RhoA/Rock2/Limk1/cofilin1 pathway is involved in attenuation of neuronal dendritic spine loss by paeonol in the frontal cortex of D-galactose and aluminum‑induced Alzheimer's disease‑like rat model.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) has become the most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder. Given the pathogenesis of AD is unclear, there is currently no drug approved to halt or delay the progression of AD. Therefore, it is pressing to explore new targets and drugs for AD.

Novel antidepressant effects of Paeonol alleviate neuronal injury with concomitant alterations in BDNF, Rac1 and RhoA levels in chronic unpredictable mild stress rats.

Rationale: Increasing evidence has suggested that major depressive disorder (MDD) is highly associated with brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels, dendrites atrophy, and loss of dendritic spines, especially in emotion-associated brain regions including the hippocampus. Paeonol is a kind of polyphenols natural product with a variety of therapeutic effects. Recent studies have reported its antidepressant effects.

Novel derivative of Paeonol, Paeononlsilatie sodium, alleviates behavioral damage and hippocampal dendritic injury in Alzheimer's disease concurrent with cofilin1/phosphorylated-cofilin1 and RAC1/CDC42 alterations in rats.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a typical hippocampal amnesia and the most common senile dementia. Many studies suggest that cognitive impairments are more closely correlated with synaptic loss than the burden of amyloid deposits in AD progression. To date, there is no effective treatment for this disease.

Expression and functional regulation of stemness gene Lgr5 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are defined as a rare subpopulation of undifferentiated cells with biological characteristics that include the capacity for self-renewal, differentiation into various lineages, and tumor initiation. To explore the mechanism of CSCs in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), we focused on Leucine-rich repeat containing G protein-coupled receptor 5 (Lgr5), a target gene of the Wnt signaling pathway, which has been identified as a marker of intestinal stem cells and shown to be overexpressed in several human malignancies. Lgr5 expression was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis, increased depth of invasion, increased tumor size, advanced differentiation, higher AJCC stage and poorer survival.

[Levels of acute-phase-reactants in patient with dermatomysitis and its correlations with IL-6 and dermatomyositis disease activity].

Objective: To determine the association between acute-phase-reactants (APR) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in patient with dermatomysitis (DM).

Methods: The levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), serum amyloid A protein(SAA) and serum ferritin (SF) in peripheral blood of 31 adult DM patients were determined by chemiluminescence immunoassay, and compared with those of 23 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), 22 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and 18 patients with Sjagren syndrome (SS). The correlations between the levels of those APR and IL-6 were examined.

[Comparison of four diagnostic criteria for idiopathic inflammatory myopathy].

Objective: To compare the clinical values of four different criteria for diagnosing idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IIM).

Methods: The four different criteria published in 1975, 1995, 1997 and 2004 were applied to 94 IIM patients and 98 patients with other myopathies in West China Hospital.

Results: The sensitivity of the four criteria for diagnosing IIM was 56.

[The effect of genetic polymorphism of the exon 2 of the beta-lactoglobulin gene on the milk composition in Chinese Holstein].

Objective: In order to study the effect of the polymorphism at the exon2 region of the (3-LG allele gene on milk composition and yield.

Methods: The single-strand conformation polymorphism method (PCR-SSCP) was used to analyze for polymorphism the exon2 region of the 3-LG gene (NCBI accession number: DQ489319) in Chinese Holstein.

Results: Eight SSCP patterns were detected in the fragments: ab, abc, abd, abe, abcd, abce, abde and abcde, and the patterns frequencies as follows: 0.