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Tanreqing injection is a Chinese medical formula used to treatment of respiratory diseases. In our study, we developed a feasible and accurate strategy applying an ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with Q Exactive™ Plus-Orbitrap Fusion mass spectrometers (UPLC-Q-Orbitrap Fusion MS/MS) to clarify and quantify the chemical profiling of Tanreqing injection rapidly. A total of 80 ingredients were identified by comparing the accurate mass, fragment ions, and cleavage pathways, including flavonoids, phenyl propionic acid, coumarins, amino acids, cholesterol, etc. And 18 characteristic components among them were definitely identified by comparison with reference substance. Meanwhile, the 18 representative constituents were simultaneously measured in eight batches Tanreqing injection utilizing UPLC-Q-Orbitrap Fusion MS/MS in negative ion mode. Among the 18 components, beta-d-glucopyranosiduronic acid, baicalin, ursodeoxycholic acid, and chenodeoxycholic acid were the predominant constituents. In principal components analysis results, five dominating components were extracted, and the variant contribution rates were ranked as: 37.86, 22.86, 16.42, 9.80, 7.32%, with the accumulated value 94.26%. 5-caffeoylquinic acid, isochlorogenic acid C, and baicalin possessed larger loads on the first factor. Our research carried out qualitative and quantitative analysis on Tanreqing injection, provided a certain reference for the research on pharmacodynamic material basis and the selection of quality markers.

Lysosome-associated membrane protein (LAMP) 3 is one of members of lysosome-associated membrane protein family, which has been reported to play an important role in multiple malignant tumors. However, there is less research about the expression of LAMP3 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression of LAMP3 and explore its roles in HCC.The expression of LAMP3 in 99 cases of HCC tissues was performed by immunohistochemistry. In addition, the expression of LAMP3 in 20 pairs of HCC tissues and pericarcinomatous tissues was determined by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting. Immunohistochemical staining showed that LAMP3 was mainly expressed in the cytoplasm. And the expression of LAMP3 in HCC tissues (64/99, 64.6%) was significantly lower than that in pericarcinomatous tissues (23/99, 23.2%). In addition, the expression of LAMP3 mRNA and protein in HCC tissues was also significantly lower than that in pericarcinomatous tissues for 20 pairs of HCC samples. Low expression of LAMP3 was correlated with age, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging, Edmondson grade, alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with low expression of LAMP3 had worse overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Multivariate analysis revealed that low expression of LAMP3 was an independent prognostic factor of OS and DFS for HCC patients.The results suggested that LAMP3 may play an important role in the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma, and serve as an independent prognostic predictor for HCC patients after surgical resection.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text, Background: Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) often suffer from progressive worsening of dyspnea and lung function. Although 2 drugs are now available for IPF treatment, many gaps are still to be filled. Evidences suggest that there may be some beneficial effect of acupuncture on pulmonary diseases. This review aims to systematically determine the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for treating IPF. Methods: The following 8 databases will be searched from their inception to March 20, 2017: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chongqing VIP, and Wanfang Data. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture for IPF without restriction of publication status will be included. Two review authors will independently undertake study selection, extraction of data, and assessment of study quality. Meta-analysis will be conducted after screening of studies if possible. Dichotomous data will be analyzed using odds ratio (OR), and continuous data mean difference (MD). Statistical analysis will be conducted using Review Manager (RevMan) software. Results: This systematic review will provide a detailed summary of the current evidences related to the efficacy and safety of acupuncture in improving breathlessness, exercise limitation, health status impairment of patients with IPF. Conclusion: This evidence may be useful to clinicians, patients, and health policy-makers with regard to the use of acupuncture in IPF treatment. Ethics and dissemination: This systematic review will provide up-to-date information on acupuncture for IPF. This review does not require ethical approval and will be disseminated electronically through a peer-reviewed publication or conference presentations. Trial registration number: PROSPERO 2017:CRD42017059848.

Objective This study was intended to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) on stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Method A systematic review was conducted of clinical trials that compared TCM plus conventional medicine treatment versus conventional medicine treatment alone. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of clinical therapeutic studies on COPD by TCM were included. Searches were applied to the following electronic databases: The PubMed、 the Cochrane Library、CNKI、CBM and VIP. No blinding and language restriction was used. All trials included were analyzed according to the criteria of the Cochrane Handbook. Review Manager 5.2 software was used for data analysis. Result 37 randomized clinical trials enrolling 3212 patients were included. Follow-up duration ranged from 4 weeks to 1.5 years. Compared to conventional medicine treatment alone, TCM plus conventional medicine treatment showed improvement in forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV 1 ) (MD 0.12 L; 95% CI 0.08 to 0.16), and less exacerbation (OR −0.86; 95% CI −1.13 to −0.60). TCM treatment also led to a statistically improvement in SGRQ score compared to placebo (MD −4.36; 95% CI −7.12 to −1.59). There was statistically significant difference in six-minute walk distance (MD 36.66 meters, 95% CI 24.57 to 48.74) found with TCM compared to placebo. Conclusion Among patients with stable COPD, TCM plus conventional medical treatment therapy might be associated with reduction risk of exacerbation, improvement of lung function, better quality of life and higher exercise capacity. The results were limited by the methodological flaws of the studies. High quality studies are needed to provide clear evidence for the future use of TCM.

The docosahexaenoic (DHA), a ω-3 fatty acid, could play a beneficial inhibition of the incidence and progress of a series of human diseases including cancer. It has been report that DHA is involved in cell apoptosis. Recent studies show that the signal transduction pathway links with bcl-2, bax, caspase-3 and MMP-9 molecules. Therefore, we tested the relationship between DHA and cell apoptosis in human hepatocellular carcinoma cells (Bel-7402 cells). We show here that DHA induces Bel-7402 cells apoptosis after pre-treating cells with DHA. DHA down-regulates the protein expression of Bcl-2 and Bim mRNA level, and up-regulates caspase-3 activity and Bax expression level. We also found that DHA inhibits Bel-7402 cells migration. Basic on our studies, DHA may play a role in tumor invasion and survival.

In order to solve the lack of high resolution imagery and DEM in the accurate simulation of lunar terrain, a fast algorithm for simulating the lunar terrain is presented in this paper. The algorithm fits simple shapes of lunar craters based on rotational equation, and simulates the true distributing of craters using random function. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is not only effective in the simulating of craters which accord with the true lunar terrain well in shape and distributing but also actualizes the secondary impact of craters.

In this paper, we realize the electrically coupled resonances between two metamaterial resonators based on two metal split-ring resonators gap-to-gap placed. The theoretical analysis and numerical calculation of the microwave equivalent circuit of the electrically coupled metamaterial resonators are performed. The results show that there are two resonance frequencies produced by the two coupled metamaterial resonators. For the two resonance frequencies, one gradually shifts towards the lower frequency with the coupling strength increasing, while the other is fixed at the resonance frequency of the single metamaterial resonator. The measured and simulated results of the microwave transmission spectra show that the two resonance peaks move respectively towards the lower and higher frequency with the coupling strength increasing. The analysis shows that the lower resonance frequency is mainly determined by the electrical coupling strength between the two metamaterial resonators, and the difference between the higher resonance frequency and the resonance frequency of the single resonator is mainly caused by the inevitable magnetic coupling between the two resonators. Moreover, the smaller the coupling space, the greater the influence of magnetic coupling is. The proposed dual resonance property and its tunability based on the electromagnetic coupling between the two metamaterial resonators greatly enhance the scopes of the design and application for metamaterials.