Effect of the Recombinant Adenovirus-Mediated HIF-1 Alpha on the Expression of VEGF in the Hypoxic Brain Microvascular Endothelial Cells of Rats.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of recombinant adenovirus-mediated HIF-1 alpha (HIF-1α) on the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGFA) and HIF-1α in hypoxic brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMEC) in rats. METHODS: Primary cultured rat BMEC in vitro were treated without or with either recombinant adenovirus-mediated hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (AdHIF-1α) or recombinant adenovirus empty vector (Ad) in the presence of CoCl2 (simulating hypoxia conditions), or were grown under normoxia conditions. The expression of VEGFA and HIF-1α was analyzed at 12h, 24h, 48h and 72h incubation time, respectively. We also accessed a GEO dataset of stroke to analyze in vivo the alteration of HIF-1α and VEGFA expression, and the correlations between HIF-1α, VEGFA and CD31 mRNA levels in vascular vessels after stroke. RESULTS: VEGFA and HIF-1α expression were significantly higher in at each time point in the AdHIF-1α than other groups (p<0.05), whereas the Ad group and hypoxia group, showed no statistically significant difference (p>0.05). Moreover, VEGFA and HIF-1α levels were significantly higher in BMEC under hypoxia conditions than normoxia conditions (p <0.05). Both HIF-1α and VEGFA expression significantly increased after stroke in vivo with 1.30 and 1.57 fold-change in log2, respectively. There were significantly positive associations between HIF-1α, VEGFA and CD31 mRNA levels in vivo after stroke. CONCLUSION: Hypoxia-induced HIF-1α and VEGFA expression in vascular vessels, and recombinant AdHIF-1α could up-regulate VEGFA, and enhance HIF-1ααlevels in BMEC in vitro, which may play an important role in the recovery of stroke.

An analysis of China's physician salary payment system.

Physician payment system (PPS) is a principal incentive system to motivate doctors to provide excellent care for patients. During the past decade, physician remuneration in China has not been in proportional to physician's average work load and massive responsibilities. This paper reviewed the constitution of the PPS in China, and further discussed the problems and issues to be addressed with respect to pay for performance. Our study indicated that the lower basic salary and bonus distribution tied to "profits" was the major contributor to the physician's profit-driven incentive and the potential cause for the speedy growth of health expenditures. We recommend that government funding to hospitals should be increased to fully cover physicians' basic salary, a flexible human resource and talent management mechanism needs to be established that severs personal interest between physicians and hospitals, and modern performance assessment and multiplexed payment systems should be piloted to encourage physicians to get the more legitimate compensation.

An ALV-J isolate is responsible for spontaneous haemangiomas in layer chickens in China.

Subgroup J avian leukosis virus (ALV-J), first isolated in 1989, mainly induces tumours of myeloid leukosis (ML) in meat-type chickens. In 2006, ALV-J strain SCAU-HN06 was isolated from commercial layer hens with spontaneous haemangiomas in China. To confirm its role in the induction of haemangioma, we constructed a full-length copy of the proviral genome from SCAU-HN06, recovered virus from DF-1 cells detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, characterized its growth property and investigated its pathogenicity. The recovered virus appeared to be identical to SCAU-HN06 analysed by both blast gene sequences and indirect immunofluorescence assay. It also showed similarities in growth to the parental wild-type virus in vitro. The pathogenicity of the rescued and parental virus in specific-pathogen-free White Leghorn chickens was investigated. Both SCAU-HN06 and rSCAU-HN06 could induce haemangioma, with incidence of 52% and 42.8% respectively. Overall, our findings indicated that the ALV-J strain SCAU-HN06 was the causal agent inducing haemangiomas rather than ML in certain layer chickens.

[Molecular analysis of an avian influenza virus isolate of H5N2 subtype from parrot].

In 2005, an avian influenza virus stain was isolated from Parrot in Guangdong, which was then genotyped as H5N2 subtype and designated as A/Parrot/Guangdong/268/2005. According to the current OIE definition on the low-pathogenicity of avian influenza virus, the strain was recognized as a low pathogenic avian influenza virus due to the presence of one basic amino acid residue at the HA cleavage site. Some molecular characteristics of the virus, such as potential glycosylation sites in HA and NA, receptor binding sites of HA, and drug resistance site of NA, showed no variations. To analyze molecular evolution of this strain, we selected the sequences of H5N2 subtype AIVs from GenBank and established the phylogenetic trees. Our results indicated that this strain shared the highest homologies with the H5N2 LPAI isolate A/Pheasant/NJ/1355/1998-like. Phylogenic analysis revealed the isolate, together with A/Chicken/Pennsylvania/1/1983 (H5N2), belonged to America lineages and clustered with A/Pheasant/NJ/1355/1998-like.