[Scientific basis of acupuncture on mesenchymal stem cells for treating ischemic stroke].

The scientific basis of acupuncture on mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for treating ischemic stroke (IS) is discussed. MSCs transplantation has great potential for the treatment of tissue damage caused by early stage inflammatory cascade reactions of IS, but its actual transformation is limited by various factors. How to improve the homing efficiency of MSCs is the primary issue to enhance its efficacy. As such, the possible mechanisms of acupuncture and MSCs transplantation in inhibiting inflammatory cascade reactions induced by IS are explored by reviewing literature, and a hypothesis that acupuncture could promote the secretion of stromal cell-derived factor-1α (SDF-1α) from ischemic foci to regulate SDF-1α/CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) axis, thereby improving the homing efficiency of MSCs transplantation, exerting its neuroprotective function, and improving the bed transformation ability, is proposed.

Nomograms for predicting the prognosis of patients with penoscrotal extramammary Paget's disease: A retrospective study in the SEER database and two medical centers.

Background: Extramammary Paget' s disease (EMPD) is a rare cutaneous malignant tumor, and the prognostic factors associated with penoscrotal EMPD remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate prognostic factors and construct nomograms to predict the outcome of patients with EMPD located in the penis or scrotum. Methods: From the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, we extracted 95 patients with primary EMPD located in the penis or scrotum as the training cohort. Forty-nine penoscrotal EMPD patients were included from two medical centers as the external validation cohort. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression model were applied to investigating risk factors of cancer-specific survival (CSS) and overall survival (OS). Based on the results of multivariate Cox regression analysis, the nomograms were constructed for predicting CSS and OS of patients with penoscrotal EMPD. The concordance index (C-index), receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and calibration curves were applied to evaluate the practicability and accuracy of the nomograms. Results: In the training cohort, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that marital status and tumor stage were independent factors of CSS, and marital status, tumor stage and surgery are associated with OS independently in patients with penoscrotal EMPD. Based on these results, we developed nomograms to predict CSS and OS respectively. The C-index values were 0.778 for CSS, and 0.668 for OS in the training set, which displayed the good discriminations. In the external validation set, the C-index values were 0.945 for CSS, and 0.703 for OS. The areas under the curve (AUC) values of nomogram predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year CSS were 0.815, 0.833, and 0.861 respectively, and 0.839, 0.654, and 0.667 for nomogram predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS respectively. In the validation set, the AUC values of nomogram predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year CSS were 0.944, 0.896, and 0.896 respectively, and 0.777, 0.762 and 0.692 for nomogram predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS respectively. Additionally, the internal calibration curves also proved that our nomograms have good accuracy. Conclusions: By incorporating marital status, tumor stage and/or surgery, our nomograms can efficiently predict CSS and OS of patients with penoscrotal EMPD.

[The protective effect of exenatide on the renal injury in diabetic rats].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the protective effect of exenatide (Ex) on the renal injury in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. METHODS: Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into 2 groups:normal control group (NC group, n=8) and model group. Model group was injected with low dose of streptozotocin (30 mg·kg-1) after the rats were fed with high fat and high glucose diet for 4 weeks. Seventy-two hours later, rats of blood glucose level ≥ 16.7 mmol·L-1 were divided into diabetes mellitus group (DM, n=10) and two exenatide-treated groups (Ex groups,3 or 6µg·kg-1, n=8). Ex groups subcutaneously injected with exenatide for 12 weeks, but NC group and DM group were injected with the same volume of solvent. Changes in glycolipid metabolism and renal function such as serum creatinine (Scr), urine creatinine (Ucr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), 24 hour urine micro-albumin (24 h UMA)in the 4 groups of rats were determined and creatinine clearance rate (Ccr) were calculated. Renal oxidative stress parameters such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde(MDA), glutathione per-oxidase (GSH-Px) were measured. Hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining was used to examine pathological morphology in the renal tissues and ELISA was performed to determine the level of advanced glycation end products(AGEs), the glycosylation end product in renal tissues. RESULTS: Compared to the DM group,glycolipid metabolic abnormalities in the exenatide-treated groups were significantly ameliorated with lower levels of blood glucose,HbAlc, cholesterol and triglyceride (P < 0.05). The renal function index was markedly improved (P < 0.05) with Ccr reduced, indicating a high glomerular filtration status. Meanwhile, exenatide treatment improved the diabetes-induced pathological changes in renal morphology, substantially increased the activities of SOD and GSH-Px, and reduced the levels of MDA and AGEs. CONCLUSIONS: Exe-natide has the renal protective effect probably by the mechanisms of inhibition of AGEs production and reduction of oxidative stress in the renal tissues of diabetic rats.