Exploring the use of NIR reflectance spectroscopy in prediction of free L-Asparagine in solanaceae plants.

Much researches of Near-infrared spectroscopy modeling methods that are utilized to analyze the trace amount components, especially indirect modeling on complex system, have gained widely attraction in recent years. Amino acids in plants are essential nutrients of maintaining growth and ensuring health. As the important participants in various biochemical reactions in plants, nondestructive detection of free amino acids will provide meaningful observation on physiological changing in different steps of plant growth. In this research, two hundred and twenty-two samples were measured to obtain the concentration of free L-Asparagine in plant by amino acid analyzer. NIR spectra were also collected for conducting chemometrics modeling. Different spectral pretreatments and variables selecting methods were employed to optimize the NIR models. Independent validation set as well as unknown samples from different years were successfully predicted by using the slope intercept correction. Results in this study demonstrated that fast analysis of free L-Asparagine can be established by NIR modeling approach.

Urotensin II promotes monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 expression in aortic adventitial fibroblasts of rat / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Urotensin II (UII), a potent vasoconstrictive peptide, is able to stimulate phenotypic differentiation of adventitial fibroblasts. This study aimed to determine the effect of UII on monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) expression in rat aortic adventitial fibroblasts, so as to explore possible mechanisms in the development of vascular inflammation.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Growth-arrested adventitial fibroblasts were incubated in serum-free medium with UII (10(-10)-10(-7) mol/L) and inhibitors of signal transduction pathways for 1 to 24 hours. MCP-1 mRNA and protein expression and secretion were determined by RT-PCR, Western blotting analysis and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), respectively.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>UII dose- and time-dependently promoted MCP-1 mRNA and protein expression and secretion in cells, with maximal effect at 10(-8) mol/L at 3 hours for mRNA expression, 24 hours for protein expression in the cells, and 12 hours for protein secretion from the cells. Furthermore, the UII effects were significantly inhibited by treatment with its receptor antagonist SB710411, Rho kinase inhibitor Y27632, protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor H7, mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitor PD98059, calcineurin inhibitor cyclosporine A, and the Ca(2+)channel blocker nicardipine.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>UII may stimulate MCP-1 expression in rat aortic adventitial fibroblasts through its receptor and Rho kinase, PKC, mitogen-activated protein kinase, calcineurin and Ca(2+) channel signal transduction, thus contributing to adventitial inflammation.</p>

The efficacy of oestradiol valerate combined with dienogest for menorrhagia without organic pathology / 中国医师进修杂志

Objective To investigate the efficacy and safety of oestradiol valerate (E2V) combined with dienogest (DNG) for menorrhagia without organic pathology.Methods Sixty-two menorrhagia without organic pathology patients were randomized divided into observation group (31 cases ) and control group (31cases).E2V combined with DNG were given in observation group while control group with E2V only.Both of the treatment lasted for 3 cycles.The changes in menstrual blood loss was assessed by the pictorial blood loss assessment chart (PBAC).The time of control bleeding,stop bleeding,the level of hemoglobin and adverse reaction were compared.Results The time of control bleeding,stop bleeding in observation group were significantly lower than those in control group[ ( 16.5 ± 2.2) h vs.(23.4 ± 2.9) h,(23.3 ± 8.4) h vs.(40.9 ±4.6) h] (P＜0.01).The level of hemoglobin and PBAC scores between two groups had no significant difference before treatment (P＞0.05).After treatment for 3 cycles,the level of hemoglobin in observation group was higher than that in control group,but had no significant difference (P＞0.05 ),the PBAC scores in observation group was lower than that in control group after treatment for 1,2,3 cycles(P＜0.01 ).Both of the rate of adverse reaction in two groups was 12.9％ (4/31 ).No severe adverse reaction happened in two groups.Conclusions E2V combined with DNG is more rapid and effective in reducing menstrual blood loss.It does not increase the rate of adverse reaction and worthy of clinical application.

Oral administration of Lactococcus lactis delivered heat shock protein 65 attenuates atherosclerosis in low-density lipoprotein receptor-deficient mice.

Lactococcus is a genus of Gram positive food-grade bacteria that has been widely used as a vaccine platform for the safe delivery of heterologous antigens. Many reports support the involvement of inflammation and immunity in atherosclerosis as well as the role of autoimmunity to heat shock proteins (HSPs) in the progression of atherogenesis. In this study, experiments were specifically designed to investigate the effect of oral administration of mycobacterial heat shock protein 65 (HSP65) delivered by Lactococcus lactis (L. lactis) on atherogenesis. Two types of HSP65-encoding plasmids for intracellular expression or secretion were constructed, and then transformed into L. lactis NZ9000. Oral administration of two recombinant L. lactis strains both induced suppression of HSP65-specific proliferation, accompanied by elevation of Interleukin-10 (IL-10) production and reduction of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) level. Inducible HSP65-specific tolerance exerted a protective effect on atherosclerotic lesion formation and endothelial damage in low-density lipoprotein receptor-deficient (LDL-RD) mice model, while no obvious pathological abnormalities were observed. In conclusion, delivery of HSP65 at the intestinal mucosa by recombinant L. lactis provides a novel approach for the prevention of atherosclerosis. The results further illustrate the potential of using genetically modified L. lactis as a safe and effective vaccine delivery to elicit antigen-specific tolerance for treatment of autoimmune diseases.

Immunization with P277 induces vascular leak syndrome in C57BL/6 mice via endothelial damage.

Accumulating evidence established a positive association of anti-heat shock protein 60 (HSP60) autoantibodies and the presence of atherosclerosis. However, whether anti-P277 (HSP60 437-460) autoantibodies may lead to the pathological increase in vascular permeability, a vascular leak syndrome (VLS), is unknown. In the present study, anti-P277 immunity was effectively induced in C57BL/6 mice, causing a marked increase in VLS in both normal mice and those bearing melanoma as well. Further analysis of the pathological role of anti-P277 immunity revealed that the B-cell epitopes located in P277 played a causal role in the development of VLS. Moreover, studies on endothelial cells (ECs) showed that the anti-P277 antibodies could cross-react with HSP60, highly expressed in both normal and stressed ECs, and mediate damage to cells in the presence of complement. These data suggested that humoral immune response induced by anti-P277 immunity mediates EC damage and induces VLS. These negative effects may cast shadows on P277, used as a peptide vaccine.

Vaccination with a potent DNA vaccine targeting B-cell epitopes of hGRP induces prophylactic and therapeutic antitumor activity in vivo.

Gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP), a bombesin-like peptide, is an autocrine or paracrine growth factor that can stimulate the growth of various cancer cells, making it an ideal target antigen to develop vaccines against cancer. In this study, we developed a novel DNA vaccine that encodes six tandem repeats of B-cell epitope GRP(18-27) (GRP6) flanked by HSP65 as carrier and four tandem repeats of mycobacterial HSP70(407-426) (M4) as helper T-cell epitopes for enhancement of immunogenicity. When intramuscularly immunized to mice, this anti-GRP DNA vaccine-induced GRP-specific antibody (Ab) responses that were at least 10-fold higher in magnitude compared with HSP65-GRP6 protein vaccine. Both prophylactic and therapeutic antitumor immunities induced by vaccination significantly suppressed the growth of GRP-dependent prostate carcinoma RM-1 in vivo and prolonged the survival of tumor-inoculated mice. Out results also showed that the immune sera with high titer of GRP-specific Abs effectively inhibited the growth of tumor in mice and dose dependently inhibited proliferation of cultured RM-1 cells in vitro, suggesting that the GRP neutralizing Ab is responsible for the protective and therapeutic antitumor activity of vaccination. These findings may be of great importance in the further exploration of the applications of growth factors identified in human in cancer therapy.

Discussion on military hospital reform / 医疗卫生装备

With the deeply thought of military hospital reform and medical support system,the analysis and suggestions for present situation are put forward.