Constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) regulates hepatic xenobiotic and energy metabolism, as well as promotes cell growth and hepatocarcinogenesis. Berberine is an ancient multipotent alkaloid drug which derived from Coptis chinensis plants. Here we report that berberine is able to be cellular uptake and accessible to chromatin in human hepatoma HepG2 cells. Berberine induces more apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, but less ROS production in CAR overexpressed mCAR-HepG2 cells. Moreover, berberine inhibits expressions of CAR and its target genes CYP2B6 and CYP3A4. Furthermore, berberine enhances DNA methylation level in whole genome but reduces that in promoter regions CpG sites of CYP2B6 and CYP3A4 genes under the presence of CAR condition. These results indicated that the antiproliferation of berberine might be mediated by the unique epigenetic modifying mechanism of CAR metabolic pathway, suggesting that berberine is a promising candidate in anticancer adjuvant chemotherapy, due to its distinct pharmacological properties in clinic.

A facile one‐step technique of preparing black polystyrene (PS) was developed by in situ suspension polymerization in which polymerization of styrene was conducted in the presence of modified carbon black (CB). A series of uniform black PS particles had been synthesized with this method. Morphology and dispersion stability of the various CBs were investigated by both scanning electron microscopy and spectrophotometric analysis. The results of thermogravimetric analysis indicated that the thermal stability of PS was significantly enhanced by introducing modified CB. In addition, the PS synthesized in the absence or presence of modified CB possessed a narrow molecular distribution, as was characterized by gel permeation chromatography. Compared with the conventional mechanical blending technique of PS and CB, our present technique could not only avoid the drawback of poor miscibility between the CB and PS, but also simplify the synthesis technique. Scanning electron microscopy micrographs of the resulting black PS demonstrated that modified CB was well dispersed in the PS matrix. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2011. © 2010 Society of Plastics Engineers

Gastric cancer is one of the leading causes of tumor-related deaths in China. The tumor, node, metastasis (TNM) classification system is useful for predicting clinical prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. However, determining the presence of lymph node involvement in the early stages of gastric cancer is difficult without biopsy. Therefore, it is necessary to identify novel serum biomarkers for TNM cancer staging and prognostic follow-up. In this study, we have reported fibrinopeptide-A (FPA) with alanine truncation at the N-terminal as a novel biomarker to differentiate gastric cancer with and without lymph node metastases. We analyzed 369 individual serum samples including gastric cancer patients without lymph node metastases (n 5 33), gastric cancer patients with lymph node metastases (n 5 157; confirmed by pathology), and age-and sex-matched healthy individuals (n 5 179). The data showed that 85.4% of patients with lymph node metastases were positive for FPA with alanine truncation at the N-terminal (degAla-FPA, 1,465.63 Da), as determined by tandem mass spectrometry (MS). Using degAla-FPA as the biomarker, the sensitivity was 85.4% for gastric cancer patients with lymph node metastases, and the specificity was 100% for gastric cancer patients without lymph node metastases. The high sensitivity and specificity achieved with serum degAla-FPA levels indicated that MS technology could facilitate the discovery of a novel and quantitative prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer with lymph node involvement. Anat Rec, 296:590-594,

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A technology of swelling and suspension copolymerization was conducted to graft styrene onto linear lowdensity polyethylene (LLDPE). The graft mechanism of styrene with LLDPE had been described by 1 H NMR and IR. The mean particle diameter and size distribution of the products with different proportions of LLDPE to styrene monomer were calculated. The morphology and thermal behavior of copolymers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. The glass transition temperature of copolymers increased with the addition of LLDPE, which proved the existence of the polyethylene-g-polystyrene copolymer. The grafting efficiency and granulation rate of suspension copolymerization were investigated. It was found that the grafting efficiency increased and the granulation rate decreased with the addition of LLDPE.