BACKGROUND As an important factor causing end-stage renal disease, diabetic nephropathy is correlated with low-grade chronic inflammation and immune system activation. This study aimed to investigate the protective function of puerarin on the kidneys of diabetic rats. MATERIAL AND METHODS A cohort of healthy male SD rats (7 weeks old) were randomly divided into a control group, a model group,...

Activated protein C (APC) is generated from the cleavage of protein C by thrombin coupled to thrombomodulin and, subsequently, is released as protein C activation peptide (papC). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of papC on human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC-1), activated with 5 ng//mL TNF-α. Flow cytometry showed that papC inhibited the expression of VCAM-1 and I...

Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) recognizes conserved molecular patterns associated with both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, and detects some endogenous ligands. Previous studies demonstrated that in ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury of the small intestine, the TLR2-dependent signaling exerted preventive effects on the damage in young mice, but did not have a significant effect in neonata...

We recently reported exchange of membrane and cytoplasmic markers between SAOS-2 osteosarcoma cells and human gingival fibroblasts (h-GF) without comparable exchange of nuclear markers, while similar h-GF exchange was seen for melanoma and ovarian carcinoma cells. This process of "cellular sipping" changes phenotype such that cells sharing markers of both SAOS-2 and h-GF have morphology interme...

UNLABELLED Intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) and the endothelial protein C receptor (EPCR) are candidate receptors for the deadly complication cerebral malaria. However, it remains unclear if Plasmodium falciparum parasites with dual binding specificity are involved in cytoadhesion or different parasite subpopulations bind in brain microvessels. Here, we investigated this issue by stud...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the inhibitory effects of the nanoparticle-mediated delivery of plasminogen kringle 5 (K5) on choroidal neovascularization (CNV) and retinal inflammation. METHODS CNV was induced by laser in adult rats. Nanoparticles with an expression plasmid of K5 (K5-NP) were injected into the vitreous. K5 expression was detected by immunohistochemistry. Th...

Xuebijing (XBJ) is a Chinese herbal preparation. Previous studies have demonstrated that XBJ injection is able to inhibit the uncontrolled release of endogenous inflammatory mediators, attenuate inflammation, and alleviate organ damage. However, there are no relevant reports on the protective effect of XBJ against left ventricular ischemia/reperfusion (I/R)-induced acute lung injury (ALI). Ther...

BACKGROUND We evaluated the effect of infliximab on markers of inflammation in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). METHODS In this randomized, placebo-controlled substudy, 122 patients with JIA received infliximab 3 mg/kg + methotrexate (MTX)(n = 60) or placebo + MTX (n = 62) at weeks 0, 2, and 6. At week 14, patients receiving placebo + MTX crossed over to infliximab 6 mg/kg +...

Human atherosclerotic plaques contain numerous smooth muscle cells (SMCs) that express intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1). Expression of ICAM-1 in different cells is known to be regulated by tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), which has recently been found to be present in the intimal thickening of human arteries. Therefore, we studied the effect of TNF-alpha on ICAM-1 mRNA content...

OBJECTIVE Our aim was to investigate the protective effects of a Lipoxin A(4) analogue (LXA4) in the early phase of acute pancreatitis in rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) was induced by injection of 5% sodium taurocholate into the pancreatic duct. Rats with SAP were treated with LXA4 (0.1 mg/kg), 10 min after the 5% sodium taurocholate injection, after which LXA4 wa...