Clinical observation of Qi deficiency syndrome in 72 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease treated with Yiqi Mianyi Granule

Seventy-two patients of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) of Qi deficiency syndrome with abnormal immune indices were treated with Yiqi Mianyi Granule (YQMYG) and the efficacy was compared with that of 30 cases treated with Zhenqi fuzheng Granule (ZQFZG) for control. Results showed that the markedly effective rate of symptomatic improvement of Qi deficiency in YQMYG group was 65.3%, the total effective rate 93.1%. 88.6% of the immune indices lower than normal were corrected and 43. 7% of them were normalized, while for indices that were higher than normal the rate were 78.2% and 52.9% respectively. These results suggested that YQMYG could improve symptom of Qi Deficiency markedly, strengthen cellular immunity and regulate immune dysfunction. Its therapeutic efficacy was obviously superior to ZQFZG (P<0.Q5).     

APPLICATION OF ACUPOINT-INJECTION THERAPY TO PAIN SYNDROME: CLINICAL ANALYSIS OF 250 CASES

In this paper,250 cases of headache,shoulder pain,lumbago and leg pain weretreated with 20％Angelicae Sinensis mixed with Vitamine B_(12) point-injection therapy.The total effective rate was 95.2％and in which the cure rate was 53.6％.Authors have found a close correlation between the effectiveness and the duration of disease.     

Genetic polymorphism of UL144 open reading frame of human cytomegalovirus DNA detected in colon samples from infants with Hirschsprung''''s disease

AIM:To explore the genetic diversities of UL144 open reading frame (ORF) of cytomegalovirus DNA detected in colon tissue from infants with Hirschsprung's disease (HD) by sequencing UL144 DNA in 23 aganglionic colon tissue and 4 urine samples from 25 HD infants. METHODS:Nest PCR was performed for amplification of the UL144 gene. The UL144 gene was analyzed with softwares,such as DNAclub,BioEdit,PROSITE database,and DNAstar. RESULTS:The strains from HD patients were distributed among three genotypes of UL144:group 1A (64%),group 2 (24%),and group 3 (12%). The UL144 genotypes between strains from HD and control group were compared by chi square test (χ2 = 1.870,P = 0.393). Strains from the colon were sporadically distributed in UL144 genotypes. CONCLUSION:There are genetic diversities of UL144 ORF in colon tissue of infants with HD. However,cytomegalovirus UL144 genotypes are not associated with clinical manifestations of HD.     

Congratulation on World Journal of Gastroenterology

Dear Professor Lian-Sheng Ma, Professor Michael Hobsley and I have greatly enjoyed reading the account of all you have done towards the development of "The World Journal of Gastroenterology", as described in the article by Zhen-Xi Li in the November 21st. Issue of the Journal.     

A two-dimensional electrophoresis reference map of human ovary

The ovary plays a central role in oogenesis and gonadal hormone secretion. Proteomic analysis is a valuable approach for gaining an increased understanding of the molecular nature of the ovary. In this work, two-dimensional electrophoresis for protein separation followed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry and database searches, identified 231 protein spots corresponding to 138 individual proteins that were found in gels representing both the follicular and luteal phases. The data were used to construct a database online (). The identified proteins were functionally classified into seven groups: (1) cell signaling/communication, (2) cell division, (3) gene/protein expression, (4) metabolism, (5) cell structure and motility, (6) cell/organism defense, and (7) unclassified. Among the proteins identified, 47% had not been previously reported in the human ovary. In addition, a number of disease-related proteins were identified in this protein map, including some cancer- and polycystic ovarian syndrome-related proteins. Two proteins with phosphorylation were verified by Western blot analysis. Comparison of protein abundance between follicular and luteal stages produced seven protein spots that had been identified in our database. This study provides a preliminary reference map of normal human ovary that will form a basis for comparative studies on normal and pathological conditions of the human ovary and may serve as a potential tool for clinical diagnosis, therapeutics, and prognosis.Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at L. Wang and Y.-F. Zhu contributed equally to this work     

Immunoglobulin mimicry by Hepatitis C Virus envelope protein E2

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) establishes persistent infection in the majority of infected individuals. The currently accepted hypothesis of immune evasion by antigenic variation in hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) of glycoprotein E2 does not however, explain the lack of subsequent immune recognition. Here, we show that the N-terminal region of E2 is antigenically and structurally similar to human immunoglobulin (Ig) variable domains. E2 is recognized by anti-human IgG antibodies and also possesses common amino acid (aa) sequence features of the conserved v-gene framework regions of human Ig light chains in particular but also heavy chains and T cell receptors. Using a position specific scoring system, the degree of similarity of HVR1 to Ig types correlated with immune escape and persistence in humans and experimentally infected chimpanzees. We propose a unique role for threshold levels of Ig molecular mimicry in HCV biology that not only advances our concept of viral immune escape and persistent infection but also provides insight into host-dependent disease patterns.     

Region-specific growth properties and trophic requirements of brain- and spinal cord-derived rat embryonic neural precursor cells

To determine whether neural precursor cells have region-specific growth properties, we compared the proliferation, mitogenicity, and differentiation of these cells isolated from the embryonic day 16 rat forebrain and spinal cord. Neural precursor cells isolated from both regions were cultured in growth medium supplemented with epidermal growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor, or epidermal growth factor+basic fibroblast growth factor. Under all three conditions, both neural precursor cell populations proliferated for multiple passages. While spinal cord-derived neural precursor cells proliferated moderately faster in epidermal growth factor-enriched growth medium, brain-derived cells proliferated much faster in basic fibroblast growth factor-enriched growth medium. When exposed to both epidermal growth factor and basic fibroblast growth factor, the two neural precursor cell populations expanded and proliferated more rapidly than when exposed to a single factor, with brain-derived neural precursor cells expanding significantly faster than spinal cord-derived ones (P<0.0001). Differentiation studies showed that both neural precursor cell populations were multi-potent giving rise to neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. However, neuronal differentiation from brain-derived neural precursor cells was greater than spinal cord-derived ones (11.95+/-5.00% vs 1.92+/-1.13%; passage 2). Further, the two neural precursor cell populations differentiated into a similar percentage of oligodendrocytes (brain: 8.66+/-5.85%; spinal cord: 7.69+/-3.91%; passage 2). Immunofluorescence and Western blot studies showed that neural precursor cells derived from both regions expressed receptors for basic fibroblast growth factor and epidermal growth factor. However, brain-derived neural precursor cells expressed higher levels of the two receptors than spinal cord-derived ones in growth medium containing epidermal growth factor+basic fibroblast growth factor. Thus, our results showed that neural precursor cells isolated from the two regions of the CNS have distinct properties and growth requirements. Identifying phenotypic differences between these neural precursor cell populations and their growth requirements should provide new insights into the development of cell therapies for region-specific neurological degenerative diseases.     

Study of antigen HBs and antivirus antibodies of hepatitis C during hepatopathies in Mali

A prospective study carried out in Bamako, Mali between July 1998 and January 1999 has assessed the seroprevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in 91 carrier patients of chronic hepatopathy at a cirrhrosis stage (53) or of hepato-cellular carcinoma (38) and to compare with in 92 blood donors as a control population. Only seroprevalence confirmed by a complementary test has been taken into account (RIBA). HCV seroprevalence reached 25% including all hepatopathies, 24% in cirrhrosis and 26% in hepato-cellular carcinomae (HCC) versus 4% in blood donors. Antigen HBs of hepatitis B virus has been found in 55% of patients, versus 25% of the control cases (p = 0.0006). On the whole, the two markers have been notified a little more often in HCC than in cirrhosis and the combination of the two markers has been more frequent during cirrhosis as well. The role of HCV played in cirrhosis and HCC onset in Mali appears to be important.     

Allele-specific differential expression of a common adiponectin gene polymorphism related to obesity

Adiponectin gene polymorphisms have recently been reported to be associated with obesity, insulin sensitivity, and the risk of type 2 diabetes. We examined a T94G polymorphism of the adiponectin gene in 245 ostensibly normal nondiabetic subjects. The G allele frequency was lower among subjects with higher BMI (> or =27) than in those with lower BMI. BMI was inversely correlated with the dose of G allele. Multivariate linear regression analyses showed that the adiponectin genotypes were significantly related to BMI after adjusting for age and gender. The dose of the G allele was associated with a reduction of approximately 1.12 kg/m(2) in BMI. We further found that the relative mRNA levels of G allele were consistently higher than those of T allele in the omental adipose tissue from 21 heterozygous subjects. Finally, we observed that the expression levels of adiponectin affected insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes. In conclusion, the allele-specific differential expression of this common polymorphism could be responsible for its biological effects observed in this and the other studies.