[Application of noninvasive ventilation in children with acute respiratory distress syndrome].

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common critical illness in children and has high incidence and mortality rates among critically ill pediatric patients. Noninvasive ventilation has become a common treatment method for ARDS because of its unique features. This article reviews the research status in the application of noninvasive ventilation in children with ARDS.

Neuroprotection of Cilostazol against ischemia/reperfusion-induced cognitive deficits through inhibiting JNK3/caspase-3 by enhancing Akt1.

Cilostazol(CTL) is a phosphodiesterase inhibitor, which has been widely used as anti-platelet agent. It also has preventive effects on various central nervous system (CNS) diseases, including ischemic stroke, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer disease. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the protective effects of CTL is still unclear, and whether CTL can prevent I/R induced cognitive deficit has not been reported. Transient global brain ischemia was induced by 4-vessel occlusion in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. The open field tasks and Morris water maze were used to assess the effect of CTL on anxiety-like behavioral and cognitive impairment after I/R. Western blotting were performed to examine the expression of related proteins, and HE-staining was used to detect the percentage of neuronal death in the hippocampal CA1 region. Here we found that CTL significantly improved cognitive deficits and the behavior of rats in Morris water maze and open field tasks (P<0.05). HE staining results showed that CTL could significantly protect CA1 neurons against cerebral I/R (P<0.05). Additionally, Akt1 phosphorylation levels were evidently up-regulated (P<0.05), while the activation of JNK3, which is an important contributor to I/R-induced neuron apoptosis, was reduced by CTL after I/R (P<0.05), and caspase-3 levels were also decreased by CTL treatment. Furthermore, all of CTL's protective effects were reversed by LY294002, which is a PI3K/Akt1 inhibitor. Taken together, our results suggest that CTL could protect hippocampal neurons and ameliorate the impairment of learning/memory abilities and locomotor/ exploratory activities in ischemic stroke via a PI3K-Akt1/JNK3/caspase-3 dependent mechanism.

The complete mitochondrial genome of the Alticorpus geoffreyi.

The present study reported the complete mitochondrial genome of Alticorpus geoffreyi for the first time. The mitochondrial genome of A. geoffreyi possesses 16,578 bp in length, involving 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA, 13 protein-coding genes and one control region. In addition, its GC content is 45.82% that is similar to that of Astatotilapia calliptera (the GC content of 45.90%). Based on the complete mitochondrial genomes of 14 closely related species, the phylogenetic tree was further made to show their phylogenic relationship. The results will serve as a useful dataset for studying the evolution of Cichlidae mitochondrial genome.