[Clinical research on relationship between angiogensis and TCM syndrome type of cyclomastopathy].

OBJECTIVE: To study the relationship between angiogensis and TCM Syndrome type of cyclomastopathy (CMP) to investigate the objective standardization of TCM Syndrome diagnosis of the disease. METHODS: One hundred and forty patients with CMP were divided into three groups according to TCM syndrome typing. The pathological type, grade and expressions of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and microvascular density (MVD) in mammary biopsy were observed. RESULTS: The expressions of VEGF, bFGF and MVD was different in CMP patients of different TCM types and pathological grades (P < 0.05). The proportion of atypical proliferation, the count of MVD and the expression of VEGF and bFGF were higher in patients of phlegm and stasis type than those in Gan stagnation caused Qistagnation type and Chong and Ren meridians disorder type. CONCLUSION: TCM Syndrome type of CMP patients is related with vascular activity and grade of angiogensis. The pathological characteristics of mammary tissue and expression of VEGF, bFGF and MVD can be regarded as the objective indexes of TCM typing and clinical efficacy evaluation for CMP.

The Drosophila Egg Chamber: External Ionic Currents and the Hypothesis of Electrophoretic Transport.

In insect egg chambers the nurse cells produce cytoplasm which is transported into the oocyte. It has been proposed that the transport is driven by an electrophoretic current resulting from a voltage gradient produced by the egg chamber. There are contradictory reports concerning the existence of significant voltage gradients. Any internal current must have a return pathway. An extracellular current surrounding the egg chamber that is in the opposite direction to that required for the return of an electrophoretic current has been reported, but other authors have not found such a consistent current. We used the vibrating probe to measure the extracellular currents surrounding 50 egg chambers during the stage of maximum transport. Our set of measurements was predominantly characterized by small and variable currents. Most of the measurements were on the order of 1 microampere/cm2, and no particular pattern of current flow was consistently evident. Although it was possible to pick out some egg chambers that appeared to show patterns of current flow, approximately equal numbers of egg chambers showed patterns of opposite types, and most showed no pattern at all. Our data do not support the presence of a consistent pattern of ionic current.