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PM2.5 concentrations in Wuhan, China decreased by 36.0% between the period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (1–23 January, 2020) and the COVID-lockdown period (24 January to 29 February, 2020). However, decreases in PM2.5 concentration due to regional PM2.5 transport driven by meteorological changes, and the relationship between the PM2.5 source and receptor, are poorly understood. Therefore, this study assessed how changes in meteorology, local emissions, and regional transport from external source emissions contributed to the decrease in Wuhan's PM2.5 concentration, using FLEXPART-WRF and WRF-Chem modelling experiments. The results showed that meteorological changes in central China explain up to 22.2% of the total decrease in PM2.5 concentrations in Wuhan, while the remaining 77.8% was due to air pollutant emissions reduction. Reduction in air pollutant emissions depended on both local and external sources, which contributed alomst equally to the reduction in PM2.5 concentrations (38.7% and 39.1% of the total reduction, respectively). The key emissions source areas affecting PM2.5 in Wuhan during the COVID-lockdown were identified by the FLEXPART-WRF modeling, revealing that regional-joint control measures in key areas accounted for 89.3% of the decrease in PM2.5 concentrations in Wuhan. The results show that regional-joint control can be enhanced by identifying key areas of emissions reduction from the source–receptor relationship of regional PM2.5 transport driven by meteorology under the background of East Asian monsoon climate change.

Mental health is a crucial aspect of overall wellbeing, and anxiety and depression among graduate students have become grave concerns. This study aimed to determine whether listening to music can h...

BACKGROUND Cumulative evidence suggests that the aberrant immune responses in acquired aplastic anemia (AA) are sustained by active chronic infections in genetically susceptible individuals. Recently, the constant source to trigger and sustain the pathophysiology has been proposed to come from the altered gut microbiota and chronic intestinal inflammation. In this case, our serendipitous finding provides convincing evidence that the persistently dysregulated autoimmunity may be generated, at least in a significant proposition of AA patients, by the altered gut microbiota and compromised intestinal epithelium. CASE SUMMARY A 30-year-old Chinese male patient with refractory severe AA experienced a 3-month-long febrile episode, and his fever was refractory to many kinds of injected broad-spectrum antibiotics. When presenting with abdominal cramps, he was prescribed oral mannitol and gentamycin to get rid of the gut infection. This treatment resulted in a quick resolution of the fever. Unanticipatedly, it also produced an excellent hematological response. He had undergone three episodes of recurrence within the one-year treatment, with each recurrence occurring 7-8 wk from the gastrointestinal inflammation eliminating preparations. However, subsequent treatments were able to produce subsequent remissions and consecutive treatments were successful in achieving durative hematological improvements, strongly indicating an etiological association between chronic gut inflammation and the development of AA. Interestingly, comorbid diseases superimposed on this patient (namely, psychiatric disorders, hypertension, insulin resistance, and renal dysfunction) were ameliorated together with the hematological improvements. CONCLUSION Chronic gut inflammation may be responsible for AA pathogenesis. The comorbidities and AA may share a common etiological association.

The importance of regional air pollutant transport modulated by large-scale synoptic circulation has been poorly understood for air pollution. In the present study of 5-year (2015-2019) observation...

To understand the recent characteristics of atmospheric environmental changes in the Twain-Hu(Hunan-Hubei) Basin, including the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, this paper uses near-surface PM

Maternal immune activation (MIA) during pregnancy is considered a risk factor for neurodevelopment in the offspring, resulting in behavioral abnormalities. Furthermore, adolescence is a vulnerable period for developing different psycho-cognitive deficits. Here, we aimed to observe the cognitive consequences of prenatal MIA exposure in adolescents and explored the underlying mechanisms. We divided dams into CON and MIA groups after inducing a mouse model of MIA using lipopolysaccharide (120 μg/kg) on gestational day 15. Open field (OF), elevated plus maze (EPM), and novel object recognition (NOR) tests were performed on postnatal day (PD) 35-37. The expression of hippocampal Wisteria floribunda agglutinin (WFA)

Leukemia-transformed multipotential hematopoietic cells have acquired the increased self-renewal capacity and impaired myeloid differentiation to mature blood cells. The emergence of symptomatic leukemia also critically requires the acquisition of growth and survival advantage in leukemic cells. Untreated leukemia patients usually demonstrated a progressive process. However, spontaneous remission occasionally occurred in a very small number of leukemia patients, which frequently followed a febrile episode and antibiotic treatment and was generally attributed to the activation of anti-neoplastic activities. Here we report a 63-year-old Chinese man who presented with the main complaints of abdominal pain, febrile episode and urticaria-like skin lesions. He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML-M4) with t(8;21)(q22;q22)/RUNX1-RUNX1T1 on the basis of morphological, immunological, cytogenetic and molecular analysis. He also had a mutated FLT3-TKD gene. He was treated with antibiotics and glucocorticoid for the gastrointestinal infection and the urticaria-like skin lesions. The infection and skin lesions were quickly resolved. Unexpectedly, along with the relief of the febrile episode, abdominal symptoms and skin lesions, he achieved a hematological remission. After relapse, repeating this treatment resulted in the second hematological remission. These recapitulated treatment responses strongly suggested that inflammatory stresses arising from the gut inflammatory lesions, which could be largely mitigated by antibiotic and glucocorticoid treatment, sustained the growth and survival advantage of the leukemic cells.

Time-frequency aggregation is an important criterion for evaluating the performance of time-frequency analysis methods, and traditional time-frequency analysis methods do not match the requirements of time-frequency aggregation. Synchroqueezing Wavelet Transform (SWT) method, as a new method proposed recently, can improve the time-frequency aggregation effectively by compressing the Wavelet coefficients in frequency domain. This paper applies the SWT method to extract the time-frequency characteristics of the analog signal and compare the analysis results with that of the traditional methods. The bolt anchorage damage detection signals based on guided wave technology of magnetostrictive effect are analyzed as the measured data to verify the effect of SWT method. The results show that SWT method can accurately describe the frequency composition of signals and obtain a relatively concentrated time-frequency energy distribution, providing a new time-frequency analysis method for bolt anchoring quality NDT (Non Destructive Testing).

The problem of “Jingri (Chinese mad about Japanese Militarism psychologically)” among a few students reflects the lack of awareness of the history around the Anti-Japanese War, the absence of the history education about the War and the prominent historical identity crisis of the War. Through literature research, group discussion and expert interviews, a questionnaire on the historical cognition status of the War among vocational college students is preliminarily compiled. Through EFA, three factors are extracted, including 20 items, with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 67.069%. Under $\text{CFA},\ 2 0.9,\ \text{NFI} > 0.9, \text{TLI} > 0.9, \text{IFI} > 0.9$ , the fitting indexes are up to the standard, and the load of each factor is greater than 0.7. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient about three dimensions is 0.928, 0.906 and 0.908, and the Combined Reliability is 0.929, 0.907 and 0.909 respectively. The correlation coefficients of each dimension, dimension and the scale meet the requirements. The AVE is more than 0.5, which is greater than the correlation coefficients. Therefore, the scale has high reliability and validity. It has guiding significance for vocational colleges to carry out a survey of the status quo of students' historical cognition about the War and take targeted historical education of it.

We previously reported a serendipitous finding from a patient with refractory severe aplastic anemia who had gotten an unexpected hematological response to treatment with gut-cleansing preparations (GCPs). This patient experienced three recurrences over the ensuing one year of intermittent GCP treatments, with each recurrence occurring 7-8 wk from a GCP. After his third recurrence, he was prescribed successive treatment with rifampicin, berberine, and monthly administered GCP for 4 mo, and he developed an erythroid proliferative neoplasma and an overwhelming enteropathy, and eventually died of septic shock. Laboratory investigations had validated the resolution of myelosuppression and the appearance of malignant clonal hematopoiesis. From the treatment process and laboratory investigations, it is reasonably inferred that the engagement of gut inflammation is critically required in sustaining the overall pathophysiology of acquired aplastic anemia probably by creating a chronic inflammatory state. Incorporation of rifampicin, berberine, and monthly GCP into cyclosporine can enhance the immunosuppressive effect. In a subgroup of acquired aplastic anemia patients whose pathogenesis is associated with genotoxic exposure, the suppressed normal hematopoiesis may result from the bystander insult that is mediated by the soluble inflammatory cytokines generated in response to the immunogenic products of damaged hematopoietic cells in the context of chronic inflammatory state and may offer a protective antineoplastic mechanism against malignant proliferation.

Background Postoperative cognitive decline (POCD) is a recognized clinical phenomenon characterized by cognitive impairments in patients following anesthesia and surgery, yet its underlying mechanism remains unclear. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays an important role in neuronal plasticity, learning, and memory via activation of TrkB-full length (TrkB-FL) receptors. It has been reported that an abnormal truncation of TrkB mediated by calpain results in dysregulation of BDNF/TrkB signaling and is associated with cognitive impairments in several neurodegenerative disorders. Calpains are Ca2+-dependent proteases, and overactivation of calpain is linked to neuronal death. Since one source of intracellular Ca2+ is N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) related and the function of NMDARs can be regulated by neuroinflammation, we therefore hypothesized that dysregulation of BDNF/TrkB signaling mediated by NMDAR/Ca2+/calpain might be involved in the pathogenesis of POCD. Methods In the present study, 16-month-old C57BL/6 mice were subjected to exploratory laparotomy with isoflurane anesthesia to establish the POCD animal model. For the interventional study, mice were treated with either NMDAR antagonist memantine or calpain inhibitor MDL-28170. Behavioral tests were performed by open field, Y maze, and fear conditioning tests from 5 to 8 days post-surgery. The levels of Iba-1, GFAP, interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-6, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), NMDARs, calpain, BDNF, TrkB, bax, bcl-2, caspase-3, and dendritic spine density were determined in the hippocampus. Results Anesthesia and surgery-induced neuroinflammation overactivated NMDARs and then triggered overactivation of calpain, which subsequently led to the truncation of TrkB-FL, BDNF/TrkB signaling dysregulation, dendritic spine loss, and cell apoptosis, contributing to cognitive impairments in aging mice. These abnormities were prevented by memantine or MDL-28170 treatment. Conclusion Collectively, our study supports the notion that NMDAR/Ca2+/calpain is mechanistically involved in anesthesia and surgery-induced BDNF/TrkB signaling disruption and cognitive impairments in aging mice, which provides one possible therapeutic target for POCD.

Deep learning is a hot topic in the field of machine learning, which provides a new method for the nondestructive testing of bolt anchorage. Aiming at the importance of identifying the type of bolt defects, this paper proposes a DS-DBN-SVM(Differential Search-Deep belief network-Support vector machine) model for identifying the type of bolt anchorage defects. The DS algorithm is used to optimize the weights and thresholds of the DBN network. The original acceleration signal of the anchor is used as the input of the DS-DBN model to extract the high-level features of the signal. Finally, the SVM classffier is used for defect identification. To assess the effectiveness of the method, and compare it with the traditional classification methods. The results show that the defect recognition effect of this method is better than the traditional defect recognition method, and the recognition rate reaches 95.45%.

In this paper, a new algorithm of noise reduction for image based on evidence theory is proposed. The values of all pixels are restricted in interval [0, 1], and set of data in each column is a term of mass function, which can be calculated by D–S composition rule. Judging noise can be achieved by comparing with the value of pixel in middle and of the current one. The noise will be removed by substituting the current value with value computed. An improved accelerated algorithm is also presented by sample window of 2 × 2. As a measure of conflict K with greater value shows that there would be noises within the current sample window. At last, Experiment image “Lena” with additive noise shows as a test sample, that better result can be achieved with the algorithm.

In roughage, ten trace elements as Pb, Se, Mn, Se, Zn，Sb, Hg, Sn, Ca, Mg were detected by ICP-AES. Method of high pressure nitrifying pot is also selected to nitrify roughage. The relative standard deviation of measurement was less than 2.60%. The results accord with the demands of analysis trace elements. The experiment proved that roughage contained rich useful trace elements, which was green food with high nutrition.

The quality of rock bolt anchoring is closely related to the stability and safety of underground engineering and slope protection. In this paper, non-destructive testing of rock bolts is proposed based on pseudo-random signal, owing to the deficiencies of the conventional detecting method of stress wave reflection. The characteristics of pseudo-random signal for non-destructive testing of rock bolts are introduced. And the rock bolts are tested in the experiment, the time of reflection wave is identified and the length of rock bolts is calculated through cross correlation analysis between the extracted wavelet signal and the test signal. It is proved that the testing results of non-destructive testing methods based on pseudo-random signal are of low deviation. The experiment has shown that non-destructive testing of rock bolts based on pseudo-random signal is feasible with high precision.

A numerical simulation method of the rock bolts non-destructive testing based on ANSYS is presented. ANSYS/ LS-DYNA which is a kind of software of rock bolts dynamic finite domain analysis is used to establish a three-dimension model, after sine curve excitation is loaded, the reflection curve of naked rock bolts, or rock bolts with different defects are got, and the relationship curve between elastic modulus and stress wave velocity are got correspondingly. Experiment result proved that the aboved method was satisfied to simulate the stress wave propagation and the reflection situation in the rock bolts.

Highly C-axis textured LiNbO3 thin films were grown on SiO2/Si substrates with a ZnO buffer layer by XeCl excimer pulsed laser deposition technique. We fixed the target–substrate spacing at 40 mm, oxygen flow rate of 20 sccm and the repetition rate of 5 Hz, and then changed the substrate temperature, energy density and oxygen pressure to obtain the optimum deposition conditions. The effect of post-annealing process on improving the structural properties of the as-deposited LiNbO3 thin films was also studied. The ZnO buffer layers and LiNbO3 films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy to analyze their crystalline structure, surface roughness and surface morphology, respectively. For the optimum deposition parameters such as substrate temperature of 700 °C, energy density of 4.6 J/cm2 and oxygen pressure of 150 Pa, the full width at half maximum intensity (FWHM) of LiNbO3(0 0 6) peak was 0.22°. The FWHM of LiNbO3(0 0 6) peak was further reduced to 0.19° via. in-situ post-treatment at 750 °C for 30 min. The results could be useful for integrating the surface acoustic wave device, optical waveguide and semiconductor device on the same Si substrate.

Highly c-axis oriented LiNbO3(006) thin films have been successfully grown on sapphire substrates by XeCl excimer pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The as-deposited films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope and atomic force microscopy to analyze their crystalline structure and surface morphology. The results show that highly c-axis oriented LiNbO3 thin films of 1 μm thickness were successfully grown on sapphire substrates by PLD. The full width at half maximum intensity of LiNbO3(006) peak of the sample fabricated under the optimum deposition parameters is only 0.15°. The center frequency of the LiNbO3/sapphire substrate with electrode width of 10 μm is 137 MHz, and phase velocities is 5480 m/s, which is much larger than that of the 36° Y-X LiNbO3 substrate (3632 m/s).

It has been confirmed that antibodies to citrullinated profilaggrin306-324 may play important roles in RA. In this study, human papilloma virus (HPV)-47 E2345-362, homologous to profilaggrin306-324, was found using the NCBI BLAST program. Then, E2345-362 and citrullinated E2345-362, with arginine348 replaced by citrulline, were synthesized. The presence of antibodies against these peptides was examined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Associations between these antibodies and the clinical and laboratory features of RA were evaluated. Although the prevalence and AU value of antibodies to the E2345-362 peptide were similar in RA and other rheumatic diseases, those of antibodies to the citrullinated E2345-362 peptide were significantly higher in RA than in other rheumatic diseases. Additionally, sera that were preincubated with cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) demonstrated lower AU values of anti-citrullinated E2345-362 peptide antibodies. Moreover, the prevalence of anti-CCP antibodies and that of anti-peptidylarginine deiminase (PADI4) antibodies in anti-citrullinated E2345-362-positive patients were all higher than those of anti-citrullinated E2345-362-negative patients. There were significant correlations between anti-citrullinated E2345-362 and anti-PADI4. RA patients with antibodies to citrullinated E2345-362 had higher DAS28 scores, erythrocyte sedimentation rates, and radiographic progression than those without the antibodies. These results suggest that HPV-47 E2 may act as an autoantigen in RA. The increase in PADI4 may make it easier to citrullinate the HPV-47 E2345-362 peptide, leading to the subsequent immune responses.

Highly c-axis-oriented LiNbO3(006) thin films were successfully grown on SiO2/Si substrates with a ZnO buffer layer by XeCl excimer pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The as-deposited films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy to analyze their crystalline structure and surface morphology. The results show that the highly c-axis-oriented LiNbO3 thin films of 2.5 µm thickness were successfully grown on SiO2/Si substrates with a ZnO buffer layer by PLD. The full width at half maximum intensity of the LiNbO3(006) peak of the sample fabricated under the optimum deposition conditions is only 0.18°. The center frequency of the LiNbO3/ZnO/SiO2/Si substrate with line width of 4 µm is 188 MHz, and the phase velocity is 3010 m/s, which is slightly lower than that of the 36° Y–X LiNbO3 substrate.

To investigate the specificity, sensitivity, and concomitant presence of antibodies against histones (H), histone H1 (H1), and histone H3 (H3) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and analyze their association with SLE. Serum IgG anti‐histones antibodies were detected by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay in 144 SLE patients consisting of 24 neuropsychiatric lupus (NPSLE), 65 lupus nephritis (LN), and 55 SLE, 100 other rheumatic diseases patients, as well as 40 healthy controls. Clinical and biological parameters of the patients were also evaluated. Anti‐H, anti‐H1, and anti‐H3 antibodies yielded a sensitivity of approximately 33% and a specificity of more than 93% for SLE, which was comparable to that found for anti‐double‐stranded DNA (anti‐dsDNa) antibodies. More significantly, anti‐histone antibody is found in approximately 50% of patients with NPSLE compared with LN. Moreover, the titers of anti‐histones antibodies of NPSLE patients were significantly higher than that of patients with SLE and LN. The sequential analysis revealed a close correlation of anti‐H and anti‐H1 antibodies with SLE disease activity. There was an approximate 30% positive rate of anti‐histones antibodies in 144 SLE patients lacking anti‐nucleosome, anti‐mDNA, anti‐Sm, and anti‐dsDNA antibodies. Antibodies to histones H1 and H3 are markers with high specificity of 93.6–96.4% for SLE. The anti‐histone antibody markers are prevalent in approximately 50% of NPSLE. Furthermore, there was a strong correlation with SLE disease activity index and levels of antibodies to histones and H1. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 22:271–277, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

For the complexity and concealment of the construction, the bolt anchoring system has great difficulty in quality detection. Due to various reasons the traditional detection methods of quality are difficult to obtain effective results. In recent years, stress wave reflection has been the main method in quality nondestructive testing of rock bolts, but the reflection signal contains noise which brings great inconvenience for the signal analysis. Harmonic wavelet has a strict "box" spectrum characteristics, and by using the harmonic wavelet packet, signal can be decomposed into different frequency bands and the unwanted ingredients can be effectively eliminated, so the denoised signal could be obtained. In this paper, a reflection signal is decomposed by using the harmonic wavelet packet, and the appropriate decomposition layers and the frequency band width are chosen, the effective frequency band is extracted and reconstructed. Compared with the classical wavelet transform, experiment results show that the bolt parameters accuracy using harmonic wavelet packet is improved.

Toll like receptor (TLR) 9 has been shown to play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in animal models. Its pathogenic role in human SLE, however, was poorly elucidated. This study was performed to investigate the role of TLR9 involved in the aberrant signaling pathway and its correlation with disease activity in SLE.mRNA level of TLR9 and interferon (IFN) regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). IFN-a expression was measured in the serum of the SLE patients by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).TLR9 expression was significantly higher in SLE patients than that in health controls (P = 0.011). SLE patients with positive anti-dsDNA antibody had significantly higher expression of TLR9 than that with negative anti-dsDNA antibody (P = 0.001). TLR9 expression was positively correlated with fever (P = 0.017), alopecia (P = 0.046), safety of estrogens in lupus erythematosus national assessment SLE disease activity index (SELENA-SLEDAI) score (r(s) = 0.385, P = 0.003), and the level of IRF5 (r(s) = 0.35, P = 0.027) and IFN-a (r(s) = 0.627, P = 0.001) in SLE patients.TLR9 is associated with SLE disease activity and might be involved in the IFN-a pathway of SLE.

To evaluate the intervention effect of health education on hypertension knowledge in mid-western rural area of Shandong province.A project was launched on chronic disease control in mid-western rural area of Shandong province from 2007 to 2010. The baseline survey was performed using multi-stage random sampling method in 8 counties of mid-western rural area of Shandong province in April, 2007. A total of 20 087 participants aged 25 and above were recruited in the survey to study the relationship between awareness of hypertension and diet, smoking, obesity. Health education focusing on balance diet, physical activity promotion and tobacco control was performed among intervention population. The final evaluation survey using same questionnaire was performed in 2010, classified in intervention (4071 participants) and control (2145 participants) group. Control group was selected from non-intervention town in same county. Intervention and control group shared the same baseline data in 2007 for evaluation. By comparing the changes of hypertension knowledge before and after intervention, the intervention effect was evaluated.Awareness of the relationship between hypertension and diet rose from 34.0% (6830/20 087) at baseline in 2007 to 69.3% (2821/4071) (χ(2) = 1757.30, P0.01) of intervention group and 44.8% (961/2145) (χ(2) = 99.30, P0.01) of control group in 2010. Awareness of hypertension associated to smoking rose from 25.6% (5142/20 087) at baseline in 2007 to 55.2% (2247/4071) (χ(2) = 1396.59, P0.01) in intervention group, 30.9% (662/2145) (χ(2) = 27.83, P0.01) in control group in 2010. Awareness of hypertension related to obesity rose from 37.2% (7472/20 087) of the baseline in 2007 to 68.3% (2780/4071) (χ(2) = 1339.27, P0.01) in intervention group, 45.1% (967/2145) (χ(2) = 51.14, P0.01) in control group in 2010.Community comprehensive intervention showed significant effects on hypertension related knowledge improvement in mid-western rural area of Shandong province.

To examine the potential role of angiotensinconverting enzyme as a physiological regulator of neuropeptide activity in the alimentary tract, we purified and partially characterized this enzyme from the crude membrane fraction of rabbit gastric muscles. A single-step purification from detergent-solubilized gastric membranes by affinity chromatography, using lisinopril-Sepharose, yielded an electrophoretically homogeneous peptidase composed of 180-kilodalton polypeptide. The purified enzyme represented approximately 2% of [Leu5]enkephalin-degrading activity of the original membrane preparation, and 275-fold purification was achieved. The gastric angiotensin-converting enzyme hydrolyzed synthetic substrates specific to the lung enzyme. It hydrolyzed angiotensin I and several other bioactive peptides, by removing their carboxyl-terminal dipeptides. The activity was completely inhibited with 10−6 mol/L captopril. The hydrolysis of enkephalin was enhanced twofold by addition of 0.3 mol/L NaCl to the assay buffer. These properties were comparable with those reported for the rabbit lung enzyme. Therefore, it was concluded that rabbit gastric muscle tissue contains membrane-bound angiotensinconverting enzyme. The results suggest a role for this enzyme as a local inactivator of bioactive peptides in the stomach wall.

To establish the murine systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) model of chronic graft versus host diseases(cGVHD). To analyze the pathological changes and serological and immunological features in the animals.Female (C57BL/10 x DBA/2)F1 hybrids aged 6-8 weeks were randomly divided into model group and healthy controls (HC). Lymphocytes from female DBA/2 were injected intravenously to the model group on days 0, 3 and 8, while PBS were injected to the HC under the same condition as a control group. Bradford was applied to monitor the development of albuminuria quantitively. Sera were tested by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) for the presence of autoantibodies. To compare the differences of CD4+ CD25+ Treg cells between the two groups by flow cytometry (FCM) and the differences in the expression of Foxp3 by real time polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR). The kidneys of model mice were removed in the 12th week and were made frozen sections for direct immunofluorescence(DIF)and paraffin imbedding for PASM staining.The titers of proteinuria in model group in the 6th week, 8th week, 10th week, and 12th week were significantly higher than those of the HC groups(P=0.004, 0.005,respectively). The titers of anti-dsDNA and anti-nucleosome antibodies were significantly increased in the model group compared with the HC (P0.05). And the positive rates curves of ANA, anti-dsDNA Abs and anti-nucleosome Abs in model group were significantly different from those of control group (P0.05). And The proportions of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells from peripheral blood of model group were significantly lower than those of control group (P=0.002), while the expression of Foxp3, one of the most important biomarkers of Treg cells, was not significant. There were mesangial matrix expansion and mesangial cell proliferation in the nephritic pathology in model group and the depositions of IgG along the glomerular capillary walls and in the mesangium were observed in model group. There were no pathological changes and depositions in HC group.It has been proved that there are not only protienuria and autoantibodies, but also decrease of the regulatory T lymphocytes in murine model of cGVHD. All of these results suggest that the cGVHD murine SLE models were successfully established.

To examine the clinical benefit and impact on cytokine production by methotrexate in rheumatoid arthritis.Thirty patients with RA were treated with oral methotrexate (mean, 15 mg per week) as monotherapy for 24 weeks. Clinical assessment using the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria for improvement was performed at baseline and at the end of 2, 4, 8, 12 and 24 weeks. The pro-inflammation cytokine TNF-alpha, INF-gamma,IL-1beta, IL-6 and anti-inflammation cytokine IL-10 were measured in RA sera at baseline and after 24 weeks of therapy.There was remarkable improvement in disease activity following the MTX treatment. At the end of 24 weeks, the percent age of ACR20 was 70% (21/30), ACR50 30% (9/30) and ACR70 10% (3/30). The levels of IL-6 (46.83+/-35.81 vs. 20.92+/-17.98, P=0.001), TNF-alpha (162.52+/-107.63 vs. 18.32+/-14.36, P=0.026) and INF-gamma (67.79+/-43.76 vs. 35.78+/-27.51, P=0.004) were significantly higher than those of the health control at baseline, respectively. The levels of TNF-alpha (123.36+/-89.61,P=0.018), INF-gamma (41.53+/-13.49, P=0.015), IL-1beta (7.47+/-7.33, P=0.026), IL-6 (26.01+/-25.64, P=0.025) were significantly decreased after treatment with methotrexate. In contrast, IL-10 was remarkably increased (71.76+/-41.01, P=0.02).Methotrexate is effective in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. It can suppress the symptoms and joint damage. In addition, methotrexate treatment decreases the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokine, and increases the level of anti-inflammatory cytokine.

To observe the histological changes in the fibrotic and inflammatory tissues in response to interferon alpha treatment in patients with chronic viral hepatitis B.Sixteen patients with chronic viral hepatitis B in S3-S4 stages established by pathological examination were treated with interferon alpha for 6-9 months, and the degree of liver fibrosis and inflammation were examined 3 times during the treatment. The expression of Fas, transforming growth factor beta1 (TGFbeta1) and HBcAg in the liver tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry, and DNA fragmentation was examined by TUNEL assay. The levels of the serum markers for liver fibrosis and liver function were also measured.Patients with liver fibrosis in S3-S4 stages had high pathological expression of Fas and TGFbeta1 with severe DNA damage in the liver tissues. After 3 months of interferon therapy, the expression of Fas and TGFbeta1 were lowered (P0.05), and further treatment till 3-9 months resulted in gradual decrease in the degree of hepatic fibrosis and cell apoptosis (P0.05), with improved serum liver fibrosis indices and liver function.Interferon alpha may alleviate liver fibrosis and suppress cell apoptosis in patients in S3-S4 stages after a 6- to 9-month continuous treatment.

To evaluate the significance of the combination of rheumatoid factor (RF) and anti-filaggrin antibodies (AFAs) in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Sera from 266 RA patients and 186 controls were studied. RF and some kinds of AFAs (including antikeratin antibodies, anti-perinuclear factor and anticyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies) were detected using immunofluorescence and ELISA respectively. The distributions of these antibodies were compared to determine the significance of the combination of RF and AFAs.The sensitivity and secificity of RF for the diagnosis of RA were 65.8% and 81.8% respectively, as compared with those of anti-CCP or RF positive were 86.5% and 80.6% respectively. Only a slight change was found in the secificity and negative predictive value between them. RF could not be detected in 91 patients while 64.8% of them could be found to have at least one kind of AFAs.AFAs, particular anticyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies, could be helpful for the diagnosis of RA especially in RF-negative patients.