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Twenty heavy metals in the ground surface dust and agricultural soil in three different areas, i.e., a former artisanal zinc smelting area, a medium-scale zinc smelting area, and a control area, in Guizhou province southwest China, were investigated to reveal the pollution status of these heavy metals. The results showed that the pollution was most serious in the artisanal zinc smelting area, followed by the medium-scale zinc smelting area, while the control area was relatively clean. Zinc smelting activities had caused environmental contamination for elements such as Ag, As, Bi, Cd, Cu, Hg, In, Pb, Sb, Sn, Zn. Whereas, Co, Cr, Ga, Mo, Ni, Sc, Th, Tl, V were in the natural levels, hinting they were irrelevant to the zinc smelting activities. Concentrations of most heavy metals that come from the zinc smelting were obviously higher in the ground surface dust than that in the agricultural soil. And Cd, Pb, Zn, Ag were the four elements that affected by the zinc smelting activities most.

Introduction: Vascular prosthetic grafts are widely used in vascular surgery; however, graft infection remains a major concern. Silver-coated vascular grafts have demonstrated anti-infection properties in clinical settings; however, whether the silver irons influence foreign body reaction or neointimal hyperplasia remains unclear., Methods: Sodium alginate and hyaluronic acid (SA/HA) hydrogel patches loaded with rhodamine, with or without silver, were fabricated. Patches were implanted in the subcutaneous or abdominal cavity and inferior vena cava of rats. Samples were harvested on day 14 and examined via immunohistochemical and immunofluorescence analyses., Results: Silver hydrogel was found to decrease the foreign body reaction; after subcutaneous and abdominal cavity implantation in rats, the capsule was found to be thinner in the silver hydrogel group than in the control hydrogel group. The silver hydrogel group had fewer CD68-positive cells and proliferating cell nuclear antigen and interleukin-33 (IL-33) dual-positive cells than the control hydrogel group. Additionally, the silver hydrogel patch reduced the neointimal thickness after patch venoplasty in rats, and the number of IL-33- and IL-1β-positive cells was lower than that in the control patch., Conclusion: Silver-loaded SA/HA hydrogel patches decreased the foreign body reaction and venous neointimal hyperplasia in rats by the inhibition of IL-33 expression., (© 2024 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Nurses play an essential role in the People's Republic of China. In particular, they are essential to meet the challenges of an aging population. While there has been little change in their situation for many years, change is now underway. The National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China has announced the upcoming implementation of strategies essential to the development of the profession., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.)

Competing Interests: Intérêts concurrents: Aucun déclaré.

Recent technological advances have revolutionized the field of structural biologists. Specifically, dramatic progress related to the development of new electron microscopes and image capture (direct electron detection camera) and the provision of new image analysis software has led to a breakthrough in terms of resolution attained using cryo-electron transmission microscopy. It is thus possible to calculate relatively quickly high-resolution structures of biological molecules whom structural study still resists to more conventional methods such as X-ray diffraction or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). These structures thus obtained may also bring complementary structural information to those already described by other methods. Some of these new structures resolved through cryo-electron microscopy revealed for the first time the precise operation of essential mechanisms necessary for the good physiological process of a cell. The ability to solve these structures at atomic resolution detail is essential for the development of new drugs that target these proteins of therapeutic interest. Thanks to these advanced techniques that we summarize in this revew, biological and medical issues have now become accessible, whereas this approach was inconceivable only five yeras ago. ‡., (© 2016 médecine/sciences – Inserm.)

Intracellular protein filaments intermediate in size between actin filaments and microtubules are composed of a variety of tissue specific proteins. The sequence conservation of the coiled-coil alpha-helical structure responsible for polymerization into individual 10 nm filaments defines a large gene family. Intermediate filaments (IFs) include the nuclear lamins, which are universal in Metazoans, and the cytoplasmic intermediate filaments, which are more varied and form cell type specific networks in animal cells. IFs all share a common tripartite structure consisting of a highly conserved central helical rod domain and variable N-head and C-tail domains. In contrast to actin and tubulin, IFs do not require nucleoside triphosphates such as ATP or GTP for polymerization but they self assemble. According to sequences, the IFs proteins are grouped into seven classes, including five cytoplasmic, one nuclear and one sub-cortical localizations. The search for functions of IFs has led to discoveries of roles in the skin, heart, muscle, liver and brain, in premature aging and of involvement in several degenerative disorders. Mutations in IFs cause or predispose to more than 80 human tissue-specific diseases. Mouse models and gene invalidation have been extremely helpful in eliciting IF role in physiopathology. Besides mechanical role in cell plasticity and stress absorbers, IF functions are related to the capacity to interact with signaling molecules and cell kinases, controlling gene regulatory networks. The reviews herein include a historical perspective about IFs, describe how mutations affect IF structure and assembly properties in desminopathies, inclusion formation in the neurodegenerative Alexander disease, and how they induce multiple disorders in laminopathies., (Société de Biologie, 2011.)

Serum response factor (SRF) is a widely expressed transcription factor involved in the transcription of various genes linked to muscle differentiation and cellular growth. Recent studies show the pivotal role of SRF in orchestrating genetic programs essential for cardiac development and function. Dominant negative isoforms of SRF resulting from caspase cleavage or alternative splicing have been identified in different forms of cardiomyopathies. This review summarizes the role of SRF, its structure, function and its role in human cardiopathies. Finally, we discuss the results of recently developed murine models which address the role of SRF in the adult heart in vivo. The existing biological data suggest that SRF could be a target of neurohumoral activation which is involved in myocardial hypertrophy. Conversely, inhibition of SRF activity in different murine models leads to dilated cardiomyopathy.

Case reports of 103 adult patients operated upon for vesicorenal reflux are reviewed. The majority of the patients (94%) were women, and clinical signs appeared initially after puberty in half of these, mainly as fever, abdominal pains and pyuria. Twelve of the 25 women known to have children had had serious septic accidents during pregnancy. Only 11% had two normal kidneys, 50% having bilateral and 39% unilateral kidney lesions. Of the total studied, 70% of kidneys had corticopapillary lesions, while 35% were smaller than normal. The average length of the submucous trajectory of a refluxing ureter was 3.5 mm, 95.5% of kidneys with corticopapillary lesions having a ureter ending in a short submucous trajectory (average: 3.7 mm). Of the 156 ureters operated upon by antireflux advancement, stenosis developed in 2 and residual reflux in 9, 7 of these latter corresponding to exclusively transvesical ureteral dissections. Global efficacy was 73% for this type of surgery, with 7.5% poor and 19.5% doubtful results. Conclusions drawn from this analysis were: the adverse effects of reflux during pregnancy (one out of 2 cases), the frequency of renal lesions in adults (35% of small kidneys and 70.4% of kidneys with corticopapillary lesions), the short submucous portion of these ureters--its length did not exceed that found in children with reflux--perhaps there had not been intramural ureteral growth, and the efficacy of the antireflux operation if a wide extravesical dissection is performed before the antireflux advancement procedure itself.