[Pharmacological studies on dingchuanning]

Dingchuanning has been found to increase markedly the perfusion of isolated lung of guinea-pig. It may produce a relaxing effect on the smooth muscles of the isolated trachea, bronchus and lung strips of guinea-pigs, as well as a prominent protective effect on the bronchial asthma induced by inhalation of bronchoconstrictors in conscious guinea-pigs. It also has significant expectorant and antianaphylactic effects and helps to inhibit markedly the SRS-A release from lung tissues and to counteract directly the activity of SRS-A.

[Comparative clinical study of herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) and non-herpes simplex sporadic encephalitis (NHSSE)]

HSV specific antibody IgG was detected in the sera and CSF of 43 patients with sporadic encephalitis by the initial and follow-up tests with ELISA. Twelve cases of HSE were diagnosed, accounting for 27.8% of the cases of sporadic encephalitis, the clinical manifestations of HSE and NHSSE were compared. Differences were observed with regard to the age, general states, mental symptoms, disturbance of consciousness, and fatality rate. The abnormalities in EEG, CSF examination and CT scanning were found to be more severe in the HSE cases. It was concluded that these differences would be of use only as a diagnostic aid where as additional specific tests would be necessary for an accurate diagnosis of herpes simplex encephalitis.

Biaxial Extension Studies Using Inflation of Sheets of Unimodal Model Networks

Measurements of uniaxial extension and compression were made on model poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) [−Si(CH3)2−O−]x networks to examine the molecular theories of rubber elasticity. The stress-strain isotherms showed that the Flory-Erman theory of rubber elasticity is in good agreement with experimental data from extension to compression (α−1: 0.3–13), while the Mooney-Rivlin relation is useful only in a specific region of extension ratio (α−1: 0.3–0.8). The experimental results strongly support the theory of Flory-Erman, rather than those of phantom and affine networks. It is thus evident that the Flory-Erman theory of rubber elasticity is the more nearly correct.

[An observation of the anticancer activity of mitoxantrone hydrochloride injection]

Experimental results of anticancer activity of DHAQ.HCl are reported in this paper. It was discovered that DHAQ.HCl, mitoxantrone hydrochloride, had an obvious anticancer effect on the experimental tumor strains:Ehrlich ascites cancer, Sarcoma-180, Leukemia P388, etc., and that it was more effective to Leukemia P388 than to other strains. The anticancer activity of DHAQ.HCl was better than DHAQ (P less than 0.05). No side effect was observed on the local sites (s.c.) of tumor planted or drug injected. And also a good anticancer effect was observed on the sites of tumor planted by local injection. It is suggested that this observation can provide some information on the choice of routes of administration of this drug clinically.

Primate eta-globin DNA sequences and man's place among the great apes

Molecular studies indicate that chimpanzee and gorilla are the closest relatives of man (refs 1-7 and refs therein). The small molecular distances found point to late ancestral separations, with the most recent being between chimpanzee and man, as judged by DNA hybridization. Kluge and Schwartz contest these conclusions: morphological characters group a chimpanzee-gorilla clade with the Asian ape orang-utan in Kluge's cladistic study and with an orang-utan-human clade in Schwartz's study. Clearly, extensive sequencing of nuclear DNA is needed to resolve by cladistic analysis the branching order within Hominoidea. Towards this goal, we are sequencing orthologues of the primate psi eta-globin locus. Here, we compare the newly completed sequences of orang-utan and rhesus monkey with human, chimpanzee, gorilla, owl monkey, lemur and goat orthologues. Our findings substantially increase the evidence indicative of a human-chimpanzee-gorilla clade with ancestral separations around 8 to 6 Myr ago. We also verify that neutral hominoid DNA evolved at markedly retarded rates.

Morphological and functional investigations on macrophages with heterogeneous fluorescent staining

Four heterogeneous colors of fluorescence were demonstrated in macrophages from rabbit lymph nodes and mouse peritoneal exudate using fluorescent staining. They were bright blue, light blue, bluish green and yellow colors of fluorescence respectively. All of these 4 types of macrophages with heterogeneous colors of fluorescence could form EA or EAC rosettes and were able to phagocytose chicken erythrocytes and ink carbon granules. Among them the macrophages with bright blue color of fluorescence could form large EA or EAC rosettes and showed more rapid and stronger activity to phagocytose chicken erythrocytes, while those with bluish green and yellow colors of fluorescence showed stronger activity to phagocytose ink carbon granules.