1. Over the past decade, rapid advancement in isolation methods for identifying markers of the once elusive intestinal stem cell (ISC) populations has laid the foundation for unravelling their complex interrelationships during homeostasis. Study on ISC in avian intestinal tissue might play a pivotal foundation for further studies on the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in gastrointestinal disease and cell-based therapy as well as intestinal tissue engineering. 2. The following experiment isolated a population of fibroblast-like, plastic adhering cells derived from chick embryo intestine, showing a strong self-renewing and proliferative ability, which was maintained in vitro up to passage 25. The findings included growth characteristics, detected expression of cell surface markers and characterised the capability of these cells to differentiate towards the osteogenic, adipogenic, and chondrogenic cell lineages. 3. RT-PCR analysis showed that these cells from chick embryos expressed mesenchymal stromal cell markers CD44, CD90 and VIMENTIN as well as ISC-specific genes LGR5, MI1, SMOC2, BMI1, and HOPX. Immunofluorescence and flow cytometry confirmed this biology characterisation further. 4. In conclusion, cells were isolated from the intestine of 18-day-old chicken embryos that exhibited the biological characteristics of mesenchymal stromal cells as well as markers of intestinal stem cells. Our findings may provide a novel insight for in vitro cell culture and characteristics of ISCs in avian species, which may also indicate a benefit for obtaining cell source for intestinal tissue engineering as well as cell-based investigation for gastrointestinal disease and treatment.

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The rats exposed to passive smoking were used as the animal model to further study the pathogenesis of IUGR and the effects of "Huoxuequyu" decoction. The results showed that the mean birth-weight of fetus and SOD activity of placenta and plasma in model rats were significantly reduced, and LPO levels of placenta and plasma were significantly increased. We found that the mean birth-weight and SOD activity in treated group were higher than that in model group, and LPO levels of placenta and plasma were lower in treated group than that in model group and there was no difference in SOD activity and LPO levels of placenta and plasma as well as the mean birthweight between treated group and control group, indicating that "Huoxuequyu" decoction can protect placenta and plasma against lipid peroxidation, and improve the blood circulation of uteroplacenta, thus contributing to the increase of the mean birth-weight.