Elemental carbon - An efficient method to measure occupational exposure from materials in the graphene family.

Graphene is a 2D-material with many useful properties such as flexibility, elasticity, and conductivity among others. Graphene could therefore become a material used in many occupational fields in the future, which can give rise to occupational exposure. Today, exposure is unknown, due to the lack of efficient measuring techniques for occupational exposure to graphene. Readily available screening techniques for air sampling and -analysis are either nonspecific or nonquantitative. Quantifying materials from the broad graphene family by an easy-to-use method is important for the large-scale industrial application of graphene, especially when for the safety of working environment. Graphene consists primarily of elemental carbon, and the present study evaluates the organic carbon/elemental carbon (OC/EC)-technique for exposure assessment. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the OC/EC analysis technique as an efficient and easy-to-use method for quantification of occupational exposure to graphene. Methods that can identify graphene would be preferable for screening, but they are time consuming and semi-quantitative and therefore not suited for quantitative work environment assessments. The OC/EC-technique is a thermal optical analysis (TOA), that quantitively determines the amount of and distinguishes between two different types of carbon, organic and elemental. The technique is standardised, well-established and among other things used for diesel exposure measurements (ref standard). OC/EC could therefore be a feasible measuring technique to quantitively determine occupational exposure to graphene. The present evaluation of the technique provides an analytical method that works quantitatively for graphene, graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide. Interestingly, the TOA technique makes it possible to distinguish between the three graphene forms used in this study. The technique was tested in an industrial setting and the outcome suggests that the technique is an efficient monitoring technique to be used in combination with characterisation techniques like for example Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy.

Research status of long non-coding RNA MALAT1 in breast cancer / 中国临床药理学与治疗学

Long non-coding RNA (LncRNA) is a kind of RNA longer than 200nt, whose abnormal expression plays a significant role in the development of tumors. Metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcription 1 (MALAT1), as one of LncRNAs, is closely related to the pathogenesis of breast cancer. MALAT1 can affect the tumorigenesis and progression of breast cancer and is expected to be an effective target for the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Herein, we review the research status of MALAT1 in breast cancer.

Neuroprotective potential of GDF11 in experimental intracerebral hemorrhage in elderly rats.

The occurrence of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) costs long-standing neurologic deficits in ICH survivors, elderly ones in particular. Recent researches have proved rejuvenating effect of Growth Differentiation Factor 11 (GDF11) in improving multiple systemic diseases on old individuals. Thus, we designed this study to explore the neuroprotective effect and mechanisms of GDF11 in elderly ICH. 45 aged male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into sham + vehicle, ICH + vehicle and ICH + rGDF11 groups. ICH models were induced via injection of autologous whole blood into right basal ganglia of rats. ICH rats were given a daily injection of either recombinant (r) GDF11 at 0.1 mg/kg or vehicle for 28 days prior to operation and continued till the experiment completed. Neurological deficits, brain edema, cell apoptosis, microglial activation and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) positive cells were compared among each group. In addition, cytochrome c release, mitochondrial calcium buffering capacity and ATP level were monitored to explore the level of mitochondrial injury. Seen in the result, behavior disorders, severe perihematomal edema, inflammation, apoptosis, oxidative stress and mitochondria damage indicated a significant increase in ICH + vehicle group. While in ICH + rGDF11 group, administration of rGDF11 successfully reduced neurological deficits and alleviated ICH-induced edema, inflammation, apoptosis, oxidative stress, and mitochondria damage in perihematomal tissues. Collectively, our study showed that GDF11 ameliorated ICH-induced neurological deficits in elderly individuals via reducing perihematomal edema, apoptosis, inflammatory reaction, oxidative stress and improving mitochondrial dysfunction, indicating neuroprotective effect of GDF11 in elderly ICH.

Patient-derived xenograft models in musculoskeletal malignancies.

Successful oncological drug development for bone and soft tissue sarcoma is grossly stagnating. A major obstacle in this process is the lack of appropriate animal models recapitulating the complexity and heterogeneity of musculoskeletal malignancies, resulting in poor efficiency in translating the findings of basic research to clinical applications. In recent years, patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models generated by directly engrafting patient-derived tumor fragments into immunocompromised mice have recaptured the attention of many researchers due to their properties of retaining the principle histopathology, biological behaviors, and molecular and genetic characteristics of the original tumor, showing promising future in both basic and clinical studies of bone and soft tissue sarcoma. Despite several limitations including low take rate and long take time in PDX generation, deficient immune system and heterologous tumor microenvironment of the host, PDXs offer a more advantageous platform for preclinical drug screening, biomarker identification and clinical therapeutic decision guiding. Here, we provide a timely review of the establishment and applications of PDX models for musculoskeletal malignancies and discuss current challenges and future directions of this approach.

Combination of wogonin with 5-fluorouracil exhibits antagonistic effect on human Hep-G2 hepatocellular carcinoma cells / 药学实践杂志

Objective To investigate the antagonistic effect of wogonin in combination with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) on the proliferation of human Hep-G2 hepatocellular carcinoma cells .Methods Human hepatocellular Hep-G2 cells were divided into experimental group (wogonin group ,5-FU group ,wogonin + 5-FU group) and control group .MTT method was used to eval-uate tumor cell proliferation in vitro ,flow cytometry analysis was used to evaluate tumor cell apoptosis .Results The results showed that the wogonin inhibited the proliferation of tumor cells at the concentrations of 5 ,10 ,20 and 40 μmol/L after 24 h and 48 h treatment respectively (P<0.05);5-FU also inhibited the proliferation of tumor cells at the concentrations of 5 ,10 , 20 and 40 mg/L after 24 h and 48 h treatment respectively (P< 0.05) .However when wogonin was combined with 5-FU (wogonin+5-FU group) ,an antagonistic effect was observed on tumor cell proliferation (P<0.05) .When cells were treated by wogonin+5-FU for 48 h ,the combined index (CI) value slowed a dose-dependent antagonistic effect (P<0.05) .Conclusion Wogonin has anti-tumor effect .However when wogonin was combined with 5-FU ,an obvious antagonistic effect on 5-FU′s anti-tumor action was observed .The underlying mechanism deserves further study .

Comparison of clinical characteristics between diastolic heart failure and systolic heart failure / 心血管康复医学杂志

Objective: To retrospectively analyze clinical data of patients with heart failure (HF) for understand clinical characteristics, hospitalization costs and curative effects constituent ratio of diastolic heart failure (DHF) and systolic heart failure (SHF) in order to elevate recognition for two HF. Methods: According level of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), a total of 807 HF patients in Affiliated Union Hospital of Fujian Medical University were divided into to DHF group (LVEF>45%, n=656) and SHF group (LVEF≤45%, n=151). According to NYHA classification, two HF group were respectively further divided into class Ⅱ, Ⅲ, Ⅳ subgroups respectively. Clinical data of two HF group were compared. Results: Structure ratio of DHF and SHF occupied 81.3% and 18.7% respectively. Heart function: Compared with DHF group, there were significant increase in NYHA Ⅲ,Ⅳ class（23.5%, 9.6% vs.47.7%, 21.9%）, E/A rate[(0.74±0.31) vs. (1.26±0.56)] in SHF group . Clinical characteristics: Female ratio of DHF group was higher than that of SHF group; Compared with DHF group, there were significant increase in percentages of patients with coronary heart disease, pneumonia, chronic renal dysfunction, arrhythmia and cardiac enlargement, significant decrease in percentage of patients with hypertension, P<0.001 all in above indexes; and significant increase in mean duration of hospital stay [(12.9±8.1)d vs. (14.5±11.6)d, P <0.05], hospitalization cost [12323(8530~33815) yuan vs. 19554(9186~49927) yuan, P <0.05] and mortality rate during hospitalization (0.5% vs. 3.3%, P <0.01) in SHF group. Conclusion: Diastolic heart failure is of high proportion among heart failure. Compared with DHF patients, the heart failure, cardiac damage were more severe, the admission duration, hospitalization costs and mortality rate during hospitalization were more in systolic heart failure.