[Effect of oral administration of branched-chain amino acids supplementation on the mortality of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: a meta-analysis].

Objective: To investigate the effect of oral administration of branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) supplementation on the mortality of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after treatment. Methods: Computer searching of PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database was conducted to search for clinical controlled trials and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effect of oral administration of BCAA on the mortality of patients with HCC. The retrieval time limit was from the time of the establishment of each database to December 30, 2019. Two researchers independently screened the literature and extracted the data. Another researcher assessed the risk of bias in the included studies and then used RevMan 5.3 software for meta-analysis. Results: A total of 14 studies were included with 1 179 patients. The overall results showed that oral administration of BCAA had no significant effect on the mortality of HCC patients at 1 year after treatment (RR=0.85, 95%CI:0.68-1.06, P=0.16), while the mortalities of patients at 3 years (RR=0.73, 95%CI: 0.61-0.88, P=0.000 7) and 5 years (RR=0.57, 95%CI:0.34-0.96, P=0.03) after treatment were significantly lower than those of the control group. The subgroup analysis showed that for radiofrequency ablation (RFA) patients, there was no significant difference in 1-year mortality between the BCAA group and the control group (RR=0.96, 95%CI:0.14-6.5, P=0.97), while 3-year mortality was significantly reduced (RR=0.59, 95%CI:0.43-0.81, P=0.001); for hepatectomy patients, there was no significant differences in 1 -and 3-year mortality between the two groups (RR=0.90, 95%CI:0.44-1.88, P=0.79; RR=0.97, 95%CI:0.71-1.33, P=0.85, respectively). In addition, as for albumin levels, BCAA supplementation significantly increased albumin levels without considering the treatment of HCC (SD=0.45, 95%CI: 0.29-0.90; P=0.000 1), but had no significant effect on hepatectomy patients (SD=0, 95%CI: -0.41-0.41, P=0.99). Conclusion: BCAA supplementation might improve liver reserve function and long-term prognosis of HCC patients, which was related to the surgical method. Supplementing BCAA reduced the long-term mortality of RFA patients, but had no significant effect on hepatectomy patients.

Effect of atorvastatin on diabetic rat endothelial cells and retinal lesions.

We investigated the effect of atorvastatin on vascular endothelial growth inhibitor (VEGI) expression in rats with diabetic retinopathy. Wistar rats were divided into a blank group and diabetic model group, which was further randomly divided into treatment and control groups. Rats in the treatment group received 10 mg/kg atorvastatin daily, while rats in the blank and control groups received normal saline. Rats were randomly euthanized at 3 or 6 months. Immunohistochemical staining was used to determine changes in VEGI and vascular endothelial growth factor, interleukin-4, and tumor necrosis factor α levels in rats with diabetic retinopathy. Survival rate in the treatment group was 84% (63/75) after 6 months, which was significantly higher than that in the control group (P < 0.05); rats in the control group showed the lowest survival rate. Survival in the treatment group was higher than that in the control group but not significant compared with the blank group after 3 months. VEGI, vascular endothelial growth factor, tumor necrosis factor α, and interluekin-4 expression was lower than that in the control group, but higher than the blank group after 3 months. The expression of each factor decreased to the blank group level in the treatment group and was significantly lower than that in the control group after 6 months (P < 0.05). Expression in control and blank groups was similar at 3 and 6 months. Atorvastatin can inhibit VEGI and vascular endothelial growth factor expression to protect rats from diabetic retinopathy.

Leafy head formation of the progenies of transgenic plants of Chinese cabbage with exogenous auxin genes.

The experiment was performed to evaluate the progenies of plant lines transgenic for auxin synthesis genes derived from Ri T-DNA. Four lines of the transgenic plants were self-crossed and the foreign auxin genes in plants of T5 generation were confirmed by Southern hybridization. Two lines, D1232 and D1653, showed earlier folding of expanding leaves than untransformed line and therefore had early initiation of leafy head. Leaf cuttings derived from plant of transgenic line D1653 produced more adventitious roots than the control whereas the cuttings from folding leaves had much more roots than rosette leaves at folding stage, and the cuttings from head leaves had more roots than rosette leaves at heading stage. It is demonstrated that early folding of transgenic leaf may be caused by the relatively higher concentration of auxin. These plant lines with auxin transgenes can be used for the study of hormonal regulation in differentiation and development of plant organs and for the breeding of new variety with rapid growth trait.