Comparison between direct use and PLGA nanocapsules containing drug of traditional Chinese medicine, Tiaojing Zhixue, in treatment of dysfunctional uterine bleeding.

Dysfunctional uterine bleeding is menstrual bleeding in abnormal volume, duration, or time, and it is a common problem in women. A wide range of drug therapies, with varying efficacy, is available for women with dysfunctional uterine bleeding. The use of herbal and traditional medicine is one of the ways to treat this disease, which has fewer side effects than chemical drugs. On the other hand, these medicines have less effect on treatment than chemical drugs. Therefore, increasing their effectiveness in the treatment of diseases has always been important. For this purpose, in this study, a comparison was done between direct use and PLGA nanocapsules containing Tiaojing Zhixue, in the treatment of dysfunctional uterine bleeding. First, PLGA nanocapsules containing Tiaojing Zhixue were synthesized by the electrospray technique. Then 80 women with dysfunctional uterine bleeding were treated with this medicine. These people were divided into two groups of 40 people. The first group was treated with 20mg of Tiaojing Zhixue and the other group was treated with PLGA nanocapsules containing Tiaojing Zhixue for eight months. The duration and frequency of bleeding from one month before the start of treatment and during the eight months after the start of treatment (second, fourth, and eighth month) were assessed in two groups. The two groups were homogeneous in terms of mean frequency of bleeding and mean duration of bleeding before starting treatment. The positive response in the PLGA nanocapsules treatment group (75%) was higher than the direct use drug treatment group (42.5%) (P < 0.01). The rate of side effects was the same in each group. Due to the effectiveness of PLGA nanocapsules in the treatment of dysfunctional uterine bleeding and the lack of side effects, it can be considered as an alternative medicine for the treatment of this disorder.

Preparation of a Specific ssDNA Aptamer for Brevetoxin-2 Using SELEX.

The existing assays for detecting brevetoxin (BTX) depend on expensive equipment with a professional operator or on an antibody with limited stability, which requires complex processes, a high cost, and a considerable amount of time. The development of an alternative detection probe is another promising research direction. This paper reports the use of aptamers binding to BTX-2 in an analytical assay using the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX). After 12 rounds of selection, the secondary structures of 25 sequences were predicted. Compared to other aptamers, Bap5 has relatively high affinity with the lowest dissociation constant of 4.83 µM, and IC50 is 73.81 ng mL-1. A good linear regression formula of y = 30.688x - 7.329 with a coefficient correlation of R2 = 0.9798 was obtained using a biotin-avidin ELISA. Moreover, there is no cross-reaction with the detected marine toxins, except for BTX-2. Thus, Bap5 has potential to detect BTX-2 in shellfish in the future as a substitute for the recognition probe.

A novel analytical probe binding to a potential carcinogenic factor of N-glycolylneuraminic acid by SELEX.

N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc) is an abundant sialic acid in many mammals and is present in the glycoconjugates of most deuterostome animals. Neu5Gc also occurs in fresh samples of human tumors and fetuses. However, very little is known about the expression level and biologic functions of Neu5Gc due to the limitations of available analytical probes for detection methods. In this study, we first report the development of aptamers specific to Neu5Gc screened by Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX). After 15 selection rounds, cloning, sequencing and enzyme-linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA) analysis, 6 different selected aptamers showed specificity for Neu5Gc. Among these 6 aptamers, N8 showed the best half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) value (127 ng mL(-1)) and had a relatively high affinity constant (Ka=6.68 × 10(9)M(-1)). The aptamers selected in this study will provide a novel analytical probe for the development of a biosensor to detect Neu5Gc in tissues and sera from patients with tumors as well as to detect Neu5Gc in animal-derived foods. In addition, the successful aptamer candidate can solve the problem that antibody is difficult to prepare in immunological assays. Thus, the discovery of novel aptamers specific for Neu5Gc is important for developing new methods of detecting Neu5Gc for the diagnosis and prevention of cancer as well as food poisoning.