Developmental trend analysis and perspectives on researches related to hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism / 生理学报

The balance of glucose and lipid metabolism is a coordinated result of multiple factors and organs, and is one of the fundamental requirements for the maintenance of human health. As the most important organ for human metabolism, liver plays a key role in regulating glucose and lipid metabolism. With the advances of researches, the number of publications related to hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism has increased rapidly, which posed a challenge for grasping the hot research topics and developmental trends of hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism in a short time. To solve such problem, we developed an information analysis method, which systematically analyzes the research status, research techniques, and hot research topics of the hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism research field through Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of related papers and high-throughput experimental data. The results showed that the number of publications related to hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism, especially publications by Chinese scholars, has increased dramatically in this century, along with the remarkable increment of the numbers of authors and affiliations per paper. Such increment is in part positively correlated with the impact of publications. Nowadays, various types of high-throughput experimental techniques have become the main research methods for genetic studies of hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism. Transcription factors, such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs), sterol regulatory element binding proteins (SREBPs), and NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), have become the new research hotspots. These results systematically showed the current focuses and developmental trends of hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism research, and the data analysis method developed in this work can also be applied to other research fields.

Identification of dysregulated microRNAs involved in arachidonic acid metabolism regulation in dilated cardiomyopathy-mediated heart failure patients / 生理学报

Heart failure (HF), a clinical syndrome with high morbidity and mortality, is becoming a growing public health problem. Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is one of the major causes of HF, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying DCM-mediated HF are not completely understood. Previous studies have shown that dysregulation of arachidonic acid (AA) metabolism could contribute to the development of HF. To explore the roles of microRNAs (miRNAs) in regulating AA metabolism in HF, we used two public datasets to analyze the expression changes of miRNAs in the patients of DCM-mediated HF. A total of 101 and 88 miRNAs with significant abundance alterations in the two dataset were obtained, respectively. Around 1/3 of these miRNAs were predicted to target AA metabolic pathway genes. We also investigated the distribution of known single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the sequences of miRNAs dysregulated in DCM-mediated HF patients, and identified miRNAs harboring high number of SNPs in either the seed regions or the entire sequences. These information could provide clues for further functional studies of miRNAs in the pathogeny of DCM-mediated HF.

The S100 protein family and its application in cardiac diseases / 世界急诊医学杂志（英文）

@#The S100 protein family is the largest group of EF-hand signaling proteins in humans. The members of the S100 protein family are expressed in many tissues and play different functions. Many diseases are related to S100 proteins, which function as new biochemical markers especially in cardiac diseases. The most studied members, protein S100Β and protein S100A1, exhibit activities in cardiac diseases, and these immunohistochemical expressions or serum levels have been used in predicting neurologic outcome after resuscitation of cardiac arrest or recovery of cardioprotective function.

Alteration of activities of telomerase in tanshinone IIA inducing apoptosis of the leukemia cells / 中国中药杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the effect of tanshinone IIA on HL-60 and K562 cells apoptosis, and to assay the inhibition of the telomerase activities in the leukemia cell apoptosis induced by Tanshinone.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Using the techniques of cell culture in vitro, flow cytometry and PCR-TRAP observed the telomerase activities and apoptosis of HL-60 and K562 cells which treated by Tan IIA.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>0.5 microg x mL(-1) Tan IIA could obviously inhibit HL-60 and K562 cell lines growth (P < 0.05), down-regulate c-myc, bcl-2 gene and up-regulate c-fos and p53 gene expression as well as induce leukemia cell apoptosis, the apoptotic rates of HL-60 and K562 cells were 11.8% and 21.8% respectively. The telomerase activities significant decreased, the inhibiting rates in HL60 and K562 cells were 30.8% and 50.8% respectively.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Tan IIA could significantly inhibit the proliferation and telomerase activities of HL-60 and K562 cells and induce the leukemia cell apoptosis.</p>