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Fresh medicine is the use of fresh Chinese herbs after mining. The aim of the present work was to investigate the feasibility of ultra-high-pressure processing in the fresh medicine field. The typical fresh medicine Dendrobium officinale was used as the research material. The effects of pressure level (100 - 500 MPa), processing duration (0.5 - 2.5 min), number of processing cycle (1 - 5), and temperature (20 - 100°C) on the polysaccharide loss (in pressure transmitting medium) and dissolution efficiency (in boiling water) were studied. The results show that all parameters not only caused a dramatic loss of polysaccharides but also significantly increased the dissolution quantity, with the largest loss resulting from the number of repetitive processing cycles, which reached 47.11% after five processing steps. Analysis of the infrared spectroscopy and antioxidant activity results showed that the structure and antioxidant activity of the polysaccharides extracted from the stems processed by the parameters with the maximum value were markedly different, and the antioxidant activity of the polysaccharides extracted from the stems processed five times was the weakest. Ultra-high-pressure processing has good prospects in fresh medicine, while further research on process optimisation is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of long non-coding ribonucleic acid (lncRNA) urothelial carcinoma associated 1 (UCA1) on glucose metabolism in rats with diabetic nephropathy (DN), and to explore its regulatory mechanism. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 30 healthy Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were selected in this study. All rats were randomly divided into three groups, including the control group, the model group, and the lncRNA UCA1 inhibitor group. The rat model of DN was successfully established via intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ). The pathological changes in kidney tissues were detected via hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining. The levels of blood urea nitrogen (BUN), serum creatinine (Scr), and urinary protein (UP) were detected using the biochemical method. Meanwhile, the content of serum tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) was detected via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In addition, the messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein levels of phosphatidylinositol 3-hydroxy kinase (PI3K) and protein kinase B (Akt) in kidney tissues were detected via reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blotting, respectively. RESULTS: The model group showed severe pathological damage to the kidney, compared with the control group. Meanwhile, the levels of BUN, Scr and UP, and the content of serum TNF-α and IL-6 increased significantly in the model group. The mRNA and the protein levels of PI3K and Akt in kidney tissues of the model group were significantly up-regulated as well. LncRNA UCA1 inhibitor group exhibited relieved pathological damage to the kidney, compared with the model group. The levels of BUN, Scr and UP, and the content of serum TNF-α and IL-6 remarkably decreased in UCA1 inhibitor group. Furthermore, the mRNA and the protein levels of PI3K and Akt in kidney tissues of UCA1 inhibitor groups were significantly down-regulated. CONCLUSIONS: LncRNA UCA1 can relieve the pathological damage to the kidney, improve renal function, and alleviate inflammatory response in DN rats. The underlying mechanism may be related to the inhibition of the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quantification of germanium in rice (Oryza sativa L.) was studied by atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS). The optimum experimental conditions or the generation of germanium hydride were 360-V photomultiplier tube voltage, 80-mA hollow cathode lamp, 2.5% (w/v) KBH4 in 0.5% KOH solution and 20% H3PO4 mixture with 5% H2SO4. With these experimental conditions, the correlation coefficient (R 2) of calibration curve was up to 0.9992. As a convenient and sensitive calibration curve, it was proposed for the determination of trace amounts of germanium in brown and milled rice samples. The results showed that the content of germanium in brown rice was higher than that in milled rice. The means of the content of germanium were 4.98 and 18.10 ng/g in milled rice and brown rice, respectively. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Rice is an important food for human nutrition because it supplies starch, protein and the majority of micronutrients to humans, particularly in Asia. So determination the content of Germanium in rice is important for human health. In this study, we developed the method of AFS which was suitable for determination rice grain. With this method, the content of Ge could be analyzed accurately in rice, so that the good materials would be selected form germplasm resources of rice, which could be used to study physiological and genetic mechanisms and enhance germanium in diets for human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genetic diversity of 118 tobacco accessions, including flue-cured tobacco, sun-/air-cured tobacco, burley tobacco, oriental tobacco and wild tobacco, was characterised using intersimple sequence repeat (ISSR) and inter-retrotransposon amplification polymorphism (IRAP) markers. ISSR and IRAP banding patterns and genetic distance (GD) values showed the low level of genetic diversity within and among cultivated tobacco types. There was higher GD and average heterozygosity among wild tobacco types than those among cultivated tobacco. Genetic diversity of tobacco germplasm was low, with a high level of genetic identity (>0.77) between the different types. However, neighbour-joining cluster analysis of marker-based GDs showed that the accessions from the same tobacco type, as classified by manufacturing quality traits, were nearly clustered into the same group. These results will help in the formulation of appropriate strategies for variety improvement in tobacco, and ISSR and IRAP markers of the genetic diversity will contribute to further study and improvement of tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]