Adjuvant chemotherapy alongside radiotherapy is one of the effective therapies in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) treatment. However, the appearance of drug resistance is a major obstacle for ...anti‐cancer chemotherapy and often causes failure of the chemotherapy. In this study, a drug‐resistant gene annexin I (ANX‐I) was identified by comparing differentially expressed proteins between a cisplatin (CDDP)‐resistant NPC cell line CNE2‐CDDP and parental CNE2 cells using 2‐DE. When ANX‐I was transfected into CNE2 cells, the CDDP resistance of CNE2 cells was dramatically increased. The drug‐resistant ability of ANX‐I was demonstrated by both in vitro and in vivo assays. The association of ANX‐I expression with clinical features was also investigated. Increased expression of ANX‐I was significantly associated with disease relapse in NPC (p<0.05). In breast and gastric cancer, increased expression of ANX‐I was significantly associated with drug resistance (p<0.001) and poor prognosis (p<0.001), respectively. Taken together, our findings suggest that ANX‐I plays an important role in drug resistance.
To improve antibiotic use globally, we must deepen our understanding of the public's knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) concerning antibiotics. Children are frequent users of antibiotics, and ...their caregivers play important roles in determining how antibiotics are used. The purpose of this study was to describe caregivers' KAP in a rural province in eastern China, and to identify socio-demographic factors associated with inappropriate antibiotic use.
A cross-sectional questionnaire based survey was conducted in 12 villages in one county in Shandong Province. A total of 727 individuals who were the primary day-to-day caregiver for a child aged 0-7 years were randomly selected and invited to participate. All caregivers were surveyed face-to-face using a semi-structured questionnaire focusing on the use of antibiotics in children.
Almost all invited caregivers (99.3 %) completed the questionnaire in full. Caregivers expressed high levels of over-expectation for antibiotics for common childhood symptoms, stating that antibiotics were always or usually necessary when a child has a fever (46 %) or dry cough (42 %). Most caregivers (93 %) were aware that they should follow the doctor's advice when giving their children antibiotics. Many, however, reported that they had previously deviated from advice; this was most commonly through using antibiotics intermittently rather than regularly, but also by increasing and decreasing doses. Caregivers that were older and that had less formal education had higher levels of self-reported adherence (p < 0.01). A third of caregivers admitted to storing leftover antibiotics at home, and almost all of these caregivers (97 %) had used the antibiotics on a second occasion for their child.
We have identified important gaps in knowledge, attitudes and practices concerning antibiotics among this rural population of caregivers. There is a clear need for multifaceted interventions that target village doctors, to improve prescribing and communication, as well as the general public, to improve health-seeking behaviours and promote responsible individual use of antibiotics.
This study aimed to investigate the safety of clival screw placement in children aged 1-6 years.
The cranial computed tomography data of 92 children aged 1-6 years were divided into three groups, ...according to age, for three-dimensional reconstruction. Three clival screw placement points were defined: (1) median point A at the middle and upper third of the tripartite distance from the spheno-occipital synchondrosis to the base of the skull; (2, 3) critical points B and C on the horizontal line with point A, where the screw placement passage was parallel to the sagittal plane. Parameters such as the passage length and angle were measured for horizontal, vertical facial, and extreme screw placement.
The length parameters of the clival screw placement increased with age, and the screw passage length was the shortest for the vertical facial type in each age group. There were significant differences in all three groups between the length of screw placement in the vertical bone surface, the length of screw placement in the horizontal direction, and the length of screw placement on the limit at points A, B, and C (
< 0.05); the length of screw placement on the vertical bone surface was the shortest. There was no significant difference between the horizontal screw length at point A and the extreme screw length (
> 0.05). The difference between the horizontal screw length and the extreme screw length in the groups aged 1-2 years and 5-6 years was statistically significant (
< 0.05), and the horizontal screw length was longer.
The cranial slope of children aged 1-6 years has the morphological basis for the placement of 3.5 mm screws, and each placement point has a safe angle range for screw placement.
CD28/CTLA-4 interactions with their specific B7-ligands (CD80 and CD86) play a decisive role in antigenic and allogenic responses. Recently, experimental transplant studies demonstrated that ...donor-specific tolerance was achieved by blocking these interactions. However, the role of blockade of CD28/B7 costimulatory pathway in the maintenance of materno-fetal tolerance has received little attention. In the present study, abortion-prone CBA/J females mated with DBA/2 males were administered with anti-CD80 and anti-CD86 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) on day 4 of gestation (time of murine implantation). We demonstrated that the combined use of anti-CD80 and anti-CD86 mAbs induced maternal tolerance to the fetus in the abortion-prone CBA/J mice, and displayed expansion of the maternal CD4
+CD25
+ regulatory T cell population and up-regulated expression of CTLA-4, suggesting an active mechanism of regulatory T cells in suppressing maternal rejection to the fetus. In addition, the anti-CD80/86 mAbs treatment enhanced Th2 and reduced Th1 cytokine production in mice, implying that the development of Th2 cells might contribute to maternal tolerance to her fetus. Together, these findings indicated that blocking CD80 and CD86 enhanced maternal tolerance to her fetus in mice by increasing regulatory T cell function and skewing toward a Th2 response. Our data might provide an enhanced understanding of the maternal-fetal immune relationship and be helpful in clinical trials for immunotherapy of recurrent spontaneous abortion.
A natural broad energy germanium (BEGe) detector is operated in the China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL) for a feasibility study of building the next generation experiment of the neutrinoless ...double-beta (0{\(\nu\beta\beta\)}) decay of \(^{76}\)Ge. The setup of the prototype facility, characteristics of the BEGe detector, background reduction methods, and data analysis are described in this paper. A background index of 6.4\(\times\)10\(^{-3}\) counts/(keV\(\cdot\)kg\(\cdot\)day) is achieved and 1.86 times lower than our previous result of the CDEX-1 detector. No signal is observed with an exposure of 186.4 kg\(\cdot\)day, thus a limit on the half life of \(^{76}\)Ge 0\(\nu\beta\beta\) decay is set at T\(_{1/2}^{0\nu}\) \(>\) 5.62\(\times\)10\(^{22}\) yr at 90% C.L.. The limit corresponds to an effective Majorana neutrino mass in the range of 4.6 \(\sim\) 10.3 eV, dependent on the nuclear matrix elements.
The property of dopamine in acid–alkaline medium was studied by spectrofluorimetry and spectrophotometry. Effects of organic solvents on dopamine fluorescence spectra were examined and the reason was ...discussed. Among the organic solvents tested, methanol was selected as sensitizing reagent. A fluorescence quenching reaction took place in basic medium. Mechanism of fluorescence quenching was discussed. A simple, rapid and highly sensitive fluorimetric method for the determination of dopamine in injection and urine is developed. The measurement of relative fluorescence intensity was carried out at 315 nm with excitation at 279 nm. Effects of pH, foreign ions on the determination of dopamine have been examined. A linear relationship was obtained between the relative fluorescence intensity and concentration of dopamine in the range of 0.10–3.50 μg ml
−1. The linear regression equation of the calibration graph is
C=0.00447
F−0.00748, with a correlation coefficient of linear regression of 0.9997 and relative standard deviation of 2.37%. The detection limit of this method is 0.082 μg ml
−1, and recovery is from 104.2 to 106.6%. This method can be used for determination of dopamine in injection and urine sample. The results obtained by this method agreed with those by the official method (high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)).
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