Regular Glucosamine Use May Have Different Roles in the Risk of Site-Specific Cancers: Findings from a Large Prospective Cohort.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies indicated that glucosamine supplements may have a general anticancer effect. This study aimed to assess whether the potential effect differs across different types of cancers in a large prospective cohort study. METHODS: All participants from the UK Biobank who were free of cancers and had complete information on glucosamine use at baseline were included and followed up from 2006 until 2021. Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the associations between regular glucosamine use and different site-specific cancers. Subgroup analyses were performed to explore potential interactions. Several sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess the robustness of the main findings. RESULTS: A total of 450,207 eligible participants (mean age: 56.2 years; females: 53.3%) were included, of whom 84,895 (18.9%) reported regular glucosamine use at baseline. During a median of 12.5 years follow-up, glucosamine use was significantly associated with an increased risk of overall cancer [HR, 1.04; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.01-1.06], skin cancer (HR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.07-1.15), and prostate cancer (HR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.01-1.13), and with a reduced risk of lung cancer (HR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.79-0.97) after adjusting for potential confounders. Statistical interaction was observed for gender, age, and education for the association of glucosamine use with overall cancer risk (all Pinteraction < 0.027). These results remained unchanged in the sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Regular glucosamine use was associated with lower risk of lung cancer but higher risk of skin cancer, prostate cancer, and overall cancer. IMPACT: The roles of glucosamine use potentially differ in the development of different site-specific cancers.

Comparative effectiveness and safety of 32 pharmacological interventions recommended by guidelines for coronavirus disease 2019: a systematic review and network meta-analysis combining 66 trials.

BACKGROUND: The global pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a major public health problem and presents an unprecedented challenge. However, no specific drugs were currently proven. This study aimed to evaluate the comparative efficacy and safety of pharmacological interventions in patients with COVID-19. METHODS: Medline, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and clinicaltrials.gov were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)/SARS-CoV. Random-effects network meta-analysis within the Bayesian framework was performed, followed by the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation system assessing the quality of evidence. The primary outcome of interest includes mortality, cure, viral negative conversion, and overall adverse events (OAEs). Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated as the measure of effect size. RESULTS: Sixty-six RCTs with 19,095 patients were included, involving standard of care (SOC), eight different antiviral agents, six different antibiotics, high and low dose chloroquine (CQ_HD, CQ_LD), traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), corticosteroids (COR), and other treatments. Compared with SOC, a significant reduction of mortality was observed for TCM (OR = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.20-0.56, moderate quality) and COR (OR = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.75-0.96, low quality) with improved cure rate (OR = 2.16, 95% CI: 1.60-2.91, low quality for TCM; OR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.05-1.30, low quality for COR). However, an increased risk of mortality was found for CQ_HD vs. SOC (OR = 3.20, 95% CI: 1.18-8.73, low quality). TCM was associated with decreased risk of OAE (OR = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.38-0.70, very low quality) but CQ_HD (OR = 2.51, 95% CI: 1.20-5.24) and interferons (IFN) (OR = 2.69, 95% CI: 1.02-7.08) vs. SOC with very low quality were associated with an increased risk. CONCLUSIONS: COR and TCM may reduce mortality and increase cure rate with no increased risk of OAEs compared with standard care. CQ_HD might increase the risk of mortality. CQ, IFN, and other antiviral agents could increase the risk of OAEs. The current evidence is generally uncertain with low-quality and further high-quality trials are needed.

Antifungal Activity of Eucalyptus Oil against Rice Blast Fungi and the Possible Mechanism of Gene Expression Pattern.

Eucalyptus oil possesses a wide spectrum of biological activity, including anti-microbial, fungicidal, herbicidal, acaricidal and nematicidal properties. We studied anti-fungal activities of the leaf oil extracted from Eucalyptus. grandis × E. urophylla. Eleven plant pathogenic fungi were tested based on the mycelium growth rates with negative control. The results showed that Eucalyptus oil has broad-spectrum inhibitory effects toward these fungi. Remarkable morphological and structural alterations of hypha have been observed for Magnaporthe grisea after the treatment. The mRNA genome array of M. grisea was used to detect genes that were differentially expressed in the test strains treated by the Eucalyptus oil than the normal strains. The results showed 1919 genes were significantly affected, among which 1109 were down-regulated and 810 were up-regulated (p < 0.05, absolute fold change >2). According to gene ontology annotation analysis, these differentially expressed genes may cause abnormal structures and physiological function disorders, which may reduce the fungus growth. These results show the oil has potential for use in the biological control of plant disease as a green biopesticide.

Toxicological evaluation of neem (Azadirachta indica) oil: acute and subacute toxicity.

Neem (Azadirachta indica), popularly known as traditional medicine is a native plant in India. Neem oil is a vegetable oil derived from seeds or fruits of the neem tree through pressing or solvent extraction, and largely used in popular medicine to have antifungal, antibacterial, antimalarial, antiparasitic, anti-inflammatory, as well as immunemodulatory properties in different animal species. In the present study, acute and 28-day subacute toxicity tests were carried out. In the acute toxicity test, the LD50 values of neem oil were found to be 31.95g/kg. The subacute treatment with neem oil failed to change body weight gain, food and water consumption. Serum biochemistry analysis showed no significant differences in any of the parameters examined under the dose of 1600mg/kg/day. Histopathological exams showed that the target organs of neem oil were testicle, liver and kidneys up to the dose of 1600mg/kg/day.

The influence of orally administered docosahexaenoic acid on cognitive ability in aged mice.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not the role of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation on cognitive capability was related with brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nitric oxide (NO) and dopamine (DA) in aged mice. Kunming-line mice were treated with 50 and 100 mg/kg/day of DHA via oral gavage for seven successive weeks. The cognitive ability of mice was assessed by step-through and passageway water maze tests. The levels of NO in hippocampus and striatum tissues were assessed by spectrophotometric method. The levels of DA in hippocampus and striatum tissues were assessed by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection. The protein levels of BDNF in hippocampus tissue were assessed by Western blotting. The results showed that the cognitive capability of mice was significantly different between the DHA-treated groups and the control group; the protein level of BDNF was significantly increased in the hippocampus; the levels of NO and DA were significantly increased in hippocampus and striatum tissues. In conclusion, during aging, DHA supplementation can improve the cognitive function in mice and can increase the protein level of BDNF in hippocampus tissue and the levels of NO and DA in hippocampus and striatum tissues. Taken together, our results suggest that DHA supplementation could improve the cognitive dysfunction due to aging, to some extent, and it may have a relationship with increasing the protein level of BDNF and the level of NO and DA.

[AFLP analysis for genetic diversity of Ganoderma].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the genetic diversity of Ganoderma cultivars provided for the genuineness study, germ-plasm resource identification, genetic relationship study, breeding, introduction and cultivante of Ganoderma strains. METHOD: With the software of NTSYSpc 2. 1, 24 materials, of G. lucidum and G. sinense, were studied using AFLP to construct the dendrogram. RESULT: There were 177 polymorphic bands with 14 primer combinations. And all materials could be identified with AFLP. CONCLUSION: There actually existed much genetic diversity at the molecular level among the germplasm resources of Ganoderma strains, and all the strains were clustered into G. lucidum group and G. sinense group at the similarity coefficient 0. 676.

[Transformation of embryogenic Calli of Siberian wildrye grass (Elymus sibiricus L. cv. Chuancao No.2) mediated by agrobacterium].

Formation of embryogenic calli of Siberian wildrye grass (Elymus sibiricus L. cv. Chuancao No.2) was induced from mature seeds as explants, and proliferated on MS medium containing 2,4-D 5.0 mg/L and KT 0.05 mg/L. An effective and stable callus regeneration system was established by optimizing the culture conditions (Tables 1, 2 and Fig.2). After the calli were subcultured 8 weeks, selected the whitish-yellow-coloured compact nodular calli that transformed with plasmid pCAMBIA1304 carrying hygromycin resistance gene (hptII) and Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes insecticidal protein gene (ppIP), which was mediated by an Agrobacterium strain EHA105. Resistant plants were obtained after hygromycin selection (Figs.3, 4). Some important factors that affect the transformation efficiency were studied, which included selection pressure, time of embryogenic calli proliferation, OD value of Agrobacterium suspension, temperature, medium and time of co-cultivation, and concentration of antibiotics used for suppressing the overgrowth of Agrobacterium in the course of transformation plant regeneration. This research is the first successful genetic transformation of Elymus sibiricus L. cv. Chuancao No.2 mediated by Agrobacterium.

[Research on Sailong boneextracts on proliferation and apoptosis of osteoblast cells].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the metabolic regulation and apoptosis of Sailong bone extracts on rat osteoblast cells in vitro. METHOD: Sailong bone fat-soluble extract, Sailong bone ethanol extract and Sailong bone aqueous extract were extracted with super critical fluid extraction (SCFE) , and Sailong bone boiling water component was extracted with distilled water directly. MTT assay was applied to determine the proliferation of the cell promoted by four Sailong bone extracts and PAS assay for the aqueous proportion of the cell at different doses. RESULT: Sailong bone fat-soluble and aqueous extract (each 10 mg x mL (-1)) could significantly improve the proliferation of rat osteoblast cells ROS 17/2. 8 (P < 0. 01). Compared with the blank, the proportion of xub-G, of the different extracts from Sailong bone is reduce evidently. The result have shown the extracts from Sailong bone could reduce the rate of aqueous of cell and could suspend the aqueous. CONCLUSION: Sailong bone can promoting the proliferation, degrading the rate of the apoptosis and delay the development of osteoblast to be the substitute of the bone of tiger as a Chinese materia medica.

[Effect of Spatholobus suberectus on the bone marrow cells and related cytokines of mice].

OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of Spatholobus suberectus on proliferation and the hematonic mechanism. METHOD: The techniques of culture of hematopoietic cell and hematopoietic growth factor (HGF) assay were used. RESULT: Spatholobus suberectus could obviously promote the proliferation of bone marrow cells in healthy and anaemic mice. The culture media of spleen cell, macrophage, lung and skeletal muscle treated with S. suberectus had much stronger stimulating effects on hematopoietic cells. CONCLUSION: S. suberectus may enhance hematopoiesis by directly or indirectly stimulating stroma cell in hematopoietic inductive microenvironment and muscle tissue to secrete some HGF (Epo, GM-CSF, IL, and MK-CSF). This is one of the biological mechanisms for hematonic effect of S. suberectus.

[Molecular mechanism of wendan tang in prevention of lipid metabolism disorder in adult rats].

OBJECTIVE: To elucidate the molecular mechanism of Wendan Tang in prevention of lipid metabolism disorder in adult rats. METHOD: On the basis of hyperlipidemia rat models, triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC) in serum, activities of lipase (LA), lipoprotein lipase (LPL), hepatic lipase (HL) in liver, parts of hemogram and hepatic LDLR mRNA levels were investigated 21 days after the feeding of atherogenic diet. RESULT: Wendan Tang significantly reduced the serum TG, TC and increased the activity of LPL and LA, but caused no chang in HL. The result of RT-PCR test showed that high fat and high cholesterol feeding could significantly induce the reduction of LDLR mRNA levels, while Wendan Tang could increase hepatic LDLR density. CONCLUSION: Wendan Tang can prevent disorder of lipid metabolism by regulating TC, TG, LDL-c through upregaulation of LDLR transcription level and improving antioxidant ability.