Evaluating the Efficacy of Chinese Patent Medicine Paiteling in Treating Vaginal Stump Disease VaIN: An Analysis of 67 Clinical Cases.

Background: Vaginal Intraepithelial Neoplasia (VaIN) is a prevalent condition that can progress to invasive carcinoma if left untreated. Despite its significance, effective treatments for VaIN remain limited. Objective: This study aimed to analyze the efficacy of Paiteling in treating VaIN among patients who have undergone total hysterectomy due to high cervical lesions or invasive cervical cancer. Design: This study employed a retrospective design. Settings: The study was conducted at Ningxia General Hospital of Medical University from January 2019 to January 2023. Participants: A total of 67 cases diagnosed with VaIN were included in the study. Inclusion criteria comprised patients who had undergone total hysterectomy for high cervical lesions or invasive cervical cancer and had confirmed VaIN diagnosis through abnormal ThinPrep Cytology Test (TCT) and/or High-risk Human Papillomavirus (HR-HPV) results with colposcopy biopsy. Intervention: Patients were treated with Chinese patent medicines Paiteling and patulin according to their specific VaIN classification: VaIN1, VaIN2, and VaIN3. Primary Outcome Measures: The primary outcome measures included complete negative conversion rates for VaIN1, VaIN2, and VaIN3, as well as overall effective rate and complete negative rate across all VaIN cases. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS 24.0, with significance set at P < .05. Results: Patients with VaIN1, VaIN2, and VaIN3 were treated with Chinese patent medicines Paiteling, and patulin, respectively. Complete negative conversion rates were 100% for VaIN1, 72.73% for VaIN2, and 75.67% for VaIN3, resulting in an overall effective rate of 88.89% and a complete negative rate of 72.22% across all VaIN cases. Conclusion: This study underscores the efficacy of Chinese patent medicine Paiteling in managing post-total hysterectomy VaIN. It presents a conservative treatment option for vaginal stump diseases, addressing a crucial gap in therapeutic strategies. The findings advocate for further exploration of Paiteling's potential in VaIN management.

Intelligent analysis of corrosion characteristics of steel pipe piles of offshore construction wharfs based on computer vision.

The lower part of offshore construction wharfs is mostly a steel structure system composed of steel pipe piles, whose corrosion level directly affects the structural safety performance of steel wharfs in service. The currently common corrosion detection methods can only sample and inspect steel pile after it has been dismantled, making it impractical for in-service monitoring during the operational period of the steel pile. In this paper, a deep learning-based image classification model is first established to recognize the type of corroded area on steel pipe piles. The model achieves a recognition accuracy of 99.14 % in automatically identifying different types of corroded areas, including full immersion zone, tidal range zone, and splash zone. Subsequently, digital image processing technology is utilized to automatically calculate the corroded area of steel pipe piles. The method proposed in this paper can obtain the key information, such as type of corrosion area and area of the steel pipe pile corrosion area, without damaging their structural performance during the service. With this data, the mechanical performance of steel pipe piles can be analyzed, and the structural safety of the in-service steel pipe piles can be determined, thereby ensuring the safety of the construction wharf.

Network pharmacology-based approach to investigate the molecular targets of essential oil obtained from lavender for treating breast cancer.

Lavender essential oil (LEO) is known for its medicinal use in the development of pharmaceuticals. Further investigations were demonstrated that LEO has many biological properties including apoptosis. However, The anti-breast cancer activity and mechanism of LEO are still unclear. we aim to elucidate the elusive anti-breast cancer activity and mechanism of LEO by unveiling the intricate molecular targets that it engages with, thereby priming it for effective therapeutic intervention against breast carcinoma. In this paper, we extracted LEO from lavender and analyzed it's chemical constituents by using hydro-distillation and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GS-MS/MS) method, respectively. The active components against breast cancer and it's molecular targets were selected and biological process, molecular function, cellular component and involving pathways were evaluated via network pharmacology approach. Cell viability, apoptosis and cell cycle assay were used to evaluate anti-breast cancer effect of LEO. Employing the western blotting method to validate target protein expression following LEO treatment in vitro. We found the 21 effective components and 213 drug-disease common targets of LEO. Amoung them, 7 active components and 19 targets were identified as potential therapeutic targets. Gene ontology results revealed that the drug-disease common targets of LEO were mainly distributed in membrane region, involved in peptide-tyrosine phosphorylation, and primarily associated with protein tyrosine kinase. We also found that drug-disease common targets might contribute to the regulation of PI3K-AKT signaling pathway by using KEGG pathway analysis. Besides, our study demonstrated reduced cell viability, induced apoptosis in MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 treated with LEO while cell cycle arrest was not altered. The AKT1 expression down-regulated while PIK3CA expression was increased in both cell lines. Our findings indicate that LEO has the ability to induce apoptosis by modulating the expression of PI3K-AKT signaling pathway in these cell lines.

Identification of Ferroptosis-Related Gene Prognostic Signature and HSF1 for Reversing Doxorubicin and Gemcitabine Resistance in Uterine Carcinosarcoma.

PURPOSE: Iron metabolism and ferroptosis play crucial roles in the pathogenesis of cancer. In this study, we aim to study the role of ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) in uterine carcinosarcoma (UCS) and identify potential target for UCS. METHODS: Prognostic differentially expressed FRGs were identified of in the TCGA cohort. Integrated analysis, cox regression, and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) methods of FRGs were performed to construct a multigene signature prognostic model. Moreover, a dataset from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) served as an external validation. HSF1 was knockdown in MES-SA and FU-MMT-1 cells, and cell viability, lipid ROS, and intracellular iron level were detected when combined with doxorubicin or gemcitabine. RESULT: Five FRGs were selected to construct a prognostic model of UCS. The group with high-risk signature score exhibited obviously lower overall survival (OS) than the group with low risk signature score in both TCGA and validated GEO cohorts. Multivariate Cox regression analysis further indicated that the risk score was an independent factor for the prognosis of UCS patients. The high-risk group of UCS has a higher sensitivity in the treatment of doxorubicin and gemcitabine. Knocking down of HSF1 in MES-SA and FU-MMT-1 cells was more sensitive to doxorubicin and gemcitabine via increasing ferroptosis. CONCLUSIONS: The five FRGs risk signature prognostic model having a superior and drug sensitivity predictive performance for OS in UCS, and HSF1 is a potential marker sensitive to doxorubicin and gemcitabine in UCS patients.

[Knockdown of Aurora-A inhibits proliferation and promotes apoptosis of HepG2 hepatocellular carcinoma cells].

Objective To investigate the effects of knockdown of Aurora-A gene on the proliferation and apoptosis of HepG2 human hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Methods Aurora-A short hairpin RNA (Aurora-A shRNA) was designed and Aurora-A shRNA lentiviral vector was constructed and packed, and then transfected into HepG2 cells. Aurora-A mRNA expression was detected by real-time quantitative PCR. Aurora-A protein expression and phosphorylation level were detected by Western blotting. Cell proliferation was tested by MTT assay. Cell apoptosis was analyzed by flow cytometry. Results The Aurora-A shRNA lentiviral vector was successfully constructed and Aurora-A protein phosphorylation level was significantly reduced in HepG2 cells transfected with the lentiviral vector. When Aurora-a was knocked down, the proliferation of HepG2 cells decreased and the apoptosis rate increased significantly. Conclusion Knockdown of Aurora-A can inhibit the proliferation and promote the apoptosis of HepG2 cells.

ZFAS1 Exerts an Oncogenic Role via Suppressing miR-647 in an m6A-Dependent Manner in Cervical Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer (CC) is the second serious health threat in women worldwide. LncRNA (ZNFX1 antisense RNA 1) ZFAS1 has been observed to abnormally express in human cancers. However, the expression pattern, clinical significance and molecular mechanism of ZFAS1 have not been thoroughly studied in CC. METHODS: qRT-PCR was performed to examine the differential expression of ZFAS1 in CC tissues and adjacent normal cervical tissues. Gain- and loss-of-function experiments were constructed to test the functional role of ZFAS1 in CC by CCK-8, colony formation, transwell and xenograft models assays. Luciferase reporter, RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP), methylated RNA immunoprecipitation (MeRIP), RNA pull-down assays were used to reveal the underlying mechanisms. RESULTS: We found that ZFAS1 was significantly upregulated in CC tissues. Elevation of ZFAS1 correlated with advanced FIGO stage, lymph node and distant metastasis, and also indicated poor overall survival in patients with CC. Functional experiments demonstrated that ZFAS1 promoted CC cell proliferation, migration and invasion in vitro, and facilitated tumor growth and metastasis in vivo. Mechanistic investigation revealed that ZAFS1 sequestered miR-647, and this RNA-RNA interaction is regulated by METLL3-mediated m6A modification. CONCLUSION: Our findings elucidate the functional roles of ZFAS1 and its m6A modification in CC cells and indicate that ZFAS1 may be a promising target for CC treatment.

Development and characterization of a polarized human endometrial cell epithelia in an air-liquid interface state.

Human endometrial epithelia undergo injury repair and regeneration with the menstrual cycle; however, mechanisms underpinning the roles of endometrial epithelial cells in endometrial lesions and regeneration remain incompletely understood, mainly owing to the difficulty in the isolation and expansion of primary endometrial epithelial cells and the lack of reliable models for in vitro and in vivo studies. In this report, we sought to improve methods for the isolation and expansion of human endometrial epithelial cells with a Rho-associated protein kinase (ROCK) inhibitor-modified medium and subsequently characterize endometrial epithelium generated with primary cells cultured in an air-liquid interface (ALI) state. Immunocytochemistry staining revealed the expression of epithelial cellular adhesion molecule (EpCam) and stage-specific embryonic antigen-1 (SSEA-1) but a lack of CD13 in endometrial epithelial cells. Meanwhile, a large number of proliferative Ki67+ cells were observed in isolated epithelial cells. Importantly, the EpCam+/CD13- cells were capable of forming spheroids, a characteristic of epithelial stem/progenitor cells. Interestingly, these cells also exhibited a capacity to reconstitute epithelial layers in an ALI state. Morphological analysis revealed mucosal secretion of differentiated epithelial cells with cilia and microvilli in ALI epithelial cells as determined by electronic microscopy. Immunoblotting assay further demonstrated the expression of endometrial epithelial cell markers keratin 17/19 and EpCam and stem cell marker OCT3/4 but not stromal cell marker Vimentin protein and CD13 in cell expansions. Furthermore, molecular analysis also showed that the exposure of cells to estrogen elevated the expression of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptors in ALI cultures. Our results shed light on the possibility of expanding sufficient numbers of endometrial epithelial cells for stem cell biology studies, and they provide a feasible and alternative model that can recapitulate the characteristics and physiology of endometrial epithelium in vivo.

[Effect of heat stress on expression of gp96 in K562 cell line of the chronic myeloid leukemia and its significance].

This study was purposed to investigate the effect of different heat stress conditions on expression level of heat shock protein gp96 in K562 cell line of chronic myeloid leukemia in order to provide experiment basis for seeking optimal heat stress condition increasing extraction amount of gp96 from K562 cells. The expression changes of gp96 in K562 cell line was detected by immunocytochemistry under 38, 40, 42, 44, 46 and 48 degrees C for 30 minutes in water, by flow cytometry under 40, 44, 48 and 52 degrees C for 30 minutes in water, by Western blot under 40, 44, 48 and 52 degrees C for 30 minutes in water. Immunocytochemistry assay showed that gp96 existed mainly in cytoplasm. The peak of gp96 expression was at 30 minutes after 48 degrees C in water. The result of flow cytometry was consistent to immunocytochemistry detection results under temperatures 40, 44, 48 and 52 degrees C (P < 0.01). Western blot showed that detection result was the same as the immunocytochemistry and flow cytometry detections. In conclusion, the expression of gp96 in K562 cell line reached peak at 30 minutes after 48 degrees C in water. This condition may be an effective preparative condition for extraction of gp96 from K562 cells.

[Value of long-distance fetal heart rate monitoring on the pre-partum health care of the pregnant woman with umbilical cord loops].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the value of the long-distance fetal heart rate (FHR) monitoring on the pre-partum health care of self-monitoring at home for pregnant woman with the umbilical cord loops. METHODS: The umbilical cord loops was diagnosed by ultrasonography. In the study group, 896 pregnant women with the umbilical cord loops accepted long-distance FHR monitoring and the count of fetal movement (FM) as family-self monitoring methods, while in the control group, 1 914 pregnant women with the umbilical cord loops used the count of FM only as family-self monitoring method. Abnormal non-stress test (NST), variable deceleration, fetal distress, neonate asphyxia, fetal death, stillbirth, operative delivery rate were analyzed between the study and control group retrospectively. RESULTS: The incidence of NST reactive pattern and non- reactive pattern and the variable deceleration in long-distance FHR monitoring of the study group were significantly higher than those in routine FHR monitoring. The incidence of fetal distress in the study group (35.0%) was significantly higher than that in the control group (30.9%), while the incidence of neonatal asphyxia in the study group (3.5%) was significantly lower than that in the control group (5.6%). The incidence of outside hospital fetal death in the study group (0.1%) was significantly lower than that in the control group (0.8%). There were no significant differences of cesarean section rate, forceps or vacuum extractor delivery between the two groups (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: This study suggested that the high variable rate in the long-distance FHR monitoring curve was related to the incidence of the fetal distress. It didn't increase the cesarean section rate and vaginal operative delivery rate, but decreased the neonatal asphyxia and outside hospital fetal death rate. The long-distance FHR monitoring combined with the count of FM may be a better family-self monitoring method for the pregnant women with the umbilical cord loops.

[Dendritic cells cultured with human umbilical cord serum instead of fetal calf serum].

To investigate whether the dendritic cells (DC) could grow up in cultural system with umbilical cord serum (UCS), the UCS was used in the culture instead of fetal calf serum. The phenotype of dendritic cells was detected by flow cytometry and the antigen presenting ability of DC in allo-MLR was measured by MTT assay. The results showed that DC grown in UCS (UCS-DC) had higher expression rate of CD86, CD83 and HLA-DR than that in grown in FCS (FCS-DC). (P < 0.05), and their expression of CD1a was lower than that of FCS-DC. The ability to induce T cell proliferation had no difference between UCS-DC and FCS-DC. It is suggested that dendritic cells with more mature phenotype had been produced in the medium containing UCS than those in the medium containing FCS, and UCS-DC possessed potent ability to stimulate proliferation of allogeneic T cells.