Therapeutic and immune function improvement of vitamin D combined with IFN-α on mouse with hepatitis B infection.

This study aims to investigate the therapeutic effect of vitamin D (VD) combined with interferon (IFN) type I (IFN-α) on mice with hepatitis B and to explore the possible mechanism. The mice were divided into control group, model group, IFN-α group, and IFN-α  VD group. After 4 weeks, the mice of four groups were weighed, and the thymus and spleen indexes were calculated.

Significance of MD-2 and MD-2B expression in rat liver during acute cholangitis.

Aim: To investigate the expression of myeloid differentiation protein-2 (MD-2), MD-2B (a splicing isoform of MD-2 that can block Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)/MD-2 LPS-mediated signal transduction) and TLR4 in the liver of acute cholangitis rats.

Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats (SPF level) were randomly divided into four groups: (A) sham-operated group; (B) simple common bile duct ligation group; (C) acute cholangitis group; and (D) acute cholangitis anti-TLR4 intervention group (n = 25 per group). Rat liver tissue samples were used to detect TLR4, MD-2 and MD-2B mRNA expression by fluorescence quantitative PCR in parallel with pathological changes.