Clinical efficacy of tetrandrine in artificial stone-associated silicosis: A retrospective cohort study.

Background: Outbreaks of silicosis have occurred among workers in the artificial stone (AS) industry, and there is currently no effective antifibrosis treatment for silicosis. Design: A retrospective cohort study. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 89 artificial stone-associated silicosis patients treated in Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital (China). Patients who agreed to be administered tetrandrine entered the observation group and those who disagreed entered the control group. Changes in chest HRCT, pulmonary function, and clinical symptoms of patients in two groups were compared pre- and post-treatment. Results: After treatment for 3-12 months, 56.5%-65.4% of patients in the observation group showed improvements in HRCT imaging, while there was no improvement in the control group (p < 0.05). Disease progression occurred in 0%-17.4% of patients in the observation group after 3-12 months of treatment compared with 44.4%-92.0% of patients in the control group (p < 0.05). After 3 months of treatment, the forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), and diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (DLco) in the observation group increased by 136.7 ± 189.2 mL (p < 0.05), 124.2 ± 169.9 mL (p < 0.05), and 1.4 ± 2.3 mL/min/mmHg (p > 0.05), respectively, while those in the control group decreased (145.8 ± 356.5; 107.5 ± 272.1; 1.9 ± 3.8). After 6 months of treatment, FVC, FEV1, and DLco in the observation group increased by 207.8 ± 372.2 mL (p > 0.05), 107.8 ± 295.2 mL (p > 0.05) and 0.7 ± 6.0 mL/min/mmHg (p > 0.05), respectively, while those of the control group decreased (383.3 ± 536.7; 215.6 ± 228.9; 1.4 ± 1.7). The incidences of clinical symptoms such as cough, expectoration, dyspnea, chest tightness, and chest pain in the observation group were decreased-after treatment (all p < 0.05), while the incidences of these symptoms increased in the control group, although the change was not statistically significant (all p > 0.05). Conclusion: Tetrandrine can control and delay the progression of AS-associated silicosis fibrosis, with improved chest HRCT imaging and pulmonary function.

Contrasting regulation of live Bacillus cereus No.1 and its volatiles on Shiraia perylenequinone production.

BACKGROUND: Fungal perylenequinones (PQs) are a class of photoactivated polyketide mycotoxins produced by plant-associated fungi. Hypocrellins, the effective anticancer photodynamic therapy (PDT) agents are main bioactive PQs isolated from a bambusicolous Shiraia fruiting bodies. We found previously that bacterial communities inhabiting fungal fruiting bodies are diverse, but with unknown functions. Bacillus is the most dominant genus inside Shiraia fruiting body. To understand the regulation role of the dominant Bacillus isolates on host fungus, we continued our work on co-culture of the dominant bacterium B. cereus No.1 with host fungus Shiraia sp. S9 to elucidate bacterial regulation on fungal hypocrellin production. RESULTS: Results from "donut" plate tests indicated that the bacterial culture could promote significantly fungal PQ production including hypocrellin A (HA), HC and elsinochrome A-C through bacterial volatiles. After analysis by gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer and confirmation with commercial pure compounds, the volatiles produced by the bacterium were characterized. The eliciting roles of bacterial volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on HA production via transcriptional regulation of host Shiraia fungus were confirmed. In the established submerged bacterial volatile co-culture, bacterial volatiles could not only promote HA production in the mycelium culture, but also facilitate the release of HA into the medium. The total production of HA was reached to 225.9 mg/L, about 1.87 times that of the fungal mono-culture. In contrast, the live bacterium suppressed markedly fungal PQ production in both confrontation plates and mycelium cultures by direct contact. The live bacterium not only down-regulated the transcript levels of HA biosynthetic genes, but also degraded extracellular HA quickly to its reductive product. CONCLUSION: Our results indicated that bacterial volatile release could be a long-distance signal to elicit fungal PQ production. Biodegradation and inhibition by direct contact on fungal PQs were induced by the dominate Bacillus to protect themselves in the fruiting bodies. This is the first report on the regulation of Bacillus volatiles on fungal PQ production. These findings could be helpful for both understanding the intimate fungal-bacterial interactions in a fruiting body and establishing novel cultures for the enhanced production of bioactive PQs.

Typing and determination of SNP functional gene based on highly selective and signal-amplified fluorescence double-probe with the help of ExoIII nuclease and magnetic bead.

We have developed a fluorescence double-probe detection system with signal amplification for simple typing and determination of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) functional gene based on non-sequence dependence of ExoIII nuclease on dsDNA and rapid separation of magnetic bead. Matched detected gene can cyclically release abundant fluorescence-labeled ssDNA from the probe and the corresponding measured fluorescence signal is amplified up to 6063 times. In this case, the probe cannot release the measured fluorescence signal for the point mutation gene and then the corresponding measured signal is inhibited. According to signal amplification and inhabitation of the probe, we proposed both an accurate genotyping approach with strong specificity and a sensitive determination approach with high selectivity for SNP functional gene. For qualitative genotyping, there are obvious genotype-based differences of measured fluorescence phenotypes among three kinds of the samples of the investigated SNP. The quantitative determinations of its wild-type gene and mutant gene have all a good linearity in the range from 0.5 to 500 pmol/L with the correlation coefficients R2 of 0.9940 and 0.9911, and a high sensitivity with the detection limits of 0.11 and 0.20 pmol/L, respectively. Compared to the usual single-probe detection system, the developed double-probe system can achieve not only accurate genotyping but also the sensitive gene determination. Meanwhile, it is also a simple and reliable method for both quantitative and qualitative analysis of functional gene.