Effect of large volume red blood cell apheresis on cardiovascular functions in healthy donors.

BACKGROUND: Requirements of blood transfusions rise rapidly in China. Improving the efficiency of blood donation could help maintaining sufficient blood supplement. We conducted a pilot research to investigate the reliability and safety of collecting more units of red blood cell by apheresis. METHODS: Thirty-two healthy male volunteers were randomized into two groups: red blood cell apheresis (RA) (n = 16) and whole blood (WB) donation (n = 16). RA group donated individualized RBC volumes by apheresis according to the volunteers' basal total blood volumes and haematocrit levels, WB group donated 400 mL whole blood. All volunteers were scheduled seven visit times in 8 weeks' study period. The cardiovascular functions were assessed by laboratory examinations, echocardiography and cardiopulmonary functional tests. All results were compared between groups at the same visit time and compared between visit 1(before donation) and other visit times within the same group. RESULTS: The average donated RBC volume in RA group and in WB group was 627.25 ± 109.74 mL and 175.28 ± 8.85 mL, respectively(p < 0.05); the RBC, haemoglobin and haematocrit levels changed significantly between times and between groups (p < 0.05). Cardiac biomarker levels such as NT-proBNP, hs-TnT and CK-MB did not change significantly between times or between groups (p > 0.05). The echocardiographic and cardiopulmonary results did not change significantly between times or between groups during the whole study period(p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: We provided an efficient and secure method for RBC apheresis. By harvesting more RBC volumes at one single-time, the cardiovascular functions did not change significantly compared with traditional whole blood donation.

Inhibition of Heat Shock Protein 90 Attenuates the Damage of Blood-Brain Barrier Integrity in Traumatic Brain Injury Mouse Model.

Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is widely found in brain tissue. HSP90 inhibition has been proven to have neuroprotective effects on ischemic strokes. In order to study the role of HSP90 in traumatic brain injury (TBI), we carried out the present study. A novel inhibitor of the HSP90 protein, 17-dimethylaminoethylamino-17-demethoxygeldanamycin (17-DA), has been investigated for its function on the blood-brain barrier (BBB) damage after traumatic brain injury (TBI) in mouse models. These C57BL/6 mice were used as a TBI model and received 17-DA (0.1 mg/kg/d, intraperitoneally) until the experiment ended. To find out whether 17-DA may protect against TBI in vitro, bEnd.3 cells belonging to mouse brain microvascular endothelium were used. The HSP90 protein expressions were raised after TBI at the pericontusional area, especially at 3 d. Our study suggested that 17-DA-treated mice improved the recovery ability of neurological deficits and decreased brain edema, Evans blue extravasation, and the loss of tight junction proteins (TJPs) post-TBI. 17-DA significantly promoted cell proliferation and alleviated apoptosis by inhibiting the generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) to downregulate cleaved caspase-3, matrix metallopeptidase- (MMP-) 2, MMP-9, and P-P65 in bEnd.3 cells after the injury. As a result, we assumed that the HSP90 protein was activated post-TBI, and inhibition of HSP90 protein reduced the disruption of BBB and improved the neurobehavioral scores in a mouse model of TBI through the action of 17-DA, which inhibited ROS generation and regulated MMP-2, MMP-9, NF-κB, and caspase-associated pathways. Thus, blocking HSP90 protein may be a potential therapeutic strategy for TBI.

Expression characteristics of CDC20 in gastric cancer and its correlation with poor prognosis.

The cell division cycle 20 homolog (CDC20) expression is increased in diverse human cancers and plays a vital role in tumorigenesis and progression. However, the clinical significance of CDC20 expression in gastric cancer (GC) remains largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathologic features and prognostic significance of CDC20 in GC. The CDC20 mRNA expression was measured by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to detect the expression of CDC20 protein in 131 clinicopathologically characterized GC cases. The relationship between CDC20 expression and clinicopathological features was analyzed by appropriate statistics. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to investigate the correlation between CDC20 expression and prognosis of GC patients. The relative mRNA expression of CDC20 were significantly higher in GC tumor tissues than in the corresponding noncancerous tissues (P<0.001). Simultaneously, CDC20 protein expression was positively correlated with tumor size (P=0.02), histological grade (P=0.037), lymph node involvement (P=0.009), and TNM stage (P=0.015). Furthermore, Kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that patients with high CDC20 expression had poor overall survival (P<0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that high CDC20 expression was an independent predictor of overall survival. In conclusion, our data indicated that CDC20 upregulation was associated with aggressive progression and poor prognosis in GC. CDC20 was identified for the first time as an independent marker for predicting the clinical outcome of GC patients.