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IntroductionAs the main manifestation of gallstone disease, biliary colic (BC) is an episodic attack that brings patients severe pain in the right upper abdominal quadrant. Although acupuncture has been documented with significance to lead to pain relief, the immediate analgesia of acupuncture for BC still needs to be verified, and the underlying mechanism has yet to be covered. Therefore, this trial aims first to verify the immediate pain-alleviation characteristic of acupuncture for BC, then to explore its influence on the peripheral sensitised acupoint and central brain activity.Methods and analysisThis is a randomised controlled, paralleled clinical trial, with patients and outcome assessors blinded. Seventy-two patients with gallbladder stone disease presenting with BC will be randomised into a verum acupuncture group and the sham acupuncture group. Both groups will receive one session of immediate acupuncture treatment. Improvements in patients’ BC will be evaluated by the Numeric Rating Scale, and the pain threshold of acupoints will also be detected before and after treatment. During treatment, brain neural activity will be monitored with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and the needle sensation will be rated. Clinical and fNIRS data will be analysed, respectively, to validate the acupuncture effect, and correlation analysis will be conducted to investigate the relationship between pain relief and peripheral–cerebral functional changes.Ethics and disseminationThis trial has been approved by the institutional review boards and ethics committees of the First Teaching Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, with the ethical approval identifier 2019 KL-029, and the institutional review boards and ethics committees of the First People’s Hospital of Longquanyi District, with the ethical approval identifier AF-KY-2020071. The results of this trial will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and conference abstracts or posters.Trial registration numberCTR2000034432.

Objective The results of a previous study showed that a clear dysregulation was evident in the global gene expression of the BCL11A-suppressed B-lymphoma cells. In this study, the bone morphogenetic protein receptor, type Ⅱ (BMPR2), E1A binding protein p300 (EP300), transforming growth factor-β2 (TGFβ2), and tumor necrosis factor, and alpha-induced protein 3 (TNFAIP3) gene expression patterns in B-cell malignancies were studied. Methods The relative expression levels of BMPR2, EP300, TGFβ2, and TNFAIP3 mRNA in B-lymphoma cell lines, myeloid cell lines, as well as in cells from healthy volunteers, were determined by real-time quantitative reverse transcript-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) with SYBR Green Dye. Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) was used as reference. Results The expression level of TGFβ2 mRNA in B-lymphoma cell lines was significantly higher than those in the cells from the healthy control (PTNFAIP3 mRNA in B-malignant cells was significantly lower than that of the healthy control (PBMPR2 and EP300 mRNA showed no significant difference between B-malignant cell lines and the healthy group (P>0.05). In B-lymphoma cell lines, correlation analyses revealed that the expression of BMPR2 and TNFAIP3 (r=0.882, P=0.04) had significant positive relation. The expression levels of BMPR2, EP300, and TNFAIP3 mRNA in cell lines from myeloid leukemia were significantly lower than those in the cells from the healthy control (PTGFβ2 mRNA showed no significant difference between myeloid leukemia cell lines and the healthy control or B-malignant cell lines (P>0.05). The expression levels of BMPR2, EP300, and TNFAIP3 mRNA in B-lymphoma cells were significantly higher than those of the myeloid leukemia cells (PConclusion Different expression patterns of BMPR2, EP300, TGFβ2, and TNFAIP3 genes in B-lymphoma cells exist.

INTRODUCTION As reported previously, inhibition of telomerase activity with hTERT (human telomerase reverse transcriptase) mRNA AS PS-ODN (Antisense phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotide) could increase the effect for CDDP (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum, CDDP) to induce apoptosis of HL-60 and K562 leukemic cells. In these studies, this phenomenon will be further investigated and expanded to leukemia cells from acute and chronic myeloid leukemia (AML and CML). MATERIALS AND METHODS Cell samples of AML and CML patients, from the first affiliated hospital of Jinan University Medical College, were obtained. The primary cell culture was established to investigate whether or not the inhibition of telomerase activity with hTERT mRNA AS PS-ODN increased the effect for cisplatin to induce apoptosis of leukemic cells from patients. Cell growth was observed with trypan blue dye exclusion. hTERT protein was determined by tissue chemistry and flowcytometry. Telomerase activity was tested with the telomerase PCR ELISA assay kit (Boehringer Mannheim). RESULTS The inhibition of telomerase activity with hTERT mRNA AS PS-ODN could significantly increase the susceptibility of AML or CML cells to CDDP. The apoptotic percentage of cells (AML: 42.68%; CML: 35.72%) treated with AS PS-ODN/CDDP was significantly different from that of cells (AML, 29.02%; CML, 23.84%) treated with S PS-ODN/CDDP or CDDP. CONCLUSION The inhibition of telomerase activity with hTERT mRNA AS PS-ODN could increase the effect for CDDP to induce apoptosis of leukemic cells from AML and CML patients.