Therapeutic effect of taurine against aluminum-induced impairment on learning, memory and brain neurotransmitters in rats.

The aim of the study was to demonstrate the therapeutic effect of taurine against aluminum (Al)-induced neurological disorders in rats. Forty-two Wistar rats were randomly allotted into six groups: control (saline only), Al exposure (281.4 mg/kg/day for 1 month), Al + taurine (Al administration as previously plus taurine, doses were 200, 400 and 800 mg/kg/day, respectively, for the next 1 month) and prevention group (along with the Al administration as previously, 400 mg/kg/day taurine was treated for 1 month. During the next 1 month, rats were given taurine 400 mg/kg/day only). Starting from the sixth week, the body weight gain was significantly reduced in Al exposure group compared with saline (P < 0.05), and at the eighth week, the gain in prevention group was increased compared with Al (P < 0.05). Brain coefficient was gained in Al exposure compared with saline or prevention group (P < 0.05). Al exposure resulted in learning and memory impairment by increasing the escape latency and searching distance, meanwhile, decreasing the swimming time in the quadrant of platform and the numbers of crossing the platform (P < 0.05). Unsurprisingly, taurine treatment (400, 800 mg/kg/day and prevention) significantly protected against Al-induced brain dysfunction (P < 0.05). The Al exposure led to significant decreases in levels of γ-GABA and Tau, meanwhile, increased in level of Asp and Glu compared with saline (P < 0.05). And yet, taurine treatment partially reversed the deteriorated changes. The results suggested that taurine probably has neuroprotective effect against Al-induced learning, memory and brain neurotransmitters dysfunction.

AS-PCR Assay for 20 mtDNA SNP Typing and Haplotype Frequency / 法医学杂志

Objective To develop a multiplex allele-specific PCR (AS-PCR) assay with three-color fluo-rescence labeling for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) SNP typing. Methods Based on the principle of AS-PCR, the primer sets were designed for 20 SNP located on the coding region of mtDNA and divided in-to 2 groups labeled with FAM and HEX fluorescence, respectively. A primer set included two forward (reverse) allelic specific primers with different sizes and a generic reverse (forward) primer. Blood sam-ples from 200 unrelated individuals were analyzed by AS-PCR and capillary electrophoresis. Three ran-dom samples at least for each SNP site were examined and verified by direct sequencing. The haplotype frequency was investigated. Results Distinct electropherograms of 200 blood samples were obtained suc-cessfully. The typing results of direct sequencing were identical to those obtained from AS-PCR. The minimum detectable DNA concentration was 0.2 pg under the system of 10μL. The sensitivity of the DNA concentrations ranged from 0.5 to 5 pg. The 200 individuals were assigned into 15 haplotype, and the haplotype diversity was 0.906 0. Conclusion AS-PCR is a simple, rapid and efficient method for mtDNA SNP typing, and can be applied to forensic practice.

Application of students standardized patient in teaching and assessment of physical examination skills / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Objective Training a few medical students as standardized patients to teach and test other medical students'physical examination skills is a good way to compensate the deficient teaching resources and improve the medical students'clinical capabilities.Methods We spent 12 class hours to train 6 students as standardized patients.Then we used these 6 students'standardized patients to help the teacher to educate medical students in experimental group,while students in the control group only had traditional class under the construction of the teachers as before.At last,we collected their final physical examination skills'score.Results The final physical examination skill score of experimental group(85.78?5.89)is higher than that of control group(84.53?4.64)(P