Non-invasive cardiac output measurement with electrical velocimetry in patients undergoing liver transplantation: comparison of an invasive method with pulmonary thermodilution.

Background: The goal of this study was to evaluate the accuracy and interchangeability between continuous cardiac output (CO) measured by electrical velocimetry (CO) and continuous cardiac output obtained using the pulmonary thermodilution method (CO) during living donor liver transplantation (LDLT).

Method: Twenty-three patients were enrolled in this prospective observational study. CO was recorded by both two methods and compared at nine specific time points.

Aberrant activation of hedgehog signaling promotes cell proliferation via the transcriptional activation of forkhead Box M1 in colorectal cancer cells.

Background: Recent evidence suggests that the aberrant activation of Hedgehog (Hh) signaling by Gli transcription factors is characteristic of a variety of aggressive human carcinomas, including colorectal cancer (CRC). Forkhead box M1 (FoxM1) controls the expression of a number of cell cycle regulatory proteins, and FoxM1 expression is elevated in a broad range of human malignancies, which suggests that it plays a crucial role in tumorigenesis. However, the mechanisms underlying FoxM1 expression are not fully understood.

[Expression, purification and characterization of rat procarboxypeptidase B in Pichia pastoris].

Carboxypeptidase B is a metalloenzyme, which is widely used for commercial and research purposes. Commercially available CPB purified from porcine or bovine pancreas is very expensive, and is not totally free from other proteases. In order to express the rat proCPB in Pichia pastoris, total RNA extracted from SD rat pancreas cells was reversely transcripted to synthesize cDNA, and the proCPB ORF was synthesized by PCR.

[Expression of fusion protein of parathyroid hormone and transferrin N-terminal half-molecule in Pichia pastoris].

The fused gene (PTH-TFN) of parathyroid hormone (PTH) gene and transferring N-terminal half-molecule (TFN) gene was amplified by multiple PCR and inserted into pPIC9 vector. The recombinant plasmid pPIC9-PTH-TFN was transformed into Pichia pastoris GS115 by PEG. After methanol induction, the target protein was expressed in fermentation supernatant at high level.