FPR1 gene silencing suppresses cardiomyocyte apoptosis and ventricular remodeling in rats with ischemia/reperfusion injury through the inhibition of MAPK signaling pathway.

Ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, one of the leading health problems in the world, is defined as a cause of cardiomyocytes death. In the present study, we investigate the role of formyl peptide receptor 1 (FPR1) in cardiomyocyte apoptosis and ventricular remodeling of I/R injury rats and the underlying mechanism involving mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. The important differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in I/R injury were screened out and downstream pathways affected by DEGs were predicted. We grouped 90 rats into sham, I/R, NC siRNA, FRP1 siRNA, empty vector, and FRP1 vector groups and established a model of I/R injury in rats. CVF value, myocardial infarct areas and positive expression rate of FPR1 and MAPK were detected. Levels of FPR1 and MAPK pathway-related genes were determined by RT-qPCR and western blot analysis. MTT assay was performed to evaluate cell proliferation and flow cytometry to evaluate cell cycle progression and apoptosis. GSE19804 and GSE27262 were screened from Gene Expression Omnibus database. FPR1 was higher in patients with I/R injury and activate the MAPK signaling pathway. FRP1 gene silencing decreased CVF value, infarct area, apoptotic index, positive expression rates of FPR1 and MAPK, decreased FPR1, p38, ERK, JNK, MMP-2, TIMP-2, NF-kB, Bax, p-p38, p-ERK, and p-JNK levels, increased Bcl-2 level, promoted cell proliferation and cell cycle progression, and inhibited cell apoptosis rate. Overall, our study demonstrates that the silencing of FPR1 gene depresses inflammation, cardiomyocyte apoptosis and ventricular remodeling in rats with I/R injury through the suppressing the activation of the MAPK signaling pathway.

Noninvasive Swansea criteria are valuable alternatives for diagnosing acute fatty liver of pregnancy in a Chinese population.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to assess the diagnostic and prognostic value of Swansea criteria in diagnosing acute fatty liver of pregnancy (AFLP) in a Chinese population. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted on 52 Chinese women diagnosed with AFLP. All selected cases were reassessed using the Swansea criteria with special focus on the noninvasive criteria, since performing a liver biopsy for this indication is rare in a Chinese population. RESULTS: Ninety point four percent of patients fulfilled five or more of the Swansea criteria. Thirty-one cases were positive for six or more Swansea criteria, but there were no significance differences between patients when using a cutoff criteria <6 or >6. When patients were positive for less than seven criteria, frequency of stillbirth, continuous blood purification (CBP) treatment, hysterectomy, and postpartum hemorrhage were not increased. However, patients who were positive for seven or more criteria had a significantly higher risk of stillbirth and a higher rate of CBP treatment (p < 0.05). Areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of postpartum hemorrhage was 0.670, which reached a statistical significance (p = 0.040). We observed a significantly elevated postpartum hemorrhage along with positivity of the Swansea criteria (p = 0.040). CONCLUSIONS: Swansea criteria without liver biopsy are good screening tools for AFLP diagnosis, and may be useful for assessing disease severity.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering of patterned copper nanostructure electrolessly plated on arrayed nanoporous silicon pillars.

A new synthesized composite structure, a patterned copper/silicon nanoporous pillar array (Cu/Si-NPA) made by depositing Cu on Si-NPA using an immersion plating method, can be used as a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate. Its surface component and morphology were analyzed by x-ray diffraction and field-emission scanning electron microscopy, respectively. It was found that the surface was Cu with two kinds of crystal structures: a continuous film composed of Cu nanocrystallites covering the Si-NPA, and a quasi-regular, interconnected network composed of loop-chains of Cu crystallites, with the size in the range of several tens of nanometer to 300 nm, surrounding the porous Si pillars. The composite structure is strongly SERS active using rhodamine 6G as probe molecules, which is mainly due to the patterned hierarchical Cu structure.