Novel berberine-based derivatives with potent hypoglycemic activity.

Four series of berberine derivatives were designed and synthesized. All the synthetic compounds were screened for in vitro glucose consumption activity in HepG2 cell lines. The results showed that most of the tested compounds exhibited potent hypoglycemic activity, and the most potent compound 20b exhibited its potency by 3.23-fold of berberine, 1.39-fold of metformin and 1.20-fold of rosiglitazone, respectively. Western blot assay indicated these novel berberine-based derivatives executed their glucose-decreasing activity via the activation of AMPK pathway.

Optomechanically engineered phononic mode resonance.

Optomechanics describes the interaction between the optical field and mechanics, and the optomechanical system provides an ideal interface between photons and phonons. The role of the electromagnetic field during optomechanical interaction is studied in this paper as it is regarded as a phonon transmission medium. An analytical model is built to study the phononic mode resonance and reveals the transmission properties of the phonons, which are related to the variance of the frequency of the electromagnetic field. Moreover, when one mechanical mode is driven, different mode resonant properties could be achieved on the transmission spectrum of phonons between the two mechanical modes. We believe that the current work provides significant results for the research of phononic devices.

[Effects of kaixinsan on behavior and expression of p-CREB in hippocampus of chronic stress rats].

OBJECTIVE: To study the effects of kaixinsan on behavior and expression of p-CREB in hippocampus of the chronic stress rats. METHOD: The male Wistar rats which gained the similar scores by Open-field test were selected, then the depression model rat was produced by separation and chronic unpredictable mild stress. Open-field test was performed to detect the behavior of rats and immunohistochemistry was used to observe the changes of p-CREB expression in hippocampus. RESULT: On the 22nd day, the body weight and sacchar-intake of the depression model rats were all lower than those of the normal rats and the body weight and sacchar-intake of the rats treated by drugs were higher compared with model rats (P < 0.01). The depressive behavior in kaixinsan 4 g x kg(-1) group was significantly improved compared with the model group, the crossing scores and rearing scores were all increased (P < 0.01) and the expression of p-CREB in CA1, CA3 and DG in hippocampus was higher than that in the model group (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Kaixinsan might improve depressive behavior by increasing expression of p-CREB in CA1, CA3 and DG in hippocampus of the chronic stress rats.

Gaussian entanglement generation from coherence using beam-splitters.

The generation and quantification of quantum entanglement is crucial for quantum information processing. Here we study the transition of Gaussian correlation under the effect of linear optical beam-splitters. We find the single-mode Gaussian coherence acts as the resource in generating Gaussian entanglement for two squeezed states as the input states. With the help of consecutive beam-splitters, single-mode coherence and quantum entanglement can be converted to each other. Our results reveal that by using finite number of beam-splitters, it is possible to extract all the entanglement from the single-mode coherence even if the entanglement is wiped out before each beam-splitter.

Study on relationship between lncRNAs and circRNAs in tumor / 中国药理学通报

With the development of whole genome and transcrip-tome sequencing technologies, a growing body of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs) has been i-dentified and is receiving increasing attention. LncRNAs and circRNAs are non-protein encoding transcripts whose functions are crucial for advancing our comprehensive understanding of bi-ological processes in human health and diseases, specifically tumor. And there is a close relationship between circRNAs and lncRNAs in their origin and function. In this paper, we have re-viewed the recent advances of lncRNAs and circRNAs in tumor by focusing on their relationships, which may help to distinguish them and identify tumor biomarkers further.