Osteogenic Induction of Low-dose Ipriflavone on Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells Extracted from Osteoporosis Rats.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of ipriflavone (IPF), a synthetic isoflavone plant oestrogen with a structure similar to that of oestradiol, on the osteogenic differentiation of bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). METHODS: BMSCs were derived from ovariectomised rats (rBMSCs-OVX) and then induced with or without IPF. Cell cytotoxicity, mineralisation in vitro and osteoblast-specific gene expression of BMSCs were studied. RESULTS: IPF at a concentration of 10-8, 10-7 and 10-6 mol/l exhibited no cytotoxic effect on the proliferation of BMSCs but increased alkaline phosphatase activity and osteoblast-specific gene expression. CONCLUSION: IPF enhances osteogenic differentiation of rBMSCs-OVX partly in vitro, thus its use offers a potential strategy for the treatment of osteoporosis.

[Resolution of overlapping Raman signals based on an adaptiveI immune algorithm].

Raman spectroscopy can be used in situ real-time measurement because it's rapid, and it is helpful to real-time online monitoring of process control. With the complexity of the environment and the characteristics of Raman signal, it is hard to avoid some overlapping spectrum peaks. Based on the advantage of immune algorithm, an immune algorithm (IA) was applied to the overlapping Raman signals of aromatics. With extraction of each single Raman spectrum peak signal from the mixture signals for resolution, Results show that the method is effective to identify the overlapped Raman signal for its fast resolution and accurate quantitative determination with the relative error less than 1%. For the overlapping Raman signals with fluorescence background disturbance, we proposed an adaptive immune algorithm, which is combined with independent component analysis. It can effectively resolve the fluorescence background signal, and it provides a new way for Raman spectra analysis of complex samples.

[Progress in researches on drugs for prostate cancer].

In the recent years, researches on drugs for prostate cancer have received more attention than ever before. This article reviews the mechanism and efficacy of such prostate cancer drugs as bicalutamide, medroxyprogesterone acetate, megestrol acetate, flutamide and so on, as well as the clinical data and clinical uses of calcitriol analogue EB1089, SR233377, etc.