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Background: In Shaanxi province, China, the aqueous extract of Rubia cordifolia's aerial part (AERCAP) is traditionally used to manage diarrhea. However, there is no scientific evidence to verify the safety and efficacy of its use. The aim of this study was to investigate the anti-diarrheal and anti-inflammatory effects of AERCAP by using a rodent model., Methods: The anti-diarrheal effects were studied by senna leaf-induced diarrheal and intestinal transit experiments in mice. The anti-inflammatory activity was investigated by trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS)-induced colonic inflammation in rats., Results: The results indicated that AERCAP delayed the onset of semi-solid feces, reduced the evacuation index (EI) in senna leaf-induced diarrheal in mice, and inhibited the propulsive movement in castor oil-induced intestinal transit but not in the normal intestinal transit test. The results were compared with the standard anti-diarrheal drug loperamide. Additionally, oral treatment with AERCAP significantly decreased the macroscopic damage area, improved the microscopic structure, and reduced the malondialdehyde (MDA) content, IL-1β and TNF-α levels in colonic tissue compared with the TNBS control group in rats., Conclusions: AERCAP exhibited anti-diarrheal and anti-inflammatory activities in a rodent model. The study validated the traditional use of the plant in Chinese herbal medicine as a valuable natural remedy for the treatment of diarrhea.

To avoid the shortcomings of radioactive pollution and high rate of false positives in DDRT-PCR method, the technique have been modified by replacement of radioactive reagents with fluorescent reagents followed by confirming the results using reverse RNA dot blot. The modified DDRT-PCR method was used in this study to clone spermatogenesis-related genes from early stage spermatogenic cells of mice. Primitive spermatogonia were isolated from 6-day-old mice and type B spermatogonia from 9-day-old mice. The purity of isolated cells was over 90%. Total RNA was extracted from the cells, fluorescent differential display technique was performed to screen the differentially expressed genes. Differences in expression of the screened fragments were identified by reverse RNA dot blot. 16 ESTs were selected for sequencing. The analysis results in GenBank/Blast database revealed that 7 of them were novel ESTs, and they were then registered in GenBank. All of them expressed stronger in B spermatogonia than in primitive spermatogonia. 3 of them were chosen to further identify their expression patterns by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Compared with traditional differential display technique, the modified method used in this study can avoid radioactive pollution and eliminate false positive results. The present study suggests that the gene activation or up-regulation in B spermatogonia may be related to some specific process in the following steps of spermatogenesis.