The in vivo effects of Tulbhagia violacea on blood pressure in a salt-sensitive rat model

Aim of the study

The in vivo effects of Tulbhagia violacea on systemic arterial blood pressure and on the renin-angiotensin system in a Dahl salt-sensitive rat model were investigated.

Materials and methods

Animals were treated for 14 days intraperitoneally as follows: Tulbhagia violacea (Tvl) (50 mg/kg b.w.), captopril (Cap) (10 mg/kg b.w.) or DMSO (Con). Baseline blood pressures were recorded prior to the commencement of the study and biweekly during the experimental period. Urine volume and sodium concentration were measured during the experimental period. On day 15, animals were anaesthetized (sodium thiopentane, 50 mg/kg, i.p.), blood samples for aldosterone levels were taken and the kidneys removed for determining AT1a mRNA expression.

Results

Cap and Tvl groups showed significantly reduced AT1a mRNA expressions by 3.11- and 5.03-fold, respectively, when compared to the Con group (p < 0.05). When compared to baseline blood pressures (day 0); Cap and Tvl showed reductions in systolic blood pressure (SBP) of 7.76 ± 0.41% and 9.12 ± 0.31%, respectively (mean% decrease from day 0 to day 14). In contrast, in the Con group the systolic blood pressure increased from day 0 to day 14 by 4.66 ± 0.56%. Blood pressure changes in all treated groups differed from Con significantly. Systolic blood pressure decreased with the decrease in AT1a mRNA expressions in these groups. When comparing day 0 to day 14, urine output increased in the Cap and Tvl groups. In the Con group, urinary volume was reduced by day 14 as compared to day 0. Urinary sodium excretion was increased in the treated groups by day 14.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that Tulbhagia violacea reduces systemic arterial blood pressure in the Dahl rat by decreasing renal AT1 receptor gene expression and hence modulating sodium and water homeostasis.     

Beitrag zur Frage der Diphtherietoxinproduktion

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Method development of immunoglobulin G purification from micro-volumes of human serum for untargeted and targeted proteomics-based antibody repertoire studies

Immunoglobulins (Igs) are major serum proteins which play important roles in immunity. Both untargeted and targeted proteomic workflows can be applied to investigate antigen-binding sites and the glycosylation profiles of Igs. For a more-comprehensive picture of IgG from human serum, we developed an IgG purification process and coupled the standardized method to untargeted and targeted proteomic workflows for IgG investigations. Parameters such as the type of purification beads, volume of the bead slurry, incubation conditions, and binding capacities were evaluated in this study. Only 2 μL of human serum was required for each sample. The performance of coupling the purification process to untargeted proteomics in the IgG analysis was evaluated by comparing normalized abundances of IgG subclass-specific peptides with quantification results from an ELISA. Pearson's correlation values were all >0.82. Targeted proteomic workflow was applied to serum samples from patients with autoimmune pancreatitis and from healthy controls, and the results corresponded to clinical findings that IgG4-related peptides/glycopeptides showed higher abundances in the diseased group. The developed IgG purification process is simple and requires small sample volume, and it can be coupled to targeted and untargeted proteomic workflows for clinical investigations in the future.     

A comparison of different severities of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy relative to stress, social support, and maternal adaptation

A cross-sectional and comparative research design with convenience sampling was used to recruit pregnant women from prenatal clinics in southern Taiwan between 2002 and 2003 to examine the differences in perceived stress, social support, and maternal psychosocial adaptation among women with different severities (mild or less than mild, moderate, and severe) of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. A total of 150 pregnant women participated in this study. One-way analysis of variance indicated that perceived stress was significantly different among the 3 groups. The least significant difference post-hoc test revealed that pregnant women with mild nausea and vomiting had significantly lower stress than did pregnant women with severe nausea and vomiting. The severity of nausea and vomiting was significantly associated with the Prenatal Self Evaluation Questionnaire subscales for "acceptance of pregnancy" and "fear of helplessness and loss of control in labor." Social support and maternal psychosocial adaptation were not significantly different among these three groups. The degree of perceived stress and maternal psychosocial adaptation may be related to the severity of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.     

Predictors of complementary and alternative medicine use among older Mexican Americans

To determine predictors of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use, we used a cohort of 1445 non-institutionalized Mexican Americans aged 65 and older from the first wave (1993–1994) of the Hispanic Established Population for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly, followed until 2000–2001. The main outcome was use of any CAM (herbal medicine, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage therapy, relaxation techniques or spiritual healing) in the past 12 months and was assessed at 7 years of follow-up. Potential predictors of CAM use at baseline included sociodemographics, acculturation factors, and medical conditions. The overall rate of CAM use among older Mexican Americans was 31.6%. Independent predictors of higher CAM use were female gender, being on Medicaid, frequent church attendance and higher number of medical conditions. In contrast, subjects who were born in US and spoke either Spanish or English at interview had lower CAM use compared with subjects who were born in Mexico.     

Second-Look Operation for Unresectable Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma at a High-Volume Center

Background The value of re-exploration for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma after the initial diagnosis of unresectability is unclear. Methods In this study, we analyzed 33 patients who were re-explored after an initial diagnosis of unresectability. Results At the time of reoperation, a resectable tumor was found in 18 patients: therefore, 15 pancreaticoduodenectomies, two total pancreatectomies and one left resection were performed with three vascular resections. Morbidity and mortality rates for the cohort were 6/33 and 1/33, without significant differences between resectable and nonresectable patients. Length of stay, duration of operation, and blood loss were significantly increased in the resection group. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis demonstrated increased median survival for resected patients (1078 days after the initial operation versus 547 days in the group of unresectable patients; p = 0.018). Analysis of the reasons against initial resection showed that, if the patients had been sent to a tertiary referral center for pancreatic surgery, a different decision in favor of resection would probably have been made in 14 out of 33 patients. A review of 10 published reports on reoperation for pancreatic cancer revealed results comparable to our study in terms of low morbidity and mortality as well as a survival benefit. Conclusions Reoperation for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma that is initially deemed unresectable can be safely performed in a selected group of patients by experienced surgeons, supporting the concept of patient centralization in pancreatic surgery. Resection at the second operation may confer a survival benefit even when the initial findings preclude a potentially curative approach.     

Protective role of IL‐1β against post‐arthroplasty Staphylococcus aureus infection

MyD88 is an adapter molecule that is used by both IL‐1R and TLR family members to initiate downstream signaling and promote immune responses. Given that IL‐1β is induced after Staphylococcus aureus infections and TLR2 is activated by S. aureus lipopeptides, we hypothesized that IL‐1β and TLR2 contribute to MyD88‐dependent protective immune responses against post‐arthroplasty S. aureus infections. To test this hypothesis, we used a mouse model of a post‐arthroplasty S. aureus infection to compare the bacterial burden, biofilm formation and neutrophil recruitment in IL‐1β‐deficient, TLR2‐deficient and wild‐type (wt) mice. By using in vivo bioluminescence imaging, we found that the bacterial burden in IL‐1β‐deficient mice was 26‐fold higher at 1 day after infection and remained 3‐ to 10‐fold greater than wt mice through day 42. In contrast, the bacterial burden in TLR2‐deficient mice did not differ from wt mice. In addition, implants harvested from IL‐1β‐deficient mice had more biofilm formation and 14‐fold higher adherent bacteria compared with those from wt mice. Finally, IL‐1β‐deficient mice had ～50% decreased neutrophil recruitment to the infected postoperative joints than wt mice. Taken together, these findings suggest a mechanism by which IL‐1β induces neutrophil recruitment to help control the bacterial burden and the ensuing biofilm formation in a post‐surgical joint. © 2011 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 29: 1621–1626, 2011     

Mining Health Social Media with Sentiment Analysis

With the rapid development of the Internet, more and more users utilize health communities (known as forums) to find health-related information, share their medical stories and experiences, or interact with other people in the communities. In this paper, we propose a framework to analyze the user-generated contents in a health community. The proposed framework contains three phases. First, we extract medical terms, including conditions, symptoms, treatments, effectiveness and side effects to form a virtual document for each question in the community. Next, we modify Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) by adding a weighted scheme, called conLDA, to cluster virtual documents with similar medical term distributions into a conditional topic (C-topic). Finally, we analyze the clustered C-topics by sentiment polarities, and physiological and psychological sentiment. The experiment results show that conLDA outperforms the original LDA, and can cluster relevant medical terms and relevant questions together. The C-topics clustered by conLDA are more thematic than those clustered by the original LDA. The results of sentiment analysis may provide a quick reference and valuable insights for patients, caregivers and doctors.     

肠炎愈片对大鼠溃疡性结肠炎血清白介素-2、一氧化氮的影响研究

目的观察肠炎愈片对大鼠慢性溃疡性结肠炎血清白介素-2(IL-2)、一氧化氮(NO)的影响。方法用免疫法建立大鼠慢性溃疡性结肠炎模型,将造模后的大鼠随机分为模型组、肠炎愈片高、中、低剂量组、补脾益肠丸组、柳氮磺吡啶组6组,另设正常对照组,共7组。观察肠道形态和组织学改变,采用ELISA法测定血清中IL-2、检测用药后血清NO的含量。结果与模型组比较,肠炎愈片各剂量组血清IL-2含量升高(P<0.05);肠炎愈片高、中剂量组血清NO含量显著低于模型组(P<0.01)。肠炎愈片高、中、低剂量组形态和组织学损伤评分明显下降(P<0.05)。结论肠炎愈片各剂量组治疗UC的机制可能与其恢复提高IL-2水平,从而使Th1/Th2的细胞因子恢复平衡有关;减少NO的生成亦是肠炎愈片治疗UC的作用机制之一。