Maturation and upregulation of functions of murine dendritic cells (DCs) under the influence of purified aromatic-turmerone (AR).

The aim of this work is to evaluate the effects of purified aromatic-turmerone (ar-turmerione, AR) on murine dendritic cells (DCs). These impacts of AR on DCs from bone marrow derived DCs(BMDCs) were assessed with use of conventional scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cytochemistry assay, FITC-dextran, bio-assay and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We found that AR induced phenotypic maturation as evidenced by increased expression of CD86, CD40, CD83, CD80 and major histocompatibility complex II (MHC II). The functional tests showed the activity of acidic phosphatase (ACP) inside the DCs were downregulated after treatment with AR (which occurs when phagocytosis of DCs were decreased). Finally, we proved that AR increased the production of IL-12 and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α). These data suggested that AR could promote phenotypic and functional maturation of DCs and this adjuvant-like activity may have potential therapeutic value. It is therefore concluded that AR could exert positive modulation on murine DCs.

Effect of 5-Fluorouracil and Radiotherapy on the Apoptosis of Human Cervical Adenocarcinoma HeLa Cells / 中国医科大学学报

Objective To investigate the effect of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) combined with radiotherapy (RT) on the apoptosis of human cervical cancer HeLa cells.Methods The HeLa cells were divided into four groups treated with chemotherapy(ChT),RT,RT+ChT, and control groups.The non-cytotoxic concentration (48 h IC_(50)) of HeLa cells treated with 5-FU was determined by methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) and the apoptosis rates of HeLa cells detected by flow cytometry with annexin V-FTTC and PI double labeling.The morphologic changes of the apoptosis cells were observed under fluorescence microsope.Results ChT,RT and RT+ChT treatment could induce the apoptosis of HeLa cells with the strong induction of the combined treatment (P＜0.05).Conclusion 5-FU combined with RT can obviously enhance the apoptosis of HeLa cells, which provides a reliable experimental evidence for clinical use of 5-FU combined with RT in the intervention of human cervical cancer.

Influence of nerve growth factor on the expression of nestin and neural stem cell type in rats with focal cerebral ischemia / 中国组织工程研究

AIM: To investigate the effect of nerve growth factor (NGF) on the proliferation of neural stem cell in adult rats with focal cerebral ischemia. METHODS: The experiment was conducted in the Center of Science and Experiment, Jinzhou Medical College from January to July 2006. Totally 72 healthy SD rats were randomly divided into sham-operation group, model group and NGF treatment group with 24 rats in each group. Focal cerebral ischemia models were prepared by Logna et al modified thread occlusion method, and the functional evaluation was performed after the animals were awake for 2 hours to select the rats whose nervous function reached grade 2 or above. The sham-operation group was treated like the model group except thread occlusion. 1 000 ?g/kg NGF was administered in the NGF treatment group immediately after ischemia, once a day. After the animals were executed at days 1, 3, 7 and 14 days, immunohistochemical and double immunofluorescence labeling were adopted to observe the effect of NGF on the expression of nestin and the cell type after ischemia. RESULTS: All 72 rats were involved in the result analysis. ①Round or ellipse nestin positive cells were found in both the model group and NGF treatment group. The number of nestin positive cells in the NGF treatment group was remarkably more than in model group except 1 day after ischemia, moreover, the number of the cells in the two groups was more than in the sham operation group [model group: (3.47?0.5), (5.13?1.14), (13.95?3.56), (8.97?2.08); NGF group: (3.81?0.66), (9.88?2.08), (19.87?3.86), (26.17?2.90); sham-operation group: 0, P