MRI of late microstructural and metabolic alterations in radiation-induced brain injuries.

Purpose: To evaluate the late effects of radiation-induced damages in the rat brain by means of in vivo multiparametric MRI.

Materials And Methods: The right hemibrains of seven Sprague-Dawley rats were irradiated with a highly collimated 6 MV photon beam at a single dose of approximately 28 Gy. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), proton MR spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS), T2-weighted imaging, and T1-weighted imaging were performed to the same animals 12 months after radiation treatment.

Early detection of neurodegeneration in brain ischemia by manganese-enhanced MRI.

This study aims to employ in vivo manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI) to detect neurodegenerative changes in two models of brain ischemia, photothrombotic cortical injury (PCI) and transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in rodents. After systemic Mn(2+) injection to both ischemic models, a close pattern of T1-weighted hyperintensity was observed throughout different brain regions in comparison to the distribution of GFAP, MnSOD and GS immunoreactivities, whereby conventional MRI could hardly detect such. In addition, the infarct volumes in the posterior parts of the brain had significantly reduced after Mn(2+) injection to the MCAO model.

Suppression of lung tumor growth and metastasis in mice by adeno-associated virus-mediated expression of vasostatin.

Purpose: Angiogenesis inhibitors have strong therapeutic potential as antitumor agents in suppressing tumor growth and metastatic progression. Vasostatin, the N-terminal domain of calreticulin, is a potent angiogenesis inhibitor. In this study, we determined the effectiveness of vasostatin delivered by recombinant pseudotype adeno-associated virus 2/5 (rAAV2/5-VAS) as a gene therapy approach for lung cancer treatment.

[Apoptosis of human gastric cancer cell induced by photochemical riboflavin].

Background & Objective: Photochemical riboflavin, the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), has been reported having cytotoxity on some cancer cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of photochemical riboflavin on inducing apoptosis in human gastric cancer cell line MGC80-3.

Methods: Trypan blue exclusion method, Giemsa staining, DNA electrophoresis, DNA quantification, Western blot analysis, and flow cytometry were conducted to determine the effect of photochemical riboflavin on cell survival, morphology, DNA fragmentation, gene expression, and cell cycle arresting.

Induction of differentiation in human hepatocarcinoma cells by isoverbascoside.

Isoverbascoside, a phenylethanoid glycoside, was isolated from Chinese folk medicine herb Pedicularis striata Pall. Here we report that isoverbascoside is capable of inducing differentiation in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell line SMMC-7721. When treated with isoverbascoside, the proliferation of SMMC-7721 cells was markedly inhibited in a dose- and time-dependent manner, and the average cell population doubling time was delayed.