Clinical and imaging manifestations of primary cardiac angiosarcoma.

BACKGROUND: To investigate the CT manifestations of primary cardiac angiosarcoma. METHODS: The clinical and CT data for 9 patients with cardiac angiosarcoma were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: The lesions in all nine cases were located in the right atrium. In two cases, the involved lesion led downward to the tricuspid valve and right ventricle, and the dynamic cine showed that the lesion affected the opening and closing of the tricuspid valve. In three cases, the lesion involvement led to a thickened pericardium, accompanied by pericardial effusions. On CT plain scans, six patients showed homogeneous density, while three showed inhomogeneous density, two of which were associated with bleeding. On enhanced CT scans, seven patients showed heterogeneous centripetal enhancement, and some angiograms showed lesions with tortuous small blood vessels. The remaining two cases showed early stage rapid inhomogeneous enhancement. Five cases showed multiple metastatic nodules in the lungs at the time of initial diagnosis; four of these showed distinct sharp edges in multiple pulmonary nodules. CONCLUSIONS: Cardiac angiosarcoma has a predilection site and is prone to invading adjacent structures, manifesting as malignant pericardial and pleural effusions. The CT enhancement manifestations are mostly inhomogeneous and centripetal with ground-glass opacity peripheral to the intrapulmonary metastases.

Challenges and strategies in progress of drug delivery system for traditional Chinese medicine Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma (Danshen).

Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs), with a history of thousands of years, are widely used clinically with effective treatment. However, the drug delivery systems (DDSs) for TCMs remains major challenges due to the characteristics of multi-components including alkaloids, flavones, anthraquinones, glycosides, proteins, volatile oils and other types. Therefore, the novel preparations and technology of modern pharmaceutics is introduced to improve TCM therapeutic effects due to instability and low bioavailability of active ingredients. Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma, the radix and rhizomes of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge (Danshen in Chinese), is a well known Chinese herbal medicine for protecting the cardiovascular system, with active ingredients mainly including lipophilic tanshinones and hydrophilic salvianolic acids. In this review, this drug is taken as an example to present challenges and strategies in progress of DDSs for TCMs. This review would also summary the characteristics of active ingredients in it including physicochemical properties and pharmacological effects. The purpose of this review is to provide inspirations and ideas for the DDSs designed from TCMs by summarizing the advances on DDSs for both single- and multi-component from Danshen.

[Expression of lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase and/or apoA-I mediated by recombinant adeno-associated virus in myogenic cells].

Lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) is the major enzyme producing most plasma cholesterol esters(CE) and a key participant in the process of reverse cholesterol transfer (RCT). The aim of this research is to co-express LCAT and it's natural activator apoA-I, with the recombinant adeno-associated virus vectors in the skeletal muscle cells, in order to pave a new way for gene therapy of the primary or secondary LCAT deficiency. 293T cells was cotransfected with pDG and rAAVAIL/rAAVL plasmids to produce infectious rAAV, and non-ionic iodixanol gradient centrifugation, followed by heparin affinity chromatography, were performed for separation, purification and concentration of rAAV. The particle numbers of rAAV, assayed by dot blot, were 7 x 10(14)/L (rAAVAIL) and 1 x 10(14)/L (rAAVL). These vectors were then transduced into C2C12 myoblasts. The results of ELISA and Western blot for human apoA-I, and [3H]-cholesterol-labeled radiochemical methods for LCAT activity, showed that the expression of human apoA-I cDNA and/or human LCAT cDNA in transduced C2C12 cells lasted for 30 days, even after myoblasts were differentiated into myotubes. PCR products for the transgene indicated the long-term persistence of transduced vector sequences. The results indicate that the methods used for production and purification of rAAV is efficient, and rAAV vector mediated the expression and secretion of LCAT and apoA-I gene in C2C12 myoblasts successfully. It suggests that the use of rAAV vectors mediating the high efficiency, long-term expression of human LCAT cDNA and/or apoA-I cDNA in skeletal muscle in vivo can be a safe and fesible strategy for the gene therapy of LCAT deficiency.

Cell pellets from dental papillae can reexhibit dental morphogenesis and dentinogenesis.

We isolated dental papilla mesenchymal cells (DPMCs) from different rat incisor germs at the late bell stage and incubated them as cell pellets in polypropylene tubes. In vitro pellet culture of DPMCs presented several crucial characteristics of odontoblasts, as indicated by accelerated mineralization, positive immunostaining for dentin sialophosphoprotein and dentin matrix protein 1, and expression of dentin sialophosphoprotein mRNA. The allotransplantation of these pellets into renal capsules was also performed. Despite the absence of dental epithelial components, dissociated DPMCs with a complete loss of positional information rapidly underwent dentinogenesis and morphogenesis, and formed a cusp-like dentin-pulp complex containing distinctive odontoblasts, predentin, dentin, and dentinal tubules. These results imply that DPMCs at the late bell stage can reexhibit the dental morphogenesis and dentinogenesis by themselves, and epithelial-mesenchymal interactions at this stage may not be indispensable. Furthermore, different DPMC populations from the similar stage may keep the same developmental pattern.

[Prokaryotic expression of endostatin and preparation of polyclonal antibody].

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to express and purify human endostatin and to prepare polyclonal antibody of mouse anti-human endostatin. METHODS: The cDNA of endostatin was amplified by PCR, then recombined into prokaryotic expression vector and transformed into Escherichia coli BL21 for expression; the mice were immunized with purified products. RESULTS: Prokaryotic expression vector pQE-30 of human endostatin was successfully constructed; the expression product was gained after pQE-30 was transferred into BL21. After purified by Ni affinity chromatography, the product was identified to be a single component by SDS-PAGE. Western blot analysis showed that high titer mouse anti-human endostatin polyclonal antibody was successfully prepared. CONCLUSION: Highly purified expression product and prepared polyclonal antibody provide the necessary material for further study.