Role of the alkylglycerone phosphate synthase in isoproterenol-induced cardiac hypertrophy / 国际生物医学工程杂志

Objective To research the effect of alkylation of glycerol phosphate synthase (AGPS) in isoproterenol (ISO) induced rat cardiac hypertrophy. Methods The pathological cardiac hypertrophy rat model was constructed by ISO intraperitoneal injection. Twelve healthy Sprague-Dawley rats (120～150 g) were divided into ISO group and control group randomly. In the ISO group, rats were injected with ISO (3 mg/kg) per day for two consecutive weeks. In the control group, rats were injected with normal saline (3 mg/kg) per day for two consecutive weeks. Changes of left ventricular diastolic diameter, left ventricular posterior wall thickness, left ventricular ejection fraction, left ventricular short-axis shortening rate and left ventricular mass were detected by echocardiography. The cross-sectional area of myocardial cells in rats was measured by hematoxylin-eosin staining. The expression of hypertrophic factors [atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), myosin light chain-2V (MLC-2V), α-myosin heavy chain (α-MHC)] and AGPS were detected by Western Blot and real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR). Results The results of echocardiography showed that the cardiac hypertrophy rat model was successfully constructed. The results of hematoxylin-eosin staining showed that the myocardial cross-sectional area in the ISO group was significantly larger than that of the control group. The Western Blot and qPCR results indicated that the relative expression of protein and mRNA of hypertrophic factor and AGPS in the ISO group were both up-regulated comparing with that of the control group, and the differences were statistical significance (all P<0.05). Conclusions The rat model of pathological cardiac hypertrophy with up-regulated AGPS expression was successfully constructed providing a theoretical basis for further study on the role of AGPS in pathogenesis of pathological cardiac hypertrophy.

Assessment for facial nerve paralysis based on facial asymmetry.

Facial nerve paralysis (FNP) is a loss of facial movement due to facial nerve damage, which will lead to significant physical pain and abnormal function in patients. Traditional FNP grading methods are solely based on clinician's judgment and are time-consuming and subjective. Hence, an accurate, quantitative and objective method of evaluating FNP is proposed for constructing a standard system, which will be an invaluable tool for clinicians who treat the patient with FNP. In this paper, we introduce a novel method for quantitative assessment of FNP which combines an effective facial landmark estimation (FLE) algorithm and facial asymmetrical feature (FAF) by processing facial movement image. The facial landmarks can be detected automatically and accurately using FLE. The FAF is based on the angle of key facial landmark connection and mirror degree of multiple regions on human face. Our method provides significant contribution as it describes the displacement of facial organ and the changes of facial organ exposure during performing facial movements. Experiments show that our method is effective, accurate and convenient in practice, which is beneficial to FNP diagnosis and personalized rehabilitation therapy for each patient.