Effect of manual lymphatic drainage combined with targeted rehabilitation therapies on the recovery of upper limb function in patients with modified radical mastectomy: A randomized controlled trial.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) combined with targeted rehabilitation therapies on the recovery of upper limb function in patients with breast cancer after modified radical mastectomy. Patients and methods: In the randomized controlled study conducted between October 2019 and June 2020, 104 eligible breast cancer patients who underwent modified radical mastectomy were randomly divided into two groups. The routine functional exercise group (Group RF) received regular functional exercise guidance. In addition, the MLD combined with targeted rehabilitation therapies group (Group MLDT) received MLD, targeted rehabilitation therapies, and regular functional exercise guidance. The primary endpoints were shoulder range of motion, arm circumference and the incidence of axillary web syndrome (AWS). The secondary endpoints included the duration of axillary drainage, the duration of chest wall drainage, and complications. Results: One hundred participants (mean age: 51.9±8.0 years; range, 28 to 72 years) were included in the final analysis as four patients could not complete the study. A significant improvement in shoulder range of motion was observed in Group MLDT compared to Group RF (p<0.05). Additionally, in Group MLDT, the duration of chest wall drainage was reduced (p=0.037). The frequency of AWS in Group RF was twice that in Group MLDT (p=0.061), but there was no significant difference in arm circumference (p>0.05) or the duration of axillary drainage (p=0.519). Regarding complications, there was one case of necrosis in the MLDT group and four cases in the RF group, including wound infection and seroma. Conclusion: Manual lymphatic drainage combined with targeted rehabilitation therapies is an effective strategy to improve shoulder function, shorten the duration of chest wall drainage, reduce complications, and partly lower the incidence of AWS.

Glucosamine-Modified Reduction-Responsive Polymeric Micelles for Liver Cancer Therapy.

In this work, glucose transporter-1 (GLUT-1) and glutathione (GSH) over-expression in liver cancer was utilized to design a reduction-responsive and active targeting drug delivery system AG-PEG-SS-PCL (APSP) for the delivery of sorafenib (SF). The SF-APSP micelles were prepared using the thin film hydration method and characterized by various techniques. In vitro release experiments showed that the cumulative release of SF-APSP micelles in the simulated tumor microenvironment (pH 7.4 with GSH) reached 94.76 ± 1.78% at 48 h, while it was only 20.32 ± 1.67% in the normal physiological environment (pH 7.4 without GSH). The in vitro study revealed that glucosamine (AG) enhanced the antitumor effects of SF, and SF-APSP micelles inhibited proliferation by targeting HepG2 cells and suppressing cyclin D1 expression. The in vivo antitumor efficacy study further confirmed that the SF-APSP micelles had excellent antitumor effects and better tolerance against nude mouse with HepG2 cells than other treatment groups. All in all, these results indicated that SF-APSP micelles could be a promising drug delivery system for anti-hepatoma treatment.

Status of linusorbs in cold-pressed flaxseed oil during oxidation and their response toward antioxidants.

Linusorbs (LOs, cyclolinopeptides) are a class of naturally occurring cyclic hydrophobic peptides found in flaxseed oil, whose oxidation states indicate the oxidative stability and bitterness of flaxseed oil. Subjected to 63 °C accelerated oxidation, most Met-containing LOs in cold-pressed flaxseed oil entirely depleted by the 6th day except CLP, and MetO2-containing LOs became the dominant ones. However, no MetO2 form of Trp-containing LOs, such as CLD, CLF and CLG, were detected. Given their oxidative kinetics, methionine sulfoxide (MetO) residue in some LOs was less sensitive toward oxidation in the presence of Trp (Tryptophan) group, and the oxidative stability of Met-containing LOs was CLP < CLB < CLL ≈ CLM < CLO, as compared to MetO-containing LOs: CLD < CLE < CLC < CLF ≈ CLG. When antioxidant was added into cold-pressed flaxseed oil to assess the additives' antioxidant effect, no significant difference was observed on oil oxidative indices in early stage except α-tocopherol, where they vary dramatically in suppressing Met oxidation of LOs: L-AP (L-ascorbyl palmitate) > TBHQ (tert-butyl hydroquinone) > Î³-tocopherol > carnosic acid > α-tocopherol. Besides its ability to suppress oxidation of Trp-containing LOs, L-AP also exhibits superior antioxidant effect on non-Trp-containing LOs due to its amphiphilic property. Due to the prooxidative effects of both α- and γ-tocopherol on LOs that contain Trp, it has been suggested that tocopherols may repair Trp residue on LOs, leading to increased tendency of MetO residues to oxidize. The findings of this research are critical for elucidating the antioxidative mechanism of LOs, which can further lead to the establishment of strategies in suppressing bitter after taste to produce high-quality flaxseed oil.

The efficacy and safety of fire needle therapy for COVID-19: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a new type of coronavirus, first reported in Wuhan, China at the end of December 2019. As a result of the worldwide outbreak, the number of patients continues to increase. With multiple therapeutic interventions, more and more patients are recovering. Fire needle is used as an alternative therapy. At present, there are no relevant articles for systematic review and meta-analysis, so this study will evaluate the efficacy and safety of fire needle in the treatment of COVID-19 pneumonia. METHODS: The following electronic bibliographic databases will be searched to identify relevant studies from December 2019 to December 2020: MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Technical Periodicals (VIP), Wan-fang data, Chinese Biological Medicine Database (CBM), and other databases. All included articles were randomized controlled trial without any language restrictions. Two reviewers will independently conduct cations retrieval, de-duplication, filtering, quality assessment, and data analysis by the Review Manager (V.5.3). Meta-analysis, subgroup analysis and/or descriptive analysis were performed on the included data. DISCUSSION: This study will investigate the application of fire needle in the treatment or prevention of COVID-19, and provide a high-quality synthesis to evaluate whether fire needle is an effective and safe intervention for COVID-19. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO registration number: CRD 42020193703.

The Effects of Music Therapy on Cognition, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Activities of Daily Living in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease.

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia, affecting millions of older people worldwide. However, pharmacological therapies have not achieved desirable clinical efficacy in the past decades. Non-pharmacological therapies have been receiving increased attention to treat dementia in recent years. OBJECTIVE: This study explores the effects of music therapy on cognitive function and mental wellbeing of patients with AD. METHODS: A total number of 298 AD patients with mild, moderate, or severe dementia participated in the study. The participants with each grade of severity were randomly divided into three groups, which were a singing group, a lyric reading group, and a control group. These three groups received different interventions for three months. All participants underwent a series of tests on cognitive functions, neuropsychological symptoms, and activities of daily living at baseline, three months, and six months. RESULTS: The analysis shows that music therapy is more effective for improving verbal fluency and for alleviating the psychiatric symptoms and caregiver distress than lyrics reading in patients with AD. Stratified analysis shows that music therapy is effective for enhancing memory and language ability in patients with mild AD and reducing the psychiatric symptoms and caregiver distress in patients with moderate or severe AD. However, no significant effect was found for activities of daily living in patients with mild, moderate, or severe AD. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that music therapy is effective in enhancing cognitive function and mental wellbeing and can be recommended as an alternative approach to manage AD associated symptoms.

Efficacy of practising Tai Chi for older people with mild dementia: protocol for a randomised controlled study.

INTRODUCTION: Many studies suggest that Tai Chi exercise is a safe and appropriate mind-body exercise for older people and effectively slows down age-related cognitive decline. A set of bespoke Tai Chi exercise named 'Cognition Protecting Tai Chi' (CPT) has been created for older people with cognitive impairments by the research team of geriatricians, neurologists, rehabilitation specialists, experts of sports medicine and experienced practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. This trial is designed to evaluate its effects on cognitive function, behaviour/moods, risk of falls and activities of daily living of the participants with mild dementia. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A randomised controlled study will be conducted. Eighty participants with mild dementia will be recruited and randomly allocated to an intervention group and a control group. The intervention group will practice the CPT exercise three times a week for 20 min each time under the guidance of professional therapists. The control group will continue receiving their routine treatments. The duration of this study will be 10 months. All participants will be assessed with a battery of neuropsychological and functional evaluations, which include Mini Mental State Examination, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, the WHO-University of California Los Angeles-Auditory Verbal Learning test (WHO-UCLA-AVLT), Trail Making Test (TMT), Geriatric Depression Scale, Neuropsychological Inventory and Barthel Index, at the baseline, 5 and 10 months during the study period. Fall incident will also be recorded. The primary outcome will be the WHO-UCLA-AVLT delayed recall score. The secondary outcome will be the TMT score. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This study has been approved by the ethical review committee of the Beijing Geriatric Hospital (protocol number: 2015-021). Informed consent will be obtained from all participants or their guardians. The authors intend to submit the findings of the study to peer-reviewed journals or academic conferences to be published. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ChiCTR-INR-16009872; Pre-results.

Proteogenomic analysis and global discovery of posttranslational modifications in prokaryotes.

We describe an integrated workflow for proteogenomic analysis and global profiling of posttranslational modifications (PTMs) in prokaryotes and use the model cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 (hereafter Synechococcus 7002) as a test case. We found more than 20 different kinds of PTMs, and a holistic view of PTM events in this organism grown under different conditions was obtained without specific enrichment strategies. Among 3,186 predicted protein-coding genes, 2,938 gene products (>92%) were identified. We also identified 118 previously unidentified proteins and corrected 38 predicted gene-coding regions in the Synechococcus 7002 genome. This systematic analysis not only provides comprehensive information on protein profiles and the diversity of PTMs in Synechococcus 7002 but also provides some insights into photosynthetic pathways in cyanobacteria. The entire proteogenomics pipeline is applicable to any sequenced prokaryotic organism, and we suggest that it should become a standard part of genome annotation projects.

Identification and expression profiles of IL-8 in bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis) in response to microcystin-LR.

Microcystin-LR (MCLR) is a widespread cyanotoxin and has immunotoxicity to animals, including fish. Chemokines are considered to play important roles in inflammatory response induced by MCLR. In this study, we cloned the full-length cDNA of interleukin-8 (IL-8) from bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis) for the first time. The full-length IL-8 cDNA was 552 bp and contained a 297-bp open-reading frame that encoded for a 98-amino acid protein. The deduced IL-8 protein had a typical aspartic acid (D)-leucine (L)-arginine (R) and a CXC motif at the N-terminal, which were conserved in most fish species. Phylogenetic analysis showed that bighead carp IL-8 protein was grouped in the teleost IL-8 lineage 2. Under normal conditions, the expression of IL-8 is constitutive and weak in all tested tissues. However, MCLR treatment could significantly increase the transcription of IL-8 in bighead carp in a temporal- and dose-dependent pattern. The present study will help us to understand more about the evolution of IL-8 and its function in the MCLR induced proinflammatory response in bighead carp.

Construction and sequence analysis of a normalized full-length cDNA library of Dendrobium officinale / 中国中药杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>In order to obtain functional genes, a normalized stems cDNA library was constructed from medicinal plant Dendrobium officinale.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>SMART (switching mechanism at 5' end of RNA transcript) cDNA synthesis combined with DSN (duplex-specific nuclease) normalization was applied to construct the normalized full-length cDNA library of D. officinale.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>The titer of cDNA library was about 1.3 x 10(6) cfu x mL(-1) and the average insertion size was about 1.5 kb with high recombination rate (93.9%). Random selected 163 positive clones were sequenced at single side. Bio-information analysis indicated that 147 from 150 high-quality unique sequences matched corresponding homologous proteins, and they participated in various biological processes based on GO (gene ontology). There were 8 clones with complete coding sequence, which presumed to be full-length genes.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>These results showed preliminarily that we successfully constructed a normalized full-length cDNA library of D. officinale which could be used to screen the functional genes related to metabolic pathways of medicinal ingredients.</p>