Efficacy and safety of lubiprostone for the treatment of functional constipation in Chinese adult patients: A multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Objectives: Functional constipation is a gastrointestinal disorder prevalent around the world. Lubiprostone is the first locally acting type-2 chloride channel activator to be used for treating constipation. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of lubiprostone in Chinese adults with functional constipation.

Inositol-Requiring Kinase 1 Regulates Apoptosis via Inducing Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress in Colitis Epithelial Cells.

Background: Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) has been studied as critical factor during occurrence and development of ulcerative colitis (UC). However, the role of ERS in inflamed UC remains unclear.

Aims: The purpose of this study was to analyze the role of inositol-requiring kinase 1 (IRE-1), a major regulator of ER, in regulating ERS and cell viability.

Baicalin protects neonatal rat brains against hypoxic-ischemic injury by upregulating glutamate transporter 1 the phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B signaling pathway.

Baicalin is a flavonoid compound extracted from Scutellaria baicalensis root. Recent evidence indicates that baicalin is neuroprotective in models of ischemic stroke. Here, we investigate the neuroprotective effect of baicalin in a neonatal rat model of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

Repair Injured Heart by Regulating Cardiac Regenerative Signals.

Cardiac regeneration is a homeostatic cardiogenic process by which the sections of malfunctioning adult cardiovascular tissues are repaired and renewed employing a combination of both cardiomyogenesis and angiogenesis. Unfortunately, while high-quality regeneration can be performed in amphibians and zebrafish hearts, mammalian hearts do not respond in kind. Indeed, a long-term loss of proliferative capacity in mammalian adult cardiomyocytes in combination with dysregulated induction of tissue fibrosis impairs mammalian endogenous heart regenerative capacity, leading to deleterious cardiac remodeling at the end stage of heart failure.

CXCR4 attenuates cardiomyocytes mitochondrial dysfunction to resist ischaemia-reperfusion injury.

The chemokine (C-X-C motif) receptor 4 (CXCR4) is expressed on native cardiomyocytes and can modulate isolated cardiomyocyte contractility. This study examines the role of CXCR4 in cardiomyocyte response to ischaemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Isolated adult rat ventricular cardiomyocytes were subjected to hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) to simulate I/R injury.

[Study on quasispecies of hepatitis B virus and the clinical manifestation of their infection by melt curve analysis].

Objectives: To study the relationship between quasispecies of hepatitis B virus and the clinical manifestations of their infection, and to find the answer of why different quasispecies of HBV with the same genotype can induce different clinical situations.

Methods: Sixty serum samples, in all of which HBVs of genotype B exist, taken from 32 chronic asymptomatic carriers and 28 severe chronic hepatitis patients, were collected to detect quasispecies of HBV DNA by melt curve approach. Then the relationship between quasispecies of HBV of the same genotype and the clinical situation of their infection was studied by comparing the wave crests of the two sample groups.

[Relation between genotype of HBV and its clinical manifestation by PCR with genotype-specific primers].

Objective: To determine the relation between genotype of HBV and its clinical manifestation.

Methods: Sera of 220 patients from Hunan Province of China, infected chronically with asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe and fulminant hepatitis hepatitis B, were genotyped by PCR with genotype-specific primers. The results were statistically analyzed.