Oxidised Low-Density Lipoprotein and Its Receptor-Mediated Endothelial Dysfunction Are Associated with Coronary Artery Lesions in Kawasaki Disease.

The study aimed to investigate the role of oxidised low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL)/lectin-like-oxLDL receptor-1 (LOX-1) in coronary artery lesions (CALs) in Kawasaki disease (KD) and of plasma oxLDL concentration in the early prediction of CALs in KD. This prospective study included 80 KD patients, 20 febrile and 20 healthy children. oxLDL, LOX-1 and other parameters were analysed in the acute phase. Plasma oxLDL concentration and LOX-1 mRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were significantly increased in KD patients compared with febrile and healthy children (P < 0.001 and P = 0.022, respectively), particularly in the group with CALs (P < 0.001 and P = 0.027, respectively). Coronary Z-score was significantly correlated with plasma oxLDL concentration and LOX-1 mRNA expression (r = 0.739 and 0.637, respectively; P < 0.01). The sensitivity and specificity of predicting CALs were 71.4% and 77.2%, respectively, at plasma oxLDL concentration ≥ 12.38 mU/L. oxLDL/LOX-1 may be involved in CAL development. The plasma oxLDL concentration in the acute phase is a potentially useful biological indicator for predicting CAL in KD patients.

[Composition analysis,antioxidative and antibacterial activities comparison of agarwood oils extracted by supercritical and steam distillation].

Agarwood is a traditional and precious medicinal material and natural spice in China and other southeast Asian countries.As the head of all spices,agarwood has many pharmacological activities such as analgesia,antidiarrheal,anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects. Due to its high price and scarce resources,there were just a few previous studies on it,mainly focusing on the chemical compositions of the agarwood essential oil and solvent extract mixture. The components of agarwood oils obtained by supercritical extraction and steam distillation were analyzed by using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer( GC-MS),and then the agarwood oils compositions and contents were compared between the traditional extraction method and the recently emerging supercritical extraction method. Antioxidant experiments of scavenging DPPH,ABTS,hydroxyl radical,total reducing power and MIC experiments of five kinds of tester strains such as staphylococcus aureus were combined to illustrate the differences between these two kinds of agarwood oils in terms of antioxidant and bacteriostatic activities. The results showed that the main components of agarwood oil were sesquiterpenoids( 68. 68%) in steam distillation extraction method,but sesquiterpenoids( 23. 78%) and chromones( 29. 42%) in supercritical extraction method. Fourteen common components included benzyl acetone,α-santalol,γ-eudesmol,agarospirol and guaiol etc. The antioxidant activity and inhibitory MIC of agarwood oils in supercritical extraction method were better than those in steam distillation method,and the inhibitory effect of agarwood oil on the growth of bacillus subtilis was found for the first time.