Osthole Preconditioning Protects Rats Against Renal Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury.

BACKGROUND: Renal ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury is a major cause of acute kidney injury. The pathogenetic mechanisms of renal I/R injury involve inflammation, oxidative stress, and apoptosis. Osthole, a natural coumarin derivative, has potential anti-inflammatory effects. This study investigated the effect of osthole on renal I/R injury and its potential mechanism. METHODS: We induced renal I/R injury by clamping the left renal artery for 45 min followed by reperfusion, along with a contralateral nephrectomy. We randomly assigned 30 rats to 3 groups (n = 10): sham-operated, vehicle-treated I/R, and osthole-treated I/R. We treated rats intra-peritoneally with osthole (40 mg/kg) or vehicle (40 mg/kg) 45 min before renal ischemia. We harvested serum and kidneys at 24 h after reperfusion. Renal function and histological changes were assessed. The expression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-8 (IL-8), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in renal tissue and serum were examined by means of RT-PCR and ELISA, respectively. The expression of p-p85, p85, p-Akt, Akt, p-p65, and p65 were measured by means of Western blotting. RESULTS: Osthole pre-treatment significantly attenuated renal dysfunction, renal histological changes, NF-κB activation, and the expression of TNF-α, IL-8, and IL-6 induced by I/R injury, but the activation of PI3K/Akt signaling was further increased. CONCLUSIONS: Osthole pre-treatment protects rats against renal I/R injury by suppressing NF-κB activation, which is involved in PI3K/Akt signaling activation. Thus, osthole may be a novel practical strategy to prevent renal I/R injury.

O+OH-->O(2)+H: A key reaction for interstellar chemistry. New theoretical results and comparison with experiment.

We report extensive, fully quantum, time-independent (TID) calculations of cross sections at low collision energies and rate constants at low temperatures for the O+OH reaction, of key importance in the production of molecular oxygen in cold, dark, interstellar clouds and in the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere. Our calculations are compared with TID calculations within the J-shifting approximation, with wave-packet calculations, and with quasiclassical trajectory calculations. The fully quantum TID calculations yield rate constants higher than those from the more approximate methods and are qualitatively consistent with a low-temperature extrapolation of earlier experimental values but not with the most recent experiments at the lowest temperatures.

Multiple primary lung cancers.

From November 1957 to June 1984 at Shanghai Chest Hospital, 30 cases of multiple primary lung cancers were confirmed, based on clinical characteristics, diagnostic process, histologic type, treatment, and prognosis. Out of 3,815 cases of resected primary lung cancer, the incidence of multiple primary lung cancers was 0.8 percent. There were ten synchronous cases and 20 metachronous cases. Seventeen cases were unilateral, and 13 cases were bilateral, of which only one case was synchronous, and the remaining 12 cases were postoperative resection of an opposite lesion. Among the ten synchronous cases, four cases of multiple primary lung cancers were definitely diagnosed before surgery by chest x-ray films or fiberoptic bronchoscopy. Among the 20 metachronous cases, 11 cases were definitely diagnosed before surgery as the second primary lesion by chest x-ray films taken during periodic follow-ups after the initial resection, while nine cases were proven by thoracotomy. All of the 15 cases definitely diagnosed before surgery as multiple primary lung cancers were according to our criteria. Histologically, adenocarcinoma was relatively scarce, at a rate of 13 percent (4/30); but epidermoid carcinoma was predominant, at a rate of 87 percent (26/30), of which 11 cases were accompanied by adenocarcinoma or large-cell undifferentiated carcinoma. The average postoperative survival in the ten synchronous cases was 29 months and in the 20 metachronous cases was 26.2 months, counting from the time of the second operation. The criteria of clinicopathologic findings, early diagnostic procedure, and surgery for multiple primary lung cancers were also discussed.