Applications of Bioactive Ions in Bone Regeneration.

The repair of large bone defects remains a huge challenge for bone regenerative medicine. To meet this challenge, a number of bone substitutes have been developed over recent years to overcome the drawbacks of traditional autograft and allograft therapies. Thus, the improvement of the osteoinductive ability of these substitutes has become a major focus for research in the field of bone tissue engineering. It has been reported that some metallic ions play an important role in bone metabolism in the human body, and that bone repair could be enhanced by incorporating these ions into bone substitutes. Moreover, it is well documented that ions released from these substitutes such as magnesium, zinc, and strontium can increase the osteogenic and angiogenic properties of bone repair scaffolds. However, the mechanisms of action of these ions on cellular bioactivity are currently unclear. Therefore, in the present article, we highlight the recent use of bioactive ions in bone tissue engineering and discuss the effects of these ions on osteogenesis and neovascularisation.

High-throughput sequencing analysis of microRNAs in gills of red swamp crayfish, Procambarus clarkii infected with white spot syndrome virus.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important posttranscriptional regulators. They play an important role in the antiviral innate immunity of invertebrates. In the present study, high-throughput small RNAs Illumina sequencing systems were carried out to identify differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) in the gills of Procambarus clarkii, which was challenged with white spot syndrome virus (WSSV). Our results identified 11,617 known and 6 novel miRNAs in normal group (NG) and WSSV-challenged group (WG) small RNA libraries. Additionally, 27 DEMs were shown to participate in the antiviral innate immunity of P. clarkii and were significantly upregulated or downregulated. In addition, the results of the KEGG pathway prediction of the DEMs target genes showed that putative target genes of these 27 DEMs were related mainly to the RNA transport pathway, tight junction pathway, mRNA surveillance pathway, regulation actin cytoskeleton pathway, focal adhesion pathway, and MAPK signaling pathway. These results provide important information for future studies about the antiviral innate immunity of crustaceans.

Roles of NG2-glia in ischemic stroke.

Recent studies have shown that a widely distributed class of glial cells, termed NG2-glia, engages in rapid signaling with surrounding neurons through direct synaptic contacts in the developing and mature central nervous system (CNS). This unique glial cell group has a typical function of proliferating and differentiating into oligodendrocytes during early development of the brain, which is crucial to axon myelin formation. Therefore, NG2-glia are also called oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs). In vitro and in vivo studies reveal that NG2-glia expressing receptors and ion channels demonstrate functional significance for rapid signaling with neuronal synapses and modulation of neuronal activities in both physiological and pathological conditions. Although it is well known that NG2-glia play an important role in demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis, little is known about how NG2-glia or OPCs impact neurons and brain function following ischemic injury. This review summarizes recent progress on the roles of NG2-glia in ischemic stroke and illustrates new approaches for targeting NG2-glia in the brain to treat this disease.

Factors associated with low adherence to head-of-bed elevation during mechanical ventilation in Chinese intensive care units.

BACKGROUND: Elevating the head of bed (HOB) 30° - 45° has been widely supported as a means of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) prevention. However, it was poorly adhered in clinical practice. This observational study aimed to investigate the factors impeding this simple practice at the bedside. METHODS: This prospective study was conducted in 33 Chinese academic hospital intensive care units (ICUs). HOB angle was measured four times daily at 5 - 7 hour intervals. The predefined HOB elevation goal was an angle ≥ 30°. RESULTS: The overall rate of achieving the HOB goal was 27.8% of the 8647 measurements in 314 patients during 2842 ventilation days. The HOB goal of ≥ 3 times/d was consistently achieved only in 15.9% of the cases. Almost 60% of patients had at least one 24 hours period during which the HOB goal was never documented. This low rate of protocol compliance was not associated with acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) II score or dependence on vasopressors. In a survey, "nurse workload" was identified as the most important factor for non-compliance with the HOB goal. In addition, the rates of compliance were significantly different (P < 0.001) between physicians self-reporting that they either did or did not know the Institutes of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) ventilator bundle. CONCLUSIONS: Low adherence to a HOB angle of ≥ 30° was found in this nationwide survey. Nursing workload and lack of knowledge on VAP prevention were important barriers to changing this practice.

[A study of visual expression on ulinastatin usage].

OBJECTIVE: To comprehensively understand the situation of research of the use of ulinastatin in clinical treatment, and to display the results with visual images. METHODS: The keywords of Bikunin, Ulinastatin, Urinastatin, urinary trypsin inhibitor in association with disease, treatment, therapy were searched with search engine from several academic websites with June 30th, 2012 (for English literature) or January 31st, 2013 (for Chinese literature) as the deadline. Bibexcel extracting keywords of diseases and that involving pathophysiology and biology accompanying the diseases and treatment mechanism of the diseases were used. Diseases were classified by ICD10, and the keywords of treatment mechanism were classified according to researchers' understanding and therapist suggestion. Word co-occurrence matrix of diseases and treatment mechanism words were constructed, and were expressed more accurately and intuitively by analyzing multidimensional scaling (MDS). Data were analyzed and charts were produced respectively using UCINET, SPSS 20.0 and Excel 2013 software. RESULTS: A total of 3 660 articles were included for the analysis, including 1 428 in English and 2 232 in Chinese. In English literature, 97 diseases with 796 times were analyzed and 17 disease categories distributed in ICD10. In Chinese literature, 220 diseases with 2 153 times were analyzed and 14 disease categories distributed in ICD10. Seventy-four and 33 words involving treatment mechanism were respectively from English and Chinese literature, respectively, which could be roughly divided into three categories: immunity/inflammation, coagulation and genetic/metabolic. The word co-occurrence matrix analysis and MDS showed that the key word for mechanism of treatment appeared widely in different diseases, and a single disease might be expressed with different terms, while different diseases might have common foundation for ulinastatin treatment, though the foci of indication were also different. All data were found to be able to form visual images according to the aim of investigation. CONCLUSIONS: According to the data retrieved in this study, the field of ulinastatin treatment was quite widespread, involving hundreds of diseases, which were distributed in more than 10 categories of ICD10, and almost 100 keywords involving treatment mechanism were found. Although those diseases were varied, they have a common therapeutic foundation based on the word co-occurrence matrix analysis. All the present data were successfully transformed into visual image expression to achieve the goal of this study. On the other hand, the resolving methods and problems used in this study will be helpful for further similar studies.