Evaluation of Analgesic and Anti-Inflammatory Activities of Water Extract of Galla Chinensis In Vivo

Aim. Pain and inflammation are associated with many diseases in humans and animals. Galla Chinensis, a traditional Chinese medicine, has a variety of pharmacological properties. The purpose of this study was to evaluate analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities of Galla Chinensis through different animal models. Method. The analgesic activities were evaluated by hot-plate and writhing tests. The anti-inflammatory effects were assessed by ear edema, capillary permeability, and paw edema tests. The contents of cytokines (NO, iNOS, PGE2, and IL-10) in serum of rats in paw edema test were inspected by ELISA assays. Results. In the hot-plate test, Galla Chinensis could significantly extend pain threshold when compared to control group. The inhibitory rates of writhes ranged from 36.62% to 68.57% in Galla Chinensis-treated mice. Treatment with Galla Chinensis (1 and 0.5 g/kg) could significantly inhibit ear edema (47.45 and 36.91%, resp.; P < 0.01). Galla Chinensis (1 g/kg) had significant (P < 0.05) anti-inflammatory activity in capillary permeability test (29.04%). In carrageenan-induced edema test, the inhibitory rates were 43.71% and 44.07% (P < 0.01) at 1 h and 2 h after administration of Galla Chinensis (1 g/kg), respectively, and the levels of proinflammatory cytokines were significantly reduced. Conclusion. These results suggest that Galla Chinensis has analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects, which may be a candidate drug for the treatment of inflammation and pain

Research Hotspots and Development Trends on Recycled Construction Materials in Pavement Engineering: A Bibliometric Evaluation

Road recycling technology is gradually becoming a research focus in road construction due to natural resource shortages. It is therefore necessary to carry out deep and extensive analysis of the huge amount of publications in the research area of recycling technology in road construction. Based on three databases (Web of Science, Compendex and Scopus) and VOSviewer visualization software, this study conducts a bibliometric analysis of the literature in the field of recycled construction materials in pavement engineering. The global research publications were reviewed to quantitatively identify the literature characteristics. A number of publications, document types, research areas and keywords were used to achieve the general statistics of this reviewed literature. H-index, publication number and citations per publication were used to evaluate the academic contributions by country, institution and journal. The results show that the most productive country and institution for publications are the USA and Chang’an University from China, respectively, followed by China and Wuhan University of Technology. In recent years, researchers have generally paid attention to two main approaches: the application of rubber modified asphalt and the performance enhancement of recycled pavement

Alterations in the Blood Parameters and Fecal Microbiota and Metabolites during Pregnant and Lactating Stages in Bama Mini Pigs as a Model

This study was conducted to analyze plasma reproductive hormone and biochemical parameter changes, as well as fecal microbiota composition and metabolites in sows, at different pregnancy and lactation stages, using Bama mini pig as an experimental animal model. We found that plasma prolactin (PRL), progesterone, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and estrogen levels decreased from day 45 to day 105 of pregnancy. Plasma total protein and albumin levels were lower in pregnant sows, while glucose, urea nitrogen, total cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, as well as fecal acetate, butyrate, valerate, total short-chain fatty acids, skatole, and tyramine levels, were higher in lactating sows. Interestingly, the lactating sows showed lower α-diversity and Spirochaetes and Verrucomicrobia relative abundances, while pregnant sows showed a higher Proteobacteria relative abundance. Notably, the Akkermansia relative abundance was highest on day 7 of lactation. Spearman analysis showed a positive correlation between plasma triglyceride and cholinesterase levels and Akkermansia and Streptococcus relative abundances. Moreover, Oscillospira and Desulfovibrio relative abundances were also positively correlated with plasma FSH, LH, and E2 levels, as well as PRL and LH with Bacteroides. Collectively, plasma reproductive hormones, biochemical parameters, and fecal microbiota composition and metabolite levels could alter along with pregnancy and lactation, which might contribute to the growth and development demands of fetuses and newborns

Microstructure and corrosion behavior of welded joint between 2507 super duplex stainless steel and E690 low alloy steel

Microstructure and corrosion behavior of welded joints between super duplex stainless steel 2507 and low alloy steel E690 were characterized herein. The joints are composed of base metal and heat affected zone (HAZ) of the two steels, weld metal, and dilution zone at the interface between weld metal and HAZ of E690 steel. Concentration gradients of Fe, Ni, Cr, and Mo exist between fusion boundary and Type-II boundary, and martensite band with a high hardness is formed. The changes of microstructure, element diffusion in different regions, and local acidification in E690 HAZ lead to heterogeneous corrosion attacks on the welded joints in artificial seawater. After long-term exposure, a corrosion groove is generated at the HAZ of E690 adjacent to the interface, where high stress corrosion cracking vulnerability is expected

Thermal phonon modulation of III-nitride semiconductors under strong electric fields

Self-heating effects in high-power III-nitride semiconductor electronics and optoelectronic devices limit their practical applications, while phonon modulation can be used to alleviate heat dissipation problems. In this paper, we report our efforts to suppress macroscopic polarization fields when applying strong electric fields, which affect the phonon frequency. We investigate alterations in phonon frequencies for two materials, 2H-GaN and 2H-AlN, for various electric field strengths ranging from 0.00 V/Å to 0.07 V/Å and 0.00 V/Å to 0.18 V/Å, respectively. We also analyze the changes in the macroscopic dielectric tensor and the BORN effective charge tensor. The calculation results reveal that the vibration frequencies of the longitudinal-optical (LO) A1(LO) mode are decreased by approximately 2 cm−1 for 2H-GaN and 3 cm−1 for 2H-AlN. Our simulation results are consistent with the Raman spectroscopy results of Si-doped 2H-GaN specimens illuminated with 325 nm excitation for a variety of carrier concentrations. This study contributes to a better understanding of the factors influencing phonon behavior, thus offering new methods for optimizing the thermal regulation and dissipation patterns of III-nitride semiconductor materials and devices

Analgesic and Anti-Inflammatory Activities of Resveratrol through Classic Models in Mice and Rats

Background. Inflammation and pain are closely related to humans’ and animals’ health. Resveratrol (RSV) is a natural compound with various biological activities. The current study is aimed to evaluate the analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities of RSV in vivo. Materials and Methods. The analgesic effects were assessed by the acetic acid-induced writhing and hot plate tests. The anti-inflammatory effects were determined using the xylene-induced mouse ear oedema, the acetic acid-induced rat pleurisy, and carrageenan-induced rat synovitis tests, respectively. Results. The analgesic results showed that RSV could significantly inhibit the number of writhes and improve the time and pain threshold of mice standing on hot plate. The anti-inflammatory results showed that RSV could inhibit the ear oedema of mice. In acetic acid-induced pleurisy test, RSV could significantly inhibit the WBC and pleurisy exudates, could decrease the production of NO, and elevate the activity of SOD in serum. In carrageenan-induced synovitis test, RSV could reduce the content of MDA and elevate the T-SOD activity in serum; RSV could inhibit the expressions of TP, PGE2, NO, and MDA. Conclusion. Shortly, these results indicated that RSV had potent analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities and could be a potential new drug candidate for the treatment of inflammation and pain

Whole-Transcriptome Selection and Evaluation of Internal Reference Genes for Expression Analysis in Protocorm Development of <i>Dendrobium officinale</i> Kimura <i>et</i> Migo

<div><p><i>Dendrobium officinale</i> Kimu <i>et</i> Migo has increased many researchers’ interest for its high medical and horticultural values and the molecular mechanism of its protocorm development remains unclear. In this study, 19 genes from 26 most stably expressed genes in whole transcriptome of protocorms and 5 housekeeping genes were used as candidate reference genes and screened with 4 application softwares (geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper and RefFinder). The results showed that a few reference genes could effectively normalize expression level of specific genes in protocorm development and the optimal top 2 reference genes were <i>ASS</i> and <i>APH1L</i>. Meanwhile, validation of <i>GNOM</i>, <i>AP2</i> and temperature induced gene (<i>TIL</i>) for normalization demonstrates the usefulness of the validated candidate reference genes. The expression profiles of these genes varied under protocorms and temperature stress according to the stablest and unstablest reference genes, which proved the importance of the choice of appropriate reference genes. The first systematic evaluation of stably expressed genes will be very useful in the future analysis of specific genes expression in <i>D</i>. <i>officinale</i>.</p></div

Relative quantification of <i>GNOM</i>, <i>AP2</i> and <i>TIL</i> expression using validated reference genes for normalization in protocorm and temperature stress.

<p>(A, B) <i>ASS</i> was the stablest gene, <i>ASS</i>+<i>APH1L</i> was the best combination reference genes. <i>TXNL2</i> was the unstablest gene. (C) <i>T2-17479</i>+<i>PhLP3</i> was the best combination reference genes; <i>T2-17479</i>, <i>PhLP3</i>, <i>GABAT3</i>, <i>TFIIB</i> and <i>ASS</i> were the optimal 5 stablest IRGs; <i>T2-17479</i>, <i>PhLP3</i>, <i>GABAT3</i>, <i>TFIIB</i>, <i>ASS</i> and <i>Actin1</i> were the 6 stablest IRGs. All these IRGs above were calculated by geNorm.</p

Validation of expression stability of housekeeping genes.

<p>Validation of expression stability of housekeeping genes.</p

Rank of 19 CIRGs calculated by NormFinder and BestKeeper.

<p>Rank of 19 CIRGs calculated by NormFinder and BestKeeper.</p