A systematic review and meta-analysis on sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate injection for the adjunctive therapy of pulmonary heart disease.

AIMS: Sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate (STS) injection has been widely used as adjunctive therapy for pulmonary heart disease (PHD) in China. Nevertheless, the efficacy of STS injection has not been systematically evaluated so far. Hence, the efficacy of STS injection as adjunctive therapy for PHD was explored in this study. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were screened from China Science and Technology Journal Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database, PubMed, Sino-Med, Google Scholar, Medline, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Cochrane Library, Embase and Chinese Science Citation Database until 20 January 2024. Literature searching, data collection and quality assessment were independently performed by two investigators. The extracted data was analyzed with RevMan 5.4 and STATA 14.0. Basing on the methodological quality, dosage of STS injection, control group measures and intervention time, sensitivity analysis and subgroup analysis were performed. RESULTS: 19 RCTs with 1739 patients were included in this study. Results showed that as adjunctive therapy, STS injection combined with Western medicine showed better therapeutic efficacy than Western medicine alone for PHD by increasing the clinical effective rate (RR = 1.22; 95% CI, 1.17 to 1.27; p < 0.001), partial pressure of oxygen (MD = 10.16; 95% CI, 5.07 to 15.24; p < 0.001), left ventricular ejection fraction (MD = 8.66; 95% CI, 6.14 to 11.18; p < 0.001) and stroke volume (MD = 13.10; 95% CI, 11.83 to 14.38; p < 0.001), meanwhile decreasing the low shear blood viscosity (MD = -1.16; 95% CI, -1.57 to -0.74; p < 0.001), high shear blood viscosity (MD = -0.64; 95% CI, -0.86 to -0.42; p < 0.001), plasma viscosity (MD = -0.23; 95% CI, -0.30 to -0.17; p < 0.001), hematokrit (MD = -8.52; 95% CI, -11.06 to -5.98; p < 0.001), fibrinogen (MD = -0.62; 95% CI, -0.87 to -0.37; p < 0.001) and partial pressure of carbon dioxide (MD = -8.56; 95% CI, -12.09 to -5.02; p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: STS injection as adjunctive therapy seemed to be more effective than Western medicine alone for PHD. However, due to low quality of the included RCTs, more well-designed RCTs were necessary to verify the efficacy of STS injection.

Intelligent classification of cardiotocography based on a support vector machine and convolutional neural network: Multiscene research.

OBJECTIVE: To propose a computerized system utilizing multiscene analysis based on a support vector machine (SVM) and convolutional neural network (CNN) to assess cardiotocography (CTG) intelligently. METHODS: We retrospectively collected 2542 CTG records of singleton pregnancies delivered at the maternity ward of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University from October 10, 2020, to August 7, 2021. CTG records were divided into five categories (baseline, variability, acceleration, deceleration, and normality). Apart from the category of normality, the other four different categories of abnormal data correspond to four scenes. Each scene was divided into training and testing sets at 9:1 or 7:3. We used three computer algorithms (dynamic threshold, SVM, and CNN) to learn and optimize the system. Accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were performed to evaluate performance. RESULTS: The global accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the system were 93.88%, 93.06%, and 94.33%, respectively. In acceleration and deceleration scenes, when the convolution kernel was 3, the test data set reached the highest performance. CONCLUSION: The multiscene research model using SVM and CNN is a potential effective tool to assist obstetricians in classifying CTG intelligently.

Association of NUDT15 gene polymorphism with adverse reaction, treatment efficacy, and dose of 6-mercaptopurine in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) serves as the backbone in the maintenance regimens of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We aimed to evaluate the influence of NUDT15 gene polymorphism on the risk of myelosuppression, hepatotoxicity and interruption of 6-MP, as well as treatment efficacy and dose of 6-MP in ALL patients. A total of 24 studies with 3374 patients were included in this meta-analysis. We found 9-fold higher risk of 6-MP induced leukopenia (OR: 9.00, 95% CI: 3.73-21.74) and 2.5-fold higher risk of 6-MP induced neutropenia (OR: 2.52, 95% CI: 1.72-3.69) for NUDT15 c.415C>T variant carriers in the dominant model. Moreover, we found that the dose intensity of 6-MP in ALL patients with one NUDT15 c.415C>T variant alleles (CT) was 19% less than that in wild type patients (CC) (MD: 19.43%, 95% CI: -25.36%, -13.51%). The tolerable dose intensity of 6-MP in NUDT15 c.415C>T homozygote variant (TT) and heterozygote variant (CT) carriers was 49% and 15% less than that in wild type patients, respectively. The NUDT15 c.415C>T variants group (CT+TT) had 7 times (OR: 6.98, 95% CI: 2.83-17.22) higher risk of developing 6-MP intolerance than the CC group. However, NUDT15 c.415C>T polymorphism did not appear significantly associated with hepatotoxicity, treatment interruption or relapse incidence. We concluded that NUDT15 c.415C>T was a good predictor for 6-MP induced myelosuppression in ALL patients. The dose intensity of 6-MP in ALL patients with NUDT15 c.415C>T variants was significantly lower than that in wild type patients. This research provided a basis for further investigation into relations between NUDT15 gene and adverse reaction, treatment efficacy and dose intensity of 6-MP.

Plants of the Genus Mahonia as a Potential Traditional Chinese Medicine for the Prevention and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD), a prevalent multiple neurodegenerative disease, has gained attention, particularly in the aging population. However, presently available therapies merely focus on alleviating the symptoms of AD and fail to slow disease progression significantly. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used to ameliorate symptoms or interfere with the pathogenesis of aging-associated diseases for many years based on disease-modifying in multiple pathological roles with multi-targets, multi-systems and multi-aspects. Mahonia species as a TCM present potential for anti-inflammatory activity, antioxidant activity, anti-acetylcholinesterase activity, and antiamyloid- beta activity that was briefly discussed in this review. They are regarded as promising drug candidates for AD therapy. The findings in this review support the use of Mahonia species as an alternative therapy source for treating AD.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Efficacy of Puerarin Injection as Adjunctive Therapy for Unstable Angina Pectoris.

Background: As adjunctive therapy, puerarin injection has been widely applied for the treatment of unstable angina pectoris (UAP) in China during the past decades. However, the efficacy of puerarin injection as adjunctive therapy for UAP has not been well confirmed. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to summarize the available evidence to estimate the efficacy of puerarin injection in treating UAP. Objective: A systematic review and meta-analysis with subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) principle were carried out to evaluate the efficacy of puerarin injection as adjunctive therapy in treating UAP. Methods: To obtain the published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on puerarin injection, databases, namely, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Sino-Med, PubMed, China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), Medline, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, Chinese Science Citation Database, and Embase were systematically searched until June 2021. In this meta-analysis, Review Manager version 5.3 software and Stata version 12.0 software were employed to analyze the collected data. Based on the methodological quality, years of publications, sample size and dosages, sensitivity analysis, and subgroup analysis were performed. The GRADE assessment was conducted by the software GRADEpro version 3.6 software. Results: A total of 17 RCTs involving 1,459 patients were included in this meta-analysis. Results indicated that puerarin injection as adjunctive therapy was more superior than conventional Western medicine alone in reducing angina symptoms [risk ratio (RR) = 1.22, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.28, Z = 8.11, p < 0.00001] and improving ECG (RR = 1.32, 95% CI 1.20 to 1.44, Z = 6.00, p < 0.00001), meanwhile reducing the frequency of angina attack [mean difference (MD) = -2.22, 95% CI -2.53 to -1.90, Z = 13.97, p < 0.00001] and the duration of angina attack (MD = -2.00, 95% CI -2.39 to -1.61, Z = 9.99, p < 0.00001) for the treatment of UAP. Results from the GRADE assessment suggested that the comprehensive quality of this evidence was low. Conclusion: This meta-analysis indicated that puerarin injection was more effective than using conventional Western medicine alone in the treatment of UAP. However, because of the low methodological quality of the included RCTs, more evidence was still needed to verify the efficacy of puerarin injection.

Sodium tanshinone â ¡A sulfonate injection as adjunctive therapy for the treatment of heart failure: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Sodium tanshinone ⅡA sulfonate (STS) injection has been widely used to treat heart failure over the past years in China. However, to the best of our knowledge, neither systematic review nor meta-analysis on the efficacy of STS injection as adjunctive therapy for heart failure has been reported. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to summarize relevant evidence from the published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the efficacy of STS injection as adjunctive therapy for heart failure. METHODS: RCTs on STS injection as adjunctive therapy for the treatment of heart failure were screened from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Database, Sino-Med, PubMed, Google Scholar, Medline, China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Cochrane Library, Embase and Chinese Science Citation Database until July 2021. Two authors independently performed the literature searching, data extraction, and quality evaluation. The meta-analysis was carried out by RevMan 5.3. Based on the methodological quality, years of publication, and sample size of the included RCTs, sensitivity analysis and subgroup analysis were investigated. RESULTS: Fourteen RCTs with a total of 1368 patients were identified in this study. Results from this meta-analysis showed that STS injection as adjunctive therapy was superior to western medicine alone for the treatment of heart failure in improving the total effective rate (RR = 1.23; 95% CI, 1.17 to 1.29; p < 0.00001) and the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF; MD = 6.34; 95% CI 5.25 to 7.43; p < 0.00001), meanwhile reducing the left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDD; MD = -4.79; 95% CI, -6.44 to -3.15; p < 0.00001), left ventricular end-systolic dimension (LVESD; MD = -3.98; 95% CI, -5.79 to -2.17; p < 0.0001) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP; MD = -118.75; 95% CI, -175.36 to -62.15; p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: This study indicated that STS injection as adjunctive therapy seemed to be more effective than western medicine alone in treating heart failure. However, due to the poor methodological quality of the included RCTs, further well-designed RCTs are required to confirm the efficacy of STS injection.

Towards open-set touchless palmprint recognition via weight-based meta metric learning.

Touchless biometrics has become significant in the wake of novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Due to the convenience, user-friendly, and high-accuracy, touchless palmprint recognition shows great potential when the hygiene issues are considered during COVID-19. However, previous palmprint recognition methods are mainly focused on close-set scenario. In this paper, a novel Weight-based Meta Metric Learning (W2ML) method is proposed for accurate open-set touchless palmprint recognition, where only a part of categories is seen during training. Deep metric learning-based feature extractor is learned in a meta way to improve the generalization ability. Multiple sets are sampled randomly to define support and query sets, which are further combined into meta sets to constrain the set-based distances. Particularly, hard sample mining and weighting are adopted to select informative meta sets to improve the efficiency. Finally, embeddings with obvious inter-class and intra-class differences are obtained as features for palmprint identification and verification. Experiments are conducted on four palmprint benchmarks including fourteen constrained and unconstrained palmprint datasets. The results show that our W2ML method is more robust and efficient in dealing with open-set palmprint recognition issue as compared to the state-of-the-arts, where the accuracy is increased by up to 9.11% and the Equal Error Rate (EER) is decreased by up to 2.97%.

Efficacy of Ligustrazine Injection as Adjunctive Therapy in Treating Acute Cerebral Infarction: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Ligustrazine injection has been widely used as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of acute cerebral infarction (ACI) during the past decades in China, but its clinical efficacy is not yet well confirmed. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of ligustrazine injection as adjunctive therapy for ACI. Methods: Databases including China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), PubMed, Medline, Google Scholar, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Cochrane Library, Embase, Sino-Med, Wanfang Database, and Chinese Science Citation Database were systematically searched for the published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on ligustrazine injection in the treatment of ACI until November 2020. Meta-analysis was performed on the primary outcome measure (i.e., clinical effective rate) and the secondary outcome measure [i.e., neurological deficit score (NDS), fibrinogen, low shear blood viscosity (LBV), and high shear blood viscosity (HBV)]. The quality of the included RCTs was assessed according to the M scoring system (the refined Jadad scale). Sensitivity analysis and subgroup analysis were conducted according to the methodological quality, years of publication, and sample size. Results: Nineteen RCTs, containing 2022 patients, were included in this study. Meta-analysis indicated that ligustrazine injection combined with Western medicine could achieve a better effect in the treatment of ACI than using Western medicine alone in terms of clinical effective rate (RR = 1.24; 95% CI, 1.19-1.29), NDS (MD = -3.88; 95%CI, -4.51 to -3.61), fibrinogen (MD = -0.59; 95% CI, -0.76 to -0.42), LBV (MD = -2.11; 95% CI, -3.16 to -1.06), and HBV (MD = -0.88; 95% CI, -1.20 to -0.55). Conclusions: This research indicated that ligustrazine injection as adjunctive therapy seemed to be more effective than using western medicine alone in treating ACI. However, more evidence is required to confirm the efficacy of ligustrazine injection due to the low methodological quality of the included RCTs.

3D Dense Volumetric Network for Accurate Automated Pancreas Segmentation.

Pancreatic cancer poses a great threat to our health with an overall five-year survival rate of 8%. Automatic and accurate segmentation of pancreas plays an important and prerequisite role in computer-assisted diagnosis and treatment. Due to the ambiguous pancreas borders and intertwined surrounding tissues, it is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a novel 3D Dense Volumetric Network (3D2VNet) to improve the segmentation accuracy of pancreas organ. Firstly, 3D fully convolutional architecture is applied to effectively incorporate the 3D pancreas and geometric cues for volume-to-volume segmentation. Then, dense connectivity is introduced to preserve the maximum information flow between layers and reduce the overfitting on limited training data. In addition, a auxiliary side path is constructed to help the gradient propagation to stabilize the training process. Adequate experiments are conducted on a challenging pancreas dataset in Medical Segmentation Decathlon challenge. The results demonstrate our method can outperform other comparison methods on the task of automated pancreas segmentation using limited data.Clinical relevance-This paper proposes an accurate automated pancreas segmentation method, which can provide assistance to clinicians in the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Development of zirconium modified adenosine triphosphate functionalized monolith for specific enrichment of N-glycans.

In this study, to selectively enrich N-glycans from complex biological samples, a novel Zr(IV) modified adenosine triphosphate (Zr(IV)-ATP) functionalized monolith was prepared through a facile approach. Well-defined macroporous structure was observed in the ATP functionalized monolith, which allows rapid mass transfer under low backpressure and is beneficial for the enrichment of N-glycans. After being modified with Zr(IV), the resulting Zr(IV)-ATP functionalized monolith could selectively capture N-glycans through the specific interactions between the sulfonate groups of 1-aminopyrene-3,6,8-trisulfonic acid (APTS) labeled N-glycans and Zr(IV). An APTS labeled maltooligosaccharide ladder was used to optimize the enrichment conditions for APTS labeled N-glycans, and capillary electrophoresis (CE) coupled with laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detector was employed to evaluate the enrichment efficiency. The results show that the APTS labeled maltooligosaccharides could be enriched under the selected conditions and the signal amplify factors of the maltooligosaccharides were between 7.4 and 19.5 with RSDs for reproducibility from 4.0% to 8.3% (n = 3). Finally, the proposed method was successfully used for the enrichment and detection of N-glycans released from Ribonuclease B.

Towards Cross-Dataset Palmprint Recognition Via Joint Pixel and Feature Alignment.

Deep learning-based palmprint recognition algorithms have shown great potential. Most of them are mainly focused on identifying samples from the same dataset. However, they may be not suitable for a more convenient case that the images for training and test are from different datasets, such as collected by embedded terminals and smartphones. Therefore, we propose a novel Joint Pixel and Feature Alignment (JPFA) framework for such cross-dataset palmprint recognition scenarios. Two-stage alignment is applied to obtain adaptive features in source and target datasets. 1) Deep style transfer model is adopted to convert source images into fake images to reduce the dataset gaps and perform data augmentation on pixel level. 2) A new deep domain adaptation model is proposed to extract adaptive features by aligning the dataset-specific distributions of target-source and target-fake pairs on feature level. Adequate experiments are conducted on several benchmarks including constrained and unconstrained palmprint databases. The results demonstrate that our JPFA outperforms other models to achieve the state-of-the-arts. Compared with baseline, the accuracy of cross-dataset identification is improved by up to 28.10% and the Equal Error Rate (EER) of cross-dataset verification is reduced by up to 4.69%. To make our results reproducible, the codes are publicly available at http://gr.xjtu.edu.cn/web/bell/resource.

On-line enrichment of N-glycans by immobilized metal-affinity monolith for capillary electrophoresis analysis.

A novel N-glycan enrichment strategy is presented using unexpected but strong interactions between the sulfonate groups brought by the fluorescent dye of glycans and the Zr4+ modified poly(ethylene glycol methacrylate phosphate (EGMP)-co-acrylamide (AM)-co-bis-acrylamide (BAA)) monolith. The poly (EGMP-co-AM-co-BAA) monolith was synthesized via ultraviolet (UV) irradiation and then functionalized with Zr4+. The obtained monolith was characterized with scanning electron microscopy and mercury intrusion porosimetry. Large through-pores and a continuous skeleton with high permeability were observed. The N-glycans were labeled with the 1-aminopyrene-3, 6, 8-trisulfonic acid (APTS) and enriched by the Zr4+ modified monolith through IMAC interaction. This enrichment step was then coupled off-line to capillary electrophoresis (CE) separation with laser induced fluorescence (LIF) detection. Successful preconcentration of the APTS labeled maltooligosaccharide ladder was achieved under optimized conditions. Enrichment factors obtained for the maltooligosaccharides ranged from 9 to 24 with RSDs from 2.0% to 9.2% (n = 3). Moreover, very good repeatabilities (<6.7%) were obtained for glucose oligomers (4-15 glucose units) corresponding to sizes expected for N-glycans, demonstrating the great potential of this Zr4+ modified monolith to enrich APTS labeled glycans from N-glycoproteins. The proposed method was then successfully applied for the enrichment of N-glycans released from Ribonuclease B, in which case all five expected oligomannose glycans (Man 5 to Man 9) were successfully enriched. Thanks to the advantage of the method to enrich selectively APTS-glycans compared to the commercial SPE columns composed of HILIC or PGC materials, the first proof of concept of on-line enrichment coupled to CE-LIF separation was demonstrated for maltooligosaccharides as well.

Fabrication and application of zwitterionic phosphorylcholine functionalized monoliths with different hydrophilic crosslinkers in hydrophilic interaction chromatography.

In this study, a series of zwitterionic phosphorylcholine functionalized monolithic columns were fabricated via the thermally initiated co-polymerization of 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) and different hydrophilic crosslinkers, including 1,4-bis(acryloyl)piperazine (PDA), N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) and 2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl-[N-(2-methacryloyloxy)ethyl]phosphorylcholine (MMPC). The physicochemical and chromatographic properties of these MPC functionalized monoliths, including column morphology, pore size distribution, permeability, column efficiency, retention mechanism and ζ-potential analysis, were systematically compared. Furthermore, the influence of the crosslinker on the chromatographic performance of these MPC functionalized monoliths was evaluated. The chromatographic results indicate that the polarity of MPC functionalized monoliths may be related to the polarity of the crosslinker, which further affects the column selectivity and efficiency. A particularly high column efficiency (88,000 plates/m) was obtained on the novel poly(MPC-co-MMPC) monolith at optimum linear velocity using thiourea as test analyte. Compared to the poly(MPC-co-MBA) and poly(MPC-co-PDA) monoliths, the poly(MPC-co-MMPC) monolith exhibited higher separation selectivity for polar analytes, including nucleobases, nucleosides and benzoic acid derivatives. Moreover, 24 N-glycopeptides could be detected after enrichment with the poly(MPC-co-MMPC) versus 19 and 10 N-glycopeptides with the poly(MPC-co-MBA) and poly(MPC-co-PDA) monoliths, and no N-glycopeptide without enrichment. Therefore, MMPC has a great potential as a new and alternative hydrophilic crosslinker for the development of zwitterionic polymeric monoliths.

Preparation of molecularly imprinted hybrid monoliths for the selective detection of fluoroquinolones in infant formula powders.

A novel molecularly imprinted inorganic-organic hybrid monolith (MIP hybrid monolith) was fabricated through a facile single-step polymerization strategy with levofloxacin (LEV) as the template, 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane-methacrylic acid as the hybrid functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the crosslinker in a mixed porogen of methanol, toluene and dodecanol. The optimized LEV-MIP hybrid monolith was characterized using scanning electron microscopy and fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy. Uniform monolithic matrix with large through-pores in the network skeleton of LEV-MIP hybrid monolith was observed. The influence of polymerization conditions on the specific recognition behavior of the resulting monolith was systematically investigated. The LEV-MIP hybrid monolith exhibited much better adsorption (3.62 times) and selectivity towards LEV in comparison with non-imprinted hybrid monolith. Furthermore, the LEV-MIP hybrid monolith based solid-phase extraction combining with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was applied for the selective determination of fluoroquinolones (FQs) in infant formula powder. The average recoveries of six FQs in milk powders spiked at 20, 50 and 100 µg kg-1 were in the range of 82.91-102.00% with the precision of 1.04-7.39%. The limit of detection and limit of quantitation of the proposed method were in a range of 0.19-1.24 µg kg-1 and 0.63-4.13 µg kg-1, respectively.

Biomimetic Polymer-Based Method for Selective Capture of C-Reactive Protein in Biological Fluids.

Selective capturing and purification of C-reactive protein (CRP) from complex biological fluids plays a pivotal role in studying biological activities of CRP in various diseases. However, obvious nonspecific adsorption of proteins was observed on current affinity sorbents, and thus additional purification steps are often required, which could compromise the recovery of the target protein and/or introduce new impurities. In this study, inspired by the highly specific interaction between CRP and the cell membrane, an excellent anti-biofouling compound 2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl phosphorylcholine and a highly hydrophilic crosslinker N, N'-methylenebisacrylamide were employed to fabricate a novel cell membrane biomimetic polymer for selective capture of CRP in the presence of calcium ions. Based on the polymer described above, a facile enrichment approach was established after systematic optimization of the washing and elution conditions. With its favorable properties, such as good porosity, weak electrostatic interaction, high hydrophilicity, and biocompatibility, the novel biomimetic polymer exhibits good specificity, selectivity, recovery (near 100%), purity (95%), and a lower nonspecific protein adsorption for CRP in comparison with commercial immobilized p-aminophenyl phosphoryl choline gel and other purification materials. Furthermore, the structural integrity and functionality of CRP in the elution fraction were well preserved and confirmed by circular dichroism spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, and immunoturbidimetric assay. Finally, the biomimetic polymer was successfully applied to the selective enrichment of CRP from sera of patients with inflammation and rats. The proposed novel enrichment approach based on the versatile biomimetic polymer can be used for effective CRP purification, which will benefit the in-depth study of its biological roles.

Strongly fluorescent cysteamine-coated copper nanoclusters as a fluorescent probe for determination of picric acid.

This paper describes the synthesis of fluorescent copper nanoclusters (CuNC) with a fluorescence quantum yield as high as 2.3% after modification with cysteamine. The modified CuNC are shown to be viable probes for the determination of picric acid (PA). Fluorescence drops with increasing concentration of PA which can be detected fluorometrically with a 0.14 µM limit of detection. This is much lower than required by the People's Republic of China Surface Water Environmental Quality Standard (2.2 µM). The probe was successfully applied to the determination of PA in spiked tap water, lake water and river water. Graphical abstract Copper nanoclusters (CuNC) have weak fluorescence but after the modification with cysteamine, the fluorescence of CuNC is strongly enhanced. The fluorescence of such cysteamine-coated copper nanoclusters (CuNC-CA) is reduced upon the addition of picric acid (PA) through an inner filter effect (IFE).

A facile and efficient single-step approach for the fabrication of vancomycin functionalized polymer-based monolith as chiral stationary phase for nano-liquid chromatography.

A facile single-step preparation strategy for fabricating vancomycin functionalized organic polymer-based monolith within 100µm fused-silica capillary was developed. The synthetic chiral functional monomer, i.e 2-isocyanatoethyl methacrylate (ICNEML) derivative of vancomycin, was co-polymerized with the cross-linker ethylene dimethacrylate (EDMA) in the presence of methanol and dimethyl sulfoxide as the selected porogens. The co-polymerization conditions were systematically optimized in order to obtain satisfactory column performance. Adequate permeability, stability and column morphology were observed for the optimized poly(ICNEML-vancomycin-co-EDMA) monolith. A series of chiral drugs were evaluated on the monolith in either polar organic-phase or reversed-phase modes. After the optimization of separation conditions, baseline or partial enantioseparation were obtained for series of drugs including thalidomide, colchicine, carteolol, salbutamol, clenbuterol and several other ß-blockers. The proposed single-step approach not only resulted in a vancomycin functionalized organic polymer-based monolith with acceptable performance, but also significantly simplified the preparation procedure by reducing time and labor.

Hydrophilic polymeric monoliths containing choline phosphate for separation science applications.

In this research, a hydrophilic polymeric monolith containing choline phosphate (CP) was fabricated through the thermally initiated free-radical polymerization of 2-{2-(methacryloyloxy) ethyldimethylammonium}ethyl n-butyl phosphate (MBP) with ethylene dimethacrylate (EDMA) using isopropanol and tetrahydrofuran as the porogenic system. Excellent mechanical strength, permeability, stability and reproducibility were obtained on the optimized poly(MBP-co-EDMA) monolith. Column efficiency as high as 107,500 plates/m was achieved for the analysis of thiourea at a flow velocity of 0.2 mm/s on the monolith. Both hydrophilic and electrostatic interactions were observed for the retention of charged analytes on the poly(MBP-co-EDMA) monolith. It is worth noting that the resulting monolith exhibits higher selectivity and efficiency than the classical 2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl phosphorylcholine functionalized polymeric monolith for the chromatographic separation of polar analytes. Also, the novel monolithic column was successfully applied to enrich N-glycopeptides from tryptic digest of human IgG. In a word, the versatile MBP functionalized polymeric monolith not only opens up interesting possibilities for reverse zwitterionic CP derivative-based polymeric materials in separation science, but also represents a promising hydrophilic interaction chromatography stationary phase.

The Efficacy of Danshen Injection as Adjunctive Therapy in Treating Angina Pectoris: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: During the last 40 years, Danshen injection has been widely used as an adjunctive therapy for angina pectoris in China, but its efficacy is not yet well defined. The objective of this study was to verify the efficacy of Danshen injection as adjunctive therapy in treating angina pectoris. METHODS: The major databases including PubMed, Cochrane Library, Sino-Med, Medline, Embase, Google Scholar, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Databases, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database and the Chinese Science Citation Database were systematically searched for the published randomised controlled trials (RCTs) on Danshen injection until April 2016. Meta-analysis was conducted on the primary outcomes (i.e., the improvements in symptoms and electrocardiography (ECG)). The quality of the included RCTs was evaluated with the M scoring system (the refined Jadad scale). Based on the quality, year of publication and sample size of RCTs, sensitivity analysis and subgroup analysis were performed in this study. RESULTS: Ten RCTs, including 944 anginal patients, were identified in this meta-analysis. Compared with using antianginal agents (ß-blockers, calcium antagonists, nitrates, etc.) alone, Danshen injection combined with antianginal agents had a better therapeutic effect in symptom improvement (odds ratio [OR], 3.66; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.50-5.36) and in ECG improvement (OR, 3.25; 95% CI: 1.74-6.08). CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that Danshen injection as adjunctive therapy seemed to be more effective than antianginal agents alone in treating angina pectoris. However, more evidence is needed to accurately evaluate the efficacy of Danshen injection because of the low methodological quality of the included RCTs.

Efficacy of Ligustrazine Injection as Adjunctive Therapy for Angina Pectoris: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND In the past decades, a large number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the efficacy of ligustrazine injection combined with conventional antianginal drugs for angina pectoris have been reported. However, these RCTs have not been evaluated in accordance with PRISMA systematic review standards. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of ligustrazine injection as adjunctive therapy for angina pectoris. MATERIAL AND METHODS The databases PubMed, Medline, Cochrane Library, Embase, Sino-Med, Wanfang Databases, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Google Scholar, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and the Chinese Science Citation Database were searched for published RCTs. Meta-analysis was performed on the primary outcome measures, including the improvements of electrocardiography (ECG) and the reductions in angina symptoms. Sensitivity and subgroup analysis based on the M score (the refined Jadad scores) were also used to evaluate the effect of quality, sample size, and publication year of the included RCTs on the overall effect of ligustrazine injection. RESULTS Eleven RCTs involving 870 patients with angina pectoris were selected in this study. Compared with conventional antianginal drugs alone, ligustrazine injection combined with antianginal drugs significantly increased the efficacy in symptom improvement (odds ratio [OR], 3.59; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.39 to 5.40) and in ECG improvement (OR, 3.42; 95% CI: 2.33 to 5.01). Sensitivity and subgroup analysis also confirmed that ligustrazine injection had better effect in the treatment of angina pectoris as adjunctive therapy. CONCLUSIONS The 11 eligible RCTs indicated that ligustrazine injection as adjunctive therapy was more effective than antianginal drugs alone. However, due to the low quality of included RCTs, more rigorously designed RCTs were still needed to verify the effects of ligustrazine injection as adjunctive therapy for angina pectoris.