Involvement of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 in development of spinal cord injury in Chinese individuals: a Chinese clinical study.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to evaluate whether the polymorphism of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) is involved as potential risk factor in the development of spinal cord injury (SCI) among Chinese individuals. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with a confirmed diagnosis of SCI (other than traumatic injury) and healthy individuals with no clinical symptoms of SCI were enrolled at Spinal Cord Injury Care Center, The Third People's Hospital of Dalian, China. Genetic polymorphisms were studied in plasma samples by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism assay. RESULTS: A total of 130 Chinese patients with SCI and 130 healthy Chinese individuals were included. We found that patients with the GG genotype (odds ratio [OR]: 4.09, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.42-6.90, P<0.001) and carriers of the G allele (OR 3.96, 95% CI 2.33-6.74, P<0.0001) were at high risk of developing SCI. A del/ins polymorphism of the NF-κB1 gene (OR 3.32, 95% CI 1.96-5.61, P<0.001) was also found to be associated with SCI. CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that PARP-1 polymorphisms are involved in the development of SCI in Chinese individuals. Thus, PARP-1 polymorphisms can be considered as one of the potential risk factors for developing SCI.

[Effect of humic acid and coexistent cation on the adsorption of Pb (II) in wastewater onto bentonite].

Both the physical-chemical properties and adsorption performance for lead of Na-bentonite have been studied in this paper. The results showed that the removal of lead in solution by use of bentonite was effective. The pH, concentrations of coexistent cations and humic acid, which could influence the adsorption process were also studied. The results indicate that the sorption of lead (II) on Na-bentonite increased as pH value increased, and increased with increasing humic acid concentration, while decreased with increasing coexistent cation concentration. The adsorption mechanism was investigated from thermodynamics, and it was founded that the sorption of lead (II) on Na-bentonite increased with increasing temperature and the Freundlich adsorption equation fit to the experimental data excellently. The thermodynamic parameters were calculated: deltaH = 0.959 4 kJ/mol, deltaS = 16.6113 kJ/(mol x K).

[Adsorption characteristics of phenol compounds in water by activated carbon fiber].

The adsorption characteristics of phenol, p-chlorophenol and p-nitrophenol in wastewater by activated carbon fiber (ACF) were studied. The surface properties of ACF were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The thermodynamic characteristics and mechanism of phenol, p-chlorophenol and p-nitrophenol adsorption on ACF were investigated by using the bottle-point technique. The results showed that the adsorption speed was fast, and ACF had good adsorption properties when pH < 7. On the same condition, the order of removal efficiency were: phenol (87%) < p-chlorophenol (96%) < p-nitrophenol (99%). All the adsorptions are physical adsorption, and the adsorption process were spontaneous exothermic reaction. All the adsorption isotherms can be well represented by Dubinin-Radushkevich equation and the sorption process were spontaneous exothermic reaction.