[An investigation of an accident of acute mixed gas poisoning].

An accident of mixed acute gas poisoning accident happened in a place in GuangDong in March 2018. To investigates three poisoning workers and related clinical data were summarized., we tested the field air and analyzed the accident reasons. This event due to the staff lack of occupational protection awareness and illegal operation. The working environment must be ventilated before limited space operation, and must be sure that the limited space is safe by toxic gas monitoring. In case of occupational acute gas poisoning, rescuers should help the persons who are poisoned reasonably and meanwhile their own safety.

New insights into the heterogeneity and functional diversity of human mesenchymal stem cells.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are being tested in several biological systems and clinical settings with the aim of exploring their therapeutic potentials for a variety of diseases. MSCs are also known to be heterogeneous populations with variable functions. In the context of this multidimensional complexity, a recurrent question is what source or population of MSCs is suitable for specific clinical indications. Here, we reported that the biological features of MSCs varied with the individual donor, the tissue source, the culture condition and the subpopulations. Placental chorionic villi (CV) derived MSCs exhibited superior activities of immunomodulation and pro-angiogenesis compared to MSCs derived from bone marrow (BM), adipose and umbilical cord (UC). We identified a subpopulation of CD106(VCAM-1)+MSCs, which are present richly in placental CV, moderately in BM, and lowly in adipose and UC. The CD106+MSCs possess significantly increased immunomodutory and pro-angiogenic activities compared to CD106-MSCs. Analysis of gene expression and cytokine secretion revealed that CD106+MSCs highly expressed several immnumodulatory and pro-angiogenic cytokines. Our data offer new insights on the identification and selection of suitable source or population of MSCs for clinical applications. Further efforts should be concentrated on standardizing methods which will ultimately allow the validation of MSC products with defined biomarkers as predictive of potency in suitable pre-clinical models and clinical settings.

ATAD2 is overexpressed in gastric cancer and serves as an independent poor prognostic biomarker.

OBJECTIVE: ATPase family, AAA domain containing 2 (ATAD2) has been found overexpressed in various cancer types and correlated with malignant status and poor prognosis. However, little is known about the clinical significance of ATAD2 in gastric cancer patients. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical and prognostic significance of ATAD2 in gastric cancer. METHODS: The mRNA and protein levels expression of ATAD2 were detected in clinical tissue samples by qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry, respectively. We examined the ATAD2 protein expression by immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, we analyzed the association between ATAD2 expression and clinicopathological features including prognosis in 166 gastric cancer samples. RESULTS: In our results, ATAD2 mRNA and protein were highly expressed in gastric cancer samples. ATAD2 overexpression was correlated with advanced clinical stage, tumor depth, lymph node metastasis, and distant metastasis. According to the survival analysis, ATAD2 protein overexpression was a poor independent prognostic factor for gastric cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS: In summary, ATAD2 could serve as a prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer patients.

Wnt1-overexpressing skeletal myoblasts as an improved cell therapy for cardiac repair following myocardial infarction.

AIM: Recent findings highlight the critical role of the Wnt signaling pathway in cardiac repair and stem cell regulation. Our previous study shows that lithium chloride (LiCl) optimizes skeletal myoblast (SkM) for transplantation by mimicking the Wnt/ß-catenin signaling activities. In this study, we evaluate the therapeutic potential of SkMs genetically modified with Wnt1gene (Wnt1 SkMs) in a rat model with myocardial infarction (MI). METHODS: We harvested neonatal SkMs using Wistar rats (1-3-day old) transfected with p-EGFP-C3-Wnt1 plasmid. RT-PCR and immunofluorescence showed a higher expression of Wnt1 in the Wnt1 SkMs. We observed that Wnt1 SkMs increased connexin 43 (Cx43) expression, reduced apoptosis induced by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and decreased caspase-3 expression via the canonical Wnt signaling pathways compared to the empty vector transfected SkMs (control SkMs). For in vivo studies, the myocardial infarction model was developed in the Wistar rats. The rats were grouped to receive 100 µL basal DMEM without cells or containing 1.5×106SkMs and Wnt1 SkMs. Histological studies revealed improved survival of SkMs, reduced cardiomyocytes apoptosis, and upregulated expression of Cx43 in Wnt1 SkMs therapy group. Echocardiography monitored four weeks after therapy showed improvement of the left ventricular function in rats treated with Wnt1SkMs compared to other groups. CONCLUSION: Transplantation of Wnt1 SkMs improves rat myocardial function and enhances anti apoptotic properties of both SkMs and cardiomyocytes and upregulation of tissue Cx43 after infarction via the canonical Wnt/ß-catenin signaling activities.

Lithium chloride preconditioning optimizes skeletal myoblast functions for cellular cardiomyoplasty in vitro via glycogen synthase kinase-3beta/beta-catenin signaling.

The benefits of skeletal myoblast (SkM) transplantation for cardiomyoplasty are limited due to their decreased functional integration with host cardiomyocytes and the poor survival of implanted cells in ischemic hearts. However, little success has been achieved with respect to the strategies aiming to improve the efficiency of SkM transplantation. In this study, we demonstrated that LiCl-preconditioned SkMs resulted in significantly increased connexin 43 (Cx43) expression and gap-junctional communication with cardiomyocytes. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression of SkMs was significantly upregulated in response to LiCl. Furthermore, hydrogen peroxide induced SkM apoptosis and increased caspase-3 expression, whereas LiCl inhibited SkM apoptosis, resulted in the decrease of caspase-3 expression and promoted SkM proliferation. These effects of LiCl were mediated by inactivating glycogen synthase kinase-3beta (GSK-3beta), stabilizing the effector protein beta-catenin and translocating it into the nucleus of SkMs, confirming that LiCl mimics canonical Wnt signaling. These findings suggest that LiCl preconditioning may be a novel strategy to optimize SkM function for cellular cardiomyoplasty in vitro.