Origin discrimination and quality evaluation of Gastrodiae rhizoma (Orchidaceae) by high-performance liquid chromatographic fingerprint

Purpose: To develop a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprint method for the quality control and origin discrimination of Gastrodiae rhizoma.Methods: Twelve batches of G. rhizoma collected from Sichuan, Guizhou and Shanxi provinces in china were used to establish the fingerprint. The chromatographic peak (gastrodin) was taken as the reference peak, and all sample separation was  performed on a Agilent C18 (250 mm×4.6 mmx5 μm) column with a column  temperature of 25 °C. The mobile phase was acetonitrile/0.8 % phosphate watersolution (in a gradient elution mode) and the flow rate of 1 mL/min. The detection wavelength was 270 nm. The method was validated as per the guidelines of Chinese Pharmacopoeia.Results: The chromatograms of the samples showed 11 common peaks, of which no. 4 was identified as that of Gastrodin. Data for the samples were analyzed  statistically using similarity analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). The similarity index between reference chromatogram and samples’ chromatograms were all > 0.80. The similarity index of G. rhizoma from Guizhou, Shanxi and Sichuan isevident as follows: 0.854 - 0.885, 0.915 - 0.930 and 0.820 - 0.848, respectively. The samples could be divided into three clusters at a rescaled distance of 7.5: S1 - S4 as cluster 1; S5 - S8 cluster 2, and others grouped into cluster 3.Conclusion: The findings indicate that HPLC fingerprinting technology is appropriate for quality control and origin discrimination of G. rhizoma.Keywords: Gastrodiae rhizoma, Origin discrimination, Quality control; HPLC fingerprin

Upregulation of microRNA-25 associates with prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Accumulating evidence has shown that up-regulation of microRNA-25(miR-25) is associated with the prognosis of several types of human malignant solid tumors. However, whether miR-25 expression has influence on the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still unknown. METHODS: The differentially expressed amount of the miR-25 was validated in triplicate by quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Survival rate was analyzed by log-rank test, and survival curves were plotted according to Kaplan–Meier. Multivariate analysis of the prognostic factors was performed with Cox regression model. RESULTS: The expression of miR-25 was significantly upregulated in HCC tissues when compared with adjacent normal tissues (p<0.0001). Patients who had high miR-25 expression had a shorter overall survival than patients who had low miR-25 expression (median overall survival, 31.0 months versus 42.9 months, p=0.0192). The multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that miR-25 expression (HR=2.179; p=0.001), TNM stage (HR=1.782; p=0.014), and vein invasion (HR=1.624; p=0.020) were independent prognostic factors for overall survival. CONCLUSION: Our data suggests that the overexpression of miR-25 in HCC tissues is of predictive value on poor prognosis. VIRTUAL SLIDE: The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/198961842111430

Cyclosporine A combined with medium/low dose prednisone in progressive IgA nephropathy

AbstractThe aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of cyclosporine A (CsA) combined with medium/low dose prednisone in the treatment of progressive immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN). Ninety-six patients who satisfied the inclusion criteria were enrolled in a prospective controlled clinical study. They were assigned into two groups and initially given either 0.6–0.8 mg/kg/day prednisone (maximum 40 mg/day) plus 3 mg/kg/day CsA (CsA group), or 1 mg/kg/day prednisone (maximum 60 mg/day) alone (steroid group). During therapy, the dose of prednisone was reduced in both groups and the dose of CsA was gradually tailed off over the first 3 months and maintained at 2 mg/kg/day in the CsA group. Urinary protein excretion, serum biochemical indexes, clinical efficacy and side effects of CsA were assayed. A significant decline in mean 24-hour urinary protein excretion (p < 0.05) was observed 1 month after treatment in patients in the CsA group, which was observed 2 months after treatment in the steroid group. The decline in mean 24-hour urinary protein excretion in the CsA group was more significant than in the steroid group. Serum albumin level increased significantly in the CsA group 2 months after therapy (p < 0.05). Moreover, at the end of the course, a higher remission rate was observed in patients with Lee’s Grade III IgAN after combined treatment with prednisone and CsA (p < 0.05). No significant difference in clinical efficacy was observed in patients with Lee’s Grade IV and Grade V IgAN between the two groups (p > 0.05). CsA at a dose of 2–3 mg/kg/day in combination with medium/low dose prednisone was effective in inducing remission of IgAN, especially for patients with Lee's Grade III IgAN, and is a safe and effective choice for short-term treatment of patients with progressive IgAN

Experimental Realization of Nonadiabatic Holonomic Single-Qubit Quantum Gates with Two Dark Paths in a Trapped Ion

For circuit-based quantum computation, experimental implementation of universal set of quantum logic gates with high-fidelity and strong robustness is essential and central. Quantum gates induced by geometric phases, which depend only on global properties of the evolution paths, have built-in noise-resilience features. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate nonadiabatic holonomic single-qubit quantum gates on two dark paths in a trapped $^{171}\mathrm{Yb}^{+}$ ion based on four-level systems with resonant drives. We confirm the implementation with measured gate fidelity through both quantum process tomography and randomized benchmarking methods. Meanwhile, we find that nontrivial holonomic two-qubit quantum gates can also be realized within current experimental technologies. Compared with previous implementations on three-level systems, our experiment share both the advantage of fast nonadiabatic evolution and the merit of robustness against systematic errors, and thus retains the main advantage of geometric phases. Therefore, our experiment confirms a promising method for fast and robust holonomic quantum computation.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Brilliant circularly polarized γ\gamma-ray sources via single-shot laser plasma interaction

Circularly polarized (CP) $\gamma$-ray sources are versatile for broad applications in nuclear physics, high-energy physics and astrophysics. The laser-plasma based particle accelerators provide accessibility for much higher flux $\gamma$-ray sources than conventional approaches, in which, however, the circular polarization properties of emitted $\gamma$-photons are used to be neglected. In this letter, we show that brilliant CP $\gamma$-ray beams can be generated via the combination of laser plasma wakefield acceleration and plasma mirror techniques. In weakly nonlinear Compton scattering scheme with moderate laser intensities, the helicity of the driving laser can be transferred to the emitted $\gamma$-photons, and their average polarization degree can reach about $\sim 37\%$ ($21\%$) with a peak brilliance of $\gtrsim 10^{21}~$photons/(s $\cdot$ mm$^2 \cdot$ mrad$^2 \cdot$ 0.1% BW) around 1~MeV (100~MeV). Moreover, our proposed method is easily feasible and robust with respect to the laser and plasma parameters