Deciphering the Underlying Mechanism of Eucommiae Cortex against Osteoporotic Fracture by Network Pharmacology.

Background: Du Zhong (DZ), or Eucommiae Cortex, a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, has been used to treat osteoporosis. Although it has been reported that DZ can improve bone mass in ovariectomized rats, its pharmacological mechanisms in treating osteoporotic fractures (OPF) remain unclear.

Methods: In this study, we used a network pharmacological manner to explore its potential complicated mechanism in treating OPF.

Influence of cement-augmented pedicle screw instrumentation in an osteoporotic lumbosacral spine over the adjacent segments: a 3D finite element study.

Purpose: To compare the effect of conventional pedicle screw (CPS) and cement-augmented pedicle screw instrumentation (CAPSI) on adjacent segment degeneration (ASD).

Methods: A normal male volunteer without a history of spinal disease was selected, lumbar CT data was collected, an intact L3-S1 three-dimensional finite element model was created by software including Mimics, Geomagic, and SolidWorks, and the fixation methods were performed accordingly. A common pedicle screw model and a cement-augmented pedicle screw model of L4-L5 with fusion and internal fixation were constructed.

Efficient penetration of Scp01-b and its DNA transfer abilities into cells.

The in vivo application potential of viral-based gene delivery approaches is hindered by a risk of insertional oncogenesis. Of the many delivery methods, cell-penetrating peptides (CPP)-based delivery has good biocompatibility and biodegradability. However, low efficiency is still the disadvantage of CPPs-based nucleic acid transfection, and delivery efficiency may vary from different CPPs.

Isoliquiritigenin inhibits mouse S180 tumors with a new mechanism that regulates autophagy by GSK-3β/TNF-α pathway.

In this study, the pharmacokinetic properties and stability of isoliquiritigenin (ILQ) in microsomes were evaluated. The data showed ILQ administrated by i.h had high absorption degree (absolute bioavailability> 90%), and strong elimination ability (average t≈ 67 min).

Hyperosmotic treatment synergistically boost efficiency of cell-permeable peptides.

Therapeutics delivery into cells has been hurdled due to the barrier of cytoplasmic membrane. Although cell penetrating peptide (CPP) can potentially serve as an intracellular drug delivery vehicle, the application of CPP-based delivery is limited because the unsatisfactory delivery efficiency of CPP conjugated potent cargos is challenging their applications in present. Thus, the development of strategies for enhancing the penetrating efficiency of CPP would therefore urgent need to be explored to increase the scope of potential applications.

Highly Efficient Delivery of Functional Cargoes by a Novel Cell-Penetrating Peptide Derived from SP140-Like Protein.

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) have been successfully applied to deliver various functional macromolecules into cells in recent times. Here, we describe a novel CPP designated as hPP3 (KPKRKRRKKKGHGWSR), which were derived from human nuclear body protein SP140-like protein. The location of hPP3-FITC in cells was investigated using the fluorescence microscopy, and the internalization of hPP3 was quantitatively measured using a fluorescence spectrophotometer.

Emerging landscape of cell penetrating peptide in reprogramming and gene editing.

The plasma membrane remains a major barrier for intracellular drug delivery, to overcome this issue, a variety of approaches have been developed and used to deliver therapeutic cargos. Among these approaches, cell penetrating peptide (CPP) is promising and affords widely used vector for efficient intracellular delivery of cargos. Moreover, the latter findings including iPS reprogramming and direct transdifferentiation as well as gene editing have gradually become hot research topic; because their application in tissue engineering and disease modeling have great potential to advance innovation in precision medicine.

Emerging methods to generate artificial germ cells from stem cells.

Germ cells are responsible for the transmission of genetic and epigenetic information across generations. At present, the number of infertile couples is increasing worldwide; these infertility problems can be traced to environmental pollutions, infectious diseases, cancer, psychological or work-related stress, and other factors, such as lifestyle and genetics. Notably, lack of germ cells and germ cell loss present real obstacles in infertility treatment.