Hemostatic, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects of Sanqixiantao dressing in vivo and in vitro

Purpose: To study the hemostatic, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects of Sanqixiantao dressing.Methods: Sanqixiantao dressing was prepared by mixting with sanqixiiantao extract (8 %) with membrane-forming matrix (5:4:9:2 volume ratio of polyvinyl alcohol: Na CMC: gelatin: glycerol). Rats with local surface wounds were used to evaluate the effects of Sanqixiantao dressing on hemostatic time, wound healing time and infection rate. Serum levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL) 6 were determined. The anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of Sanqixiantao extracts were assessed by dimethylbenzene-induced ear edema and acetic acid-induced abdominal writhing tests. In in vitro studies, the effect of the extract on blood clotting time, and its antibacterial activities against six pathogenic bacteria (Escherichia coli, Staphylococous aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium tetani) were evaluated.Results: Sanqixiantao dressing significantly decreased hemostatic time (p < 0.01), wound healing time (p < 0.01) and infection rate (10 vs 100 %), when compared to control rats. Sanqixiantao extract significantly shortened blood clotting time in vitro (p < 0.01), and showed antibacterial activities against E. coli (minimum inhibitory concentration, MIC: 0.4 mg/mL, MBC: 1.6 mg/mL), S. aureus (MIC: 0.8 mg/mL, minimum bacterial concentration, MBC: 3.2 mg/mL), P. aeruginosa (MIC: 0.8 mg/mL, MBC: 3.2 mg/mL), S. epidermidis (MIC: 1.6 mg/mL, MBC: 3.2 mg/mL). Besides, Sanqixiantao extracts (100, 200, 400 and 600 mg/kg) dose-dependently decreased dimethyl-benzene-induced ear edema and acetic acid-induced abdominal writhes in mice (p < 0.05, p < 0.01, p < 0.01, p < 0.01).Conclusion: The results demonstrate that Sanqixiantao dressing has significant hemostatic, antiinflammatory and antibacterial effects in vivo and in vitro, and thus provide some support for the therapeutic application of Sanqixiantao dressing for treating skin wounds.Keywords: Sanqixiantao dressing, Acute skin wound, Hemostatic, Anti-inflammatory activity, Antibacterial effect, Herbal medicin

A Generalized Method for Calculating Atmospheric Ionization by Energetic Electron Precipitation

Accurate specification of ionization production by energetic electron precipitation is critical for atmospheric chemistry models to assess the resultant atmospheric effects. Recent model-observation comparison studies have increasingly highlighted the importance of considering precipitation fluxes in the full range of electron energy and pitch angle. However, previous parameterization methods were mostly proposed for isotropically precipitation electrons with energies up to 1 MeV, and the pitch angle dependence has not yet been parameterized. In this paper, we first characterize and tabulate the atmospheric ionization response to monoenergetic electrons with different pitch angles and energies between ∼3 keV and ∼33 MeV. A generalized method that fully accounts for the dependence of ionization production on background atmospheric conditions, electron energy, and pitch angle has been developed based on the parameterization method of Fang et al. (2010, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GL045406). Moreover, we validate this method using 100 random atmospheric profiles and precipitation fluxes with monoenergetic and exponential energy distributions, and isotropic and sine pitch angle distributions. In a suite of 6,100 validation tests, the error in peak ionization altitude is found to be within 1 km in 91% of all the tests with a mean error of 2.7% in peak ionization rate and 1.9% in total ionization. This method therefore provides a reliable means to convert space-measured precipitation energy and pitch angle distributions into ionization inputs for atmospheric chemistry models.publishedVersio

Transcriptional up-regulation of relaxin-3 by Nur77 attenuates β-adrenergic agonist-induced apoptosis in cardiomyocytes.

The relaxin family peptides have been shown to exert several beneficial effects on the heart, including anti-apoptosis, anti-fibrosis, and anti-hypertrophy activity. Understanding their regulation might provide new opportunities for therapeutic interventions, but the molecular mechanism(s) coordinating relaxin expression in the heart remain largely obscured. Previous work demonstrated a role for the orphan nuclear receptor Nur77 in regulating cardiomyocyte apoptosis. We therefore investigated Nur77 in the hopes of identifying novel relaxin regulators. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) data indicated that ectopic expression of orphan nuclear receptor Nur77 markedly increased the expression of latexin-3 (RLN3), but not relaxin-1 (RLN1), in neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes (NRVMs). Furthermore, we found that the -adrenergic agonist isoproterenol (ISO) markedly stimulated RLN3 expression, and this stimulation was significantly attenuated in Nur77 knockdown cardiomyocytes and Nur77 knockout hearts. We showed that Nur77 significantly increased RLN3 promoter activity via specific binding to the RLN3 promoter, as demonstrated by electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and chromatin immuno-precipitation (ChIP) assays. Furthermore, we found that Nur77 overexpression potently inhibited ISO-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis, whereas this protective effect was significantly attenuated in RLN3 knockdown cardiomyocytes, suggesting that Nur77-induced RLN3 expression is an important mediator for the suppression of cardiomyocyte apoptosis. These findings show that Nur77 regulates RLN3 expression, therefore suppressing apoptosis in the heart, and suggest that activation of Nur77 may represent a useful therapeutic strategy for inhibition of cardiac fibrosis and heart failure. © 2018 You et al

A highly robust and optimized sequence-based approach for genetic polymorphism discovery and genotyping in large plant populations

KEY MESSAGE: This optimized approach provides both a computational tool and a library construction protocol, which can maximize the number of genomic sequence reads that uniformly cover a plant genome and minimize the number of sequence reads representing chloroplast DNA and rRNA genes. One can implement the developed computational tool to feasibly design their own RAD-seq experiment to achieve expected coverage of sequence variant markers for large plant populations using information of the genome sequence and ideally, though not necessarily, information of the sequence polymorphism distribution in the genome. ABSTRACT: Advent of the next generation sequencing techniques motivates recent interest in developing sequence-based identification and genotyping of genome-wide genetic variants in large populations, with RAD-seq being a typical example. Without taking proper account for the fact that chloroplast and rRNA genes may occupy up to 60 % of the resulting sequence reads, the current RAD-seq design could be very inefficient for plant and crop species. We presented here a generic computational tool to optimize RAD-seq design in any plant species and experimentally tested the optimized design by implementing it to screen for and genotype sequence variants in four plant populations of diploid and autotetraploid Arabidopsis and potato Solanum tuberosum. Sequence data from the optimized RAD-seq experiments shows that the undesirable chloroplast and rRNA contributed sequence reads can be controlled at 3–10 %. Additionally, the optimized RAD-seq method enables pre-design of the required uniformity and density in coverage of the high quality sequence polymorphic markers over the genome of interest and genotyping of large plant or crop populations at a competitive cost in comparison to other mainstream rivals in the literature. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00122-016-2736-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Differential Expression of MicroRNA-19b Promotes Proliferation of Cancer Stem Cells by Regulating the TSC1/mTOR Signaling Pathway in Multiple Myeloma

Background/Aims: MiR-19b has been reported to be involved in several malignancies, but its role in multiple myeloma (MM) is still unknown. The objective of this study was to explore the biological mechanism of miR-19b in the progression of MM. Methods: First, we performed real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Western blot to study the expression of miR-19b, tuberous sclerosis 1 (TSC1), and caspase-3 in different groups. MTT assay was performed to explore the effect of miR-19b on survival and apoptosis of cancer stem cells (CSCs). Computation analysis and luciferase assay were utilized to confirm the interaction between miR-19b and TSC1. Results: A total of 38 participants comprising 20 subjects with MM and 18 healthy subjects as normal controls were enrolled in our study. Real-time PCR showed dramatic upregulation of miR-19b, but TSC1 was evidently suppressed in the MM group. MiR-19b overexpression substantially promoted clonogenicity and cell viability, and further inhibited apoptosis of CSCs in vitro. Furthermore, miR-19b overexpression downregulated the expression of caspase-3, which induced apoptosis. Using in silico analysis, we identified that TSC1 might be a direct downstream target of miR-19b, and this was further confirmed by luciferase assay showing that miR-19b apparently reduced the luciferase activity of wild-type TSC1 3´-UTR, but not that of mutant TSC1 3´-UTR. There was also evident decrease in TSC1 mRNA and protein in CSCs following introduction of miR-19b. Interestingly, reintroduction of TSC1 abolished the miR-19b-induced proliferation promotion and apoptosis inhibition in CSCs. Conclusion: These findings collectively suggest that miR-19b promotes cell survival and suppresses apoptosis of MM CSCs via targeting TSC1 directly, indicating that miR-19b may serve as a potential and novel therapeutic target of MM based on miRNA expression

The importance of pickup oxygen ion precipitation to the Mars upper atmosphere under extreme solar wind conditions

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98793/1/grl50415.pd