Psychological status in 1083 hospitalized patients with coronary artery disease / 中华心血管病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To explore the prevalence and associated factors of anxiety and depression symptoms in hospitalized Chinese patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>From June 2007 to May 2009, 1083 hospitalized patients with confirmed coronary artery disease were recruited in this study. The ZUNG Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and the ZUNG Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) were used for the psychological assessment. Economic status, living condition and the environment of both living and working places were evaluated by epidemiological questionnaires.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The prevalence of pure anxiety, pure depression symptoms and the combination of anxiety and depression symptoms were 7.9%, 28.3% and 14.3% respectively. Incidence of anxiety and depression symptoms was significantly higher in female patients compared with in male patients (P = 0.003, 0.012 respectively) and in aged patients than in middle-aged patients (P = 0.001). The elderly, less than 9 years of education and poor sleep quality increased the risk of anxiety symptom with ORs of 1.63 (95%CI: 1.21 - 2.21), 1.54 (95%CI: 1.15 - 2.07) and 1.62 (95%CI: 1.34 - 1.96), respectively, while workplace noise, history of chronic disease and poor sleep quality increased the risk of depression symptom with ORs of 1.52 (95%CI: 1.18 - 1.98), 1.36 (95%CI: 1.06 - 1.75) and 1.27 (95%CI: 1.08 - 1.50), respectively. Female (OR = 1.91, 95%CI: 1.22-2.98), aged patient (OR = 1.84, 95%CI: 1.23 - 2.76), workplace noise (OR = 1.61, 95%CI: 1.07 - 2.42), history of chronic disease (OR = 1.84, 95%CI: 1.24 - 2.71) and poor sleep quality (OR = 1.73, 95%CI: 1.35 - 2.21) were significantly correlated with the combined incidence of anxiety and depression symptoms.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Around half of the Chinese hospitalized CAD patients were complicated with various degrees of anxiety and/or depression symptoms. Female and aged patients were at higher risk for anxiety and depression symptoms. Sleep quality, workplace noise, years of education and history of chronic disease were independent risk factors for anxiety or depression symptoms.</p>

Effective inhibition of porcine transmissible gastroenteritis virus replication in ST cells by shRNAs targeting RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene.

Transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) is identified as one of the most important pathogenic agents during swine enteric infection, leading to high mortality in neonatal pigs and severe annual economic loss in swine-producing areas. Up to date, various vaccines developed against TGEV still need to be improved. To exploit the possibility of using RNA interference (RNAi) as a strategy against TGEV infection, two shRNA-expressing plasmids (pEGFP-U6/P1 and pEGFP-U6/P2) targeting the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) gene of TGEV were constructed and transfected into swine testicular (ST) cells. The cytopathic effect (CPE) and MTS assays demonstrated that both shRNAs were capable of protecting cells against TGEV invasion with very high specificity and efficiency. A real-time quantitative RT-PCR further confirmed that the amounts of viral RNAs in cell cultures pre-transfected with the two plasmids were reduced by 95.2% and up to 100%, respectively. Our results suggest that RNAi might be a promising new strategy against TGEV infection.