Research Progress on the Relationship between Coronary Artery Calcification and Chronic Renal Failure.

OBJECTIVE: Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is thought to be a controlled metabolic process that is very similar to the formation of new bone. In patients with chronic renal failure (CRF), CAC is very common, and CAC severity correlates with the deterioration of renal function. We summarized the current understanding and emerging findings of the relationship between CAC and CRF. DATA SOURCES: All studies were identified by systematically searching PubMed, Embase, and CNKI databases for the terms "coronary calcification", "chronic renal failure", "vascular smooth muscle cell", and their synonyms until September 2017. STUDY SELECTION: We examined the titles and abstracts of all studies that met our search strategy thoroughly. The full text of relevant studies was evaluated. Reference lists of retrieved articles were also scrutinized for the additional relevant studies. RESULTS: CRF can accelerate CAC progression. CRF increases the expression of pro-inflammatory factors, electrolyte imbalance (e.g., of calcium, phosphorus), parathyroid hormone, and uremic toxins and their ability to promote calcification. These factors, through the relevant signaling pathways, trigger vascular smooth muscle cells to transform into osteoblast-like cells while inhibiting the reduction of vascular calcification factors, thus inducing further CAC. CONCLUSIONS: Coronary heart disease in patients with CRF is due to multiple factors. Understanding the mechanism of CAC can help interventionists to protect the myocardium and reduce the prevalence of coronary heart disease and mortality.

Relationship between cytokine gene polymorphisms and recurrent spontaneous abortion.

Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA), defined as three or more sequential abortions before the twentieth week of gestation. Some studies have led to the awareness that immunological factors play an important role in establishing a successful pregnancy. The aim of present study was to investigate the relationship between RSA and polymorphisms of cytokine genes coding for TNF-α (-308 G→A, -238 G→A), TNF-ß (+252 G→A) as Th1 or pro-inflammatory factors as well as IL-6 (-634 G→C, -174 G→C), IL-10 (-1082 A→G, -819 C→T, -592C→A) as Th2 cytokines in women with RSA compared with healthy women. A total of 284 women with RSA and 284 control women with at least two successful pregnancies and no history of abortion were included in the study. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR), allele-specific oligonucleotide polymerase chain reaction (ASO-PCR) or PCR-RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism) methods were used for genotyping. In addition, the ELISA was conducted to investigate four cytokine serum levels in women with RSA and healthy women. Results showed that: TNF-α -308G/A, IL-6 -174 G/C and IL-10 -819 G/C polymorphisms showed statistically significant differences between the RSA patients and controls (P=0.008, P=0.0005 and P=0.03 separately). Levels of four cytokines in the serum showed that there were no significant differences in TNF-α and TNF-ß between patients and control (P>0.05), while the level of IL-6 and IL-10 were lower than control group and the differences were statically significant (P<0.05). This study demonstrated a possible association between TNF-α -308, IL-6 -174 and IL-10 -819 promoter polymorphism and RSA.

Antioxidative responses of Pseudomonas fluorescens YZ2 to simultaneous exposure of Zn and Cefradine.

Binary pollution of both heavy metals and antibiotics has received increasing attentions for their joint effects of eco-toxicity and health hazards. To reveal the effects of mixtures of different pollutants on bacterial antioxidant response system, Pseudomonas fluorescens ZY2, a new strain isolated from swine wastewater, was chosen to determinate growth (bacterial density OD600), reactive oxygen species (ROS) concentration, protein concentration and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity under exposure treatments of Zn, Cefradine or Zn + Cefradine. Bacterial densities of all the treatment groups increased significantly over the incubation time, but those containing pollutant addition were slightly lower than the control at different times of incubation. Both ROS concentration and SOD activity increased first and then decreased (p < 0.01) over time, which was opposite to the protein concentrations (p < 0.01), showing a much significant increase by Cefradine alone. With Zn concentration increasing from 40 to 160 mg/L, the intracellular SOD activity increased as a response to the improvement of ROS (p < 0.05), while the balance between ROS and SOD was broken down due to the disproportionate change of total SOD activity and ROS concentration, the bacterial densities therefore decreased for the weak resistance. With the combined treatment of Zn (200 mg/L) and Cefradine (1 mg/L), though the toxicity of Zn caused a much significant increase of ROS, the bacterial resistance was further improved showing a more significant increase of total SOD activity and the bacterial densities therefore increased bacterial growth. Zn concentration also affected the protein synthesis. Either single or binary stress induced the bacterial resistance by regulating SOD activity to eliminate ROS. All results of the bacterial oxidant stress, SOD response and protein synthesis in the combined treatment groups were more complicated than those in single treatment groups, which depended on the properties of the single treatment as well as the interaction between the two treatments upon bacterial activity. For P. fluorescens ZY2, the mediation of SOD activity to eliminate ROS in response to the combined exposure to Zn and Cefradine was first revealed as one of the co-resistance mechanisms, which is informative to further understanding the risk of antibiotics resistant bacteria to human and environmental health more accurately.

Endogenous nitric oxide in Pseudomonas fluorescens ZY2 as mediator against the combined exposure to zinc and cefradine.

A better understanding on the mechanism involved in bacterial resistance to combined exposure to antibiotics and heavy metals is helpful in implementing practices to mitigate their ecological risk and spread of resistance genes in microbial population. Pseudomonas fluorescens ZY2, a strain isolated from swine wastewater, was chosen to study its growth (bacterial density OD600), the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), nitric oxide (NO) and NO synthases (NOS) under Zn, cefradine or Zn + cefradine treatments. Using Zn and cefradine as representative heavy metal and antibiotic in this investigation, respectively, the resistance of P. fluorescens ZY2 to toxic chemical exposure was investigated. Bacterial densities of treatment groups significantly increased over the time of incubation, but less than the control. ROS, NO and NOS initially increased, but then decreased after the initial 8 h of culturing, and were positively related to Zn concentrations. Moreover, the formation of ROS, NOS, and NO was activated by cefradine at Zn of up to 160 mg/L, but inhibited at Zn of 200 mg/L whether cefradine was added or not. Zn concentration affected ROS and NO concentrations between treatments and also was closely related to the variation of the relative bacterial density. For P. fluorescens ZY2, the mediation of endogenous NO to overcome ROS in response to the combined exposure of Zn and cefradine was suggested as a co-resistance mechanism, which would be beneficial to evaluate the ecological risk of heavy metals and antibiotics.

[Synthesis, characterization and photo degradation application for dye-rhodamine B of nano-iron oxide/bentonite].

The iron oxide/bentonite was prepared through a reaction of a solution of OH-Fe salt with bentonite clay dispersion. BET, XRD an d HRTEM were used t o study i ts surface area, microstructure, and average particle size. The iron oxide/bentonite nano composite was developed as the heterogeneous catalyst for successful discoloration and mineralization of dye rhodamine B And the effects of solution pH, H2O2 molar concentration, catalyst loading and initial rhodamine B concentration were studied in detail by photometric method. The process of degradation was traced by UV-Visible spectrum. Besides, the comparison between the heterogeneous photo-Fenton process and homogeneous photo-Fenton process was performed. The result shows that, it has large surface area and mainly consists of high catalytic activity alpha-Fe2O3. The discoloration ratio is up to 97% and the COD(Cr), removal ratio is 71% after 4 h in the presence of pH 3.0, 2.5 x 10(-5) mol x L(-1) rhodamine B 100 mL, 0.3 g x L(-1) catalyst, 10 mmol x L(-1) H2O2 and UV. The rhodamine B degradating speed of heterogeneous photo-Fenton process is much faster than that of homogeneous photo-Fenton process. The catalyst can be reused after being treated.