The chemokine CXCL1 and its receptor CXCR2 contribute to chronic stress-induced depression in mice.

Depression is increasingly recognized as an inflammatory disease, with inflammatory crosstalk in the brain contributing its pathogenesis. Life stresses may up-regulate inflammatory processes and promote depression. Although cytokines are central to stress-related immune responses, their contribution to stress-induced depression remains unclear.

[Testicular CR16 and spermatogenesis].

Spermatogenesis is a complex regulatory process depending on a variety of hormones (such as FSH, LH, T, and 17beta estradiol), cytokines, and genes. Research on gene regulation in spermatogenesis has become a hot spot and revealed some spermato-genesis-related genes, such as AYZ, DAZ, YRRM, NOSTRIN, and so on. Reports are rarely seen on the role of CR16 in male reproduction, and its action mechanism in spermatogenesis is not yet clear.

[Effects of paroxetine on protein kinase PKA, PKC and CaMKII activity in different brain regions in a rat depression model].

Objective: To evaluate the effects of paroxetine on protein kinase PKA, PKC and CaMKII activities in different brain regions in a rat model of depression.

Methods: Thirty-six adult male SD rats were randomized into 6 groups, including one control group (I) and 5 groups of depression model established by forcing the rats to swim for 4 weeks. The 5 depression groups received no treatment (II) or were treated with paroxetine at a single dose (III), for a week (IV), 2 weeks (V) or 4 weeks (VI).

[Protective effects of orientin on myocardial ischemia and hypoxia in animal models].

Objective: To study the protective effects of orientin against myocardial ischemia and hypoxia in rats.

Methods: The protective effect of orientin against myocardial ischemia and hypoxia was observed in mice by recording their survival time under closed normobaric hypoxia and time of cardiac electric disappearance due to trachea clamping, in rabbits by evaluating arachidonic acid (AA)-induced blood platelet aggregation, in guinea pigs by measuring the coronal flow in the isolated heart and in SD rats with myocardial ischemia induced by pituitrin injection.

Results: Orientin (1, 2, 4 mg/kg) significantly prolonged the survival time of mice under closed normobaric hypoxia and the gasping duration induced by decapitation.

Vasodilatation produced by orientin and its mechanism study.

In this paper we investigated the vascular activity and possible mechanism of Orientin, from bamboo leaves (Phyllostachys nigra), in isolated thoracic aortic rings from New Zealand rabbit. Among the four compounds, studied, only Orientin relaxed phenylephrine-induced contractions with an IC50 value of 2.28 microM in the endothelium intact and with an IC50 value around 7.