. The interspecific genetic distance of ITS2 between Corni Fructus and its adulterants was 0.571. NJ trees and BLAST results indicated that Corni Fructus and its adulterants can be easily differentiated with monophyly.@*CONCLUSION@#ITS/ITS2 regions can accurately and efficiently distinguish Corni Fructus and its adulterants. In addition, the results not only established the foundation for the clinical safety in the utilization of Corni Fructus, but also provided reference for molecular identification of other Chinese herbal medicine and Chinese herbal pieces.

Synthesis and anti-tumor activity of oleanolic acid derivatives / 药学学报

Structural modifications were performed with natural product of oleanolic acid to search for novel anticancer drugs. Ten oleanolic acid derivatives were designed and obtained by the reaction of oxidation, acylation or hydrolyzation, etc. The cytotoxic activity of derivatives was evaluated against HeLa, HepG2 and BGC-823 cells in vitro by MTT assay, gefitinib and etoposide used as a positive control. The results showed that compound 5a was particularly active to inhibit HepG2 cells growth, and anti-tumor activity of compound 7 on HeLa cells was significantly stronger than oleanolic acid. They are worthy to be studied further.

Quality of life in patients with rectal cancer after laparoscopic colectomy / 浙江大学学报·医学版

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To assess the quality of life in patients with rectal cancer after laparoscopic colectomy.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>From Sep.2004 to Dec. 2005, 51 patients with rectal cancer were recruited in this prospective, non-randomized study.Twenty-three patients underwent laparoscopic colectomy (LC), 28 patients had open colectomy (OC). EORTC QLQ-C30 and QLQ-CR38 questionnaire were applied to evaluate quality of life baseline, discharging and 3 months after operation.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Before operation,the median score of role functioning in LC group was lower. However, LC group patients complained less financial difficulties. The differences were of statistical significance (P<0.05), but not of clinical significance. The median scores of other function domains and symptom domains were similar between two groups (P>0.05). Postoperatively, the most median scores of function domains and symptom domains between two groups were similar (P>0.05). The only score with statistically significant difference was the pain when patients left hospital (U=218.5, P=0.042). However, the difference was not of clinical significance, too.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Only minimal benefits in short-term postoperative quality of life are found with laparoscopic colectomy in patients with rectal cancer compared with open colectomy.</p>