Benzyltetrahydropalmatine hydrochloride (BTHP) exhibited antiarrhythmic action in animal models.

I. Electrophysiological effects of BTHP were investigated in various heart preparations.

I. BTHP showed a competitive α₁-adrenoceptor-blocking effect with pA2 value of 5.8 and 5.86 in rat anococcygeus muscle and rabbit aortic strips respectively. Radioligand binding assays showed that BTHP had affinity for both α₁ and α₂-adrenoceptor.

The results from these experiments show that BTHP is a new K⁺ channel blocker of Chinese medicinal origin with α₁-adrenoceptor-blocking action.

To explore etiology of acute exacerbation in severe chronic active hepatitis, in situ HBVDNA hybridization was carried out combined with detection of HBV markers in the serum and the liver as well as intrahepatic HDAg in 15 cases. Four subgroups were identified based on the etiological evidence: l) 9 cases were still undergoing HBV active replication or reactivation with cytoplasmic and membraneous HBcAg expression, often associated with the hepatic necrosis foci; 2) 3 cases showed HBsAg or/and HBVDNA positivity despite absence of HBcAg expression, the membranous and homogeneous HBsAg expression being closely related with hepatic necrosis; 3) 2 cases were HDAg positive; 4) the remaining case exhibited no HBV infection evidence. All findings suggested that HBV active replication or reactivation was fhe major cause of the exacerbation in severe chronic active hepatitis. In addition, HBV superinfection accounted for over 10 % of cases with acute exacerbation. Hepatitis A or C may contribute to some episodes of exacerbation.

Intrahepatic HBVDNA of patients with chronic hepatitis B was detected by in situ cytohybridization assay in combination with demonstration of HBsAg and HBcAg expression, and correlated with the foci of hepatic necrosis. It was found that HBsAg and HBcAg expressing sites appeared in the same areas where HBVDNA replicated; when HBsAg and HBcAg simultaneously expressed in the liver, one antigen usually dominated, the other declined. This unbalanced expression may be caused by the gene or transcripts variance which encodes the Surface or core antigen, or by the activity of each replication. The other observation is that HBVDNA-positive hepatocytes outnumbered liver cells containing HBsAg and HBcAg in a few cases. It is supposed that a part of cytoplasmic HBVDNA was on replicative phase with gene production expression, on the contrary, another part of cytoplasmic HBVDNA may be out of replication with no gene product expression during chronic hepatitis B. Finally HBsAg and HBcAg expressing sites corresponding to HBVDNA-positive hepatocytes were closely attached to the foci of hepatic necrosis. There was no significant difference in the frequence of HBsAg and HBcAg expression correlating to hepatic necrosis.

Pokeweed antiviral protein (PAP-s) was prepared from seeds of Phytolacca americana. Monoclonal antibody against human pan-T lymphocyte Wu71 was linked to PAP-s by a disulfide bond. The results of SDS-PAGE, double immunodiffusion of active monoclonal antibody and PAP-s showed that the conjugate was highly cytotoxic to the human T-leukemic cell line CEM, but not to antigen-negative cell line SP₂/O. At a concentration of 10⁻⁹mol/L, 76.4 % of the target cells were killed, as compared with 10.1 % 10⁻⁹mol/L of free PAP-s. Treatment of the CEM cells with conjugate at 10⁻⁹mol/L reduced their rate of protein synthesis by 72.4 %, as determined with¹⁴C-leucine incorporation. The immunotoxin may be useful for the in-vitro eradication of leukemic cells in autologous bone marrow transplantation to leukemia patients.

By use of limiting dilution assay we investigated the bipotent and pluripotent hemopoietic progenitor cells (CFU-Mix) from 21 normal adults, cultured for 32 times. The CFU-Mix counts were 35.7 colonies/10⁶ bone marrow cells. According to different cellular elements they could be divided into 5 groups, namely GEMM, GE, GL, GMeg and GMϕ. It was suggested that differentiation of the stem cell is of stochastic process, influenced by different hemopoietic growth factors and cellular microenvironment. Our model seems to be suitable for studying differentiation of the stem cells. The rates of³H-TdR and^{55 + 59}Fe incorporation were determined, and the 2nd day of culture was found to be the delayed stage of cell growth.

We observed CFU-Mix of 4 normal adults and 11 cases of leukemia. The culture system used by us in this study represented a suitable model for studying differentiation of hemopoietic stem cells in vitro. The pathogenesis of myeloid-lymphoid bipotent leukemia were malignant changes in pluripotent hemopoietic progenitor cells. The leukemic clones showed proliferation, but did not mature in culture. It is suggested that differentiation of leukemic stem cell did not pass through CFU-Mix stage.

By use of transmission electron microscope we demonstrated that the limiting dilution assay is an important method for investigating differentiation of hemopoietic cells in vitro. If various growth factors were added into this culture system, the stem cells of normal adults could differentiate into erythrocyte, granulocyte, megakaryocyte and macrophage, while leukemic progenitor cells could not. The colony forming cell in leukemia still had the nature of leukemic cell.

During 1987–1988 cytogenetic studies were performed in 30 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Of the 30 patients 15 (10 children and 5 adults) were found to have abnormal karyotypes including 8 cases (27%) of pseudodiploidy, 2 cases (7 %) of hypodiploidy, one case (3%) of low-hyperdiploidy (modal number 47–50), and 4 cases (13 %) of high-hyperdiploidy (modal number > 50). Immunological classification was performed by using monoclonal antibodies in 26 patients, and the most common immunophenotype was C-ALL. The pat ents with abnormal karyotypes were more likely to be NuLL-ALL (6 in 14) as compared with patients with normal karyotype (1 in 12). In our series, there was no significant difference between the patients with and without cytogenetic changes in regard of clinical findings such as FAB classification, the rate of complete remission, percentage of lymphoblasts in bone marrow cells and blood picture.

Yao nationality is one of the minority nationalities living mainly in South China (Guangxi Province). The purpose of this study was to provide data of MHC classI and GLO in Chinese Yao nationality and the different genetic background of Yao and Han nationality, the latter representing the major nationality in China. The genetic polymorphism of MHC classI and GLO in Chinese Yao nationality was determined. Previously the Japanese were considered to have the lowest C*₂C frequencies (0.9386), but now we ascertained that the Yao have the lowest C2*C frequencies (0.9336). The data concerning gene frequencies of Yao are presented. They were also compared with the available data of Han.

In this paper, we have described the effects of tumor-derived immunosuppressive factor(s) (TDSF,) on interleukin 2 (IL-2) production, on IL-2 responsiveness and on the expression of IL-2 receptors. The results showed that TDSF was able to markedly inhibit the production of IL-2 from PHA-stimulated lymphocytes and IL-2-dependent proliferation of activated lymphocytes, and to partially inhibit the expression of IL-2 receptor. These results suggest that inhibiting IL-2 production and responsiveness may be a major mechanism by which TDSF inhibit T lymphocyte proliferation and other immune responses. That TDSF exerted a very potent inhibiting action on IL-2 responsiveness is especially noticeable if we consider using IL-2 as an immunotherapeudic agent. This may be an important reason why treatment of tumor with IL-2 did not yield satisfactory results so far.

Investigations on tumor-associated antigen in the serum of patients with bladder cancer by using monoclonal antibody Hb 7A and sandwich ELISA were carried out on 36 patients with bladder cancer (BCa group), 18 patients with other tissue tumor (OTT group) and 22 normal subjects (control group). The average OD value of Hb 7A antigen of BCa group, OTT group and control group was 0.315±0.033, 0.124±0.026 and 0.12±0.021 respectively. The OD value of Hb 7A antigen in BCa group was significantly higher than that of control group and of OTT group (P< 0.01), but there was no obvious difference between the control group and OTT group (P> 0.05). The positive detection rate in BCa group was 86% (31/36,), while detection in all 22 normal subjects and the 18 patients of OTT group yielded negative results. The results indicated that the method of using McAb Hb 7A and sandwich ELISA, characterized by high specificity and sensitivity, is of value for clinical diagnosis and follow-up of patients with bladder cancer and general survey of persons at high risk of bladder cancer.

The preliminary results from integration-evaluation on a set of 310 binary relations in current data base of the new research Quantitatively Medicine Simulating and Operating by Computer (QMSOC) are presented in this paper. Through the function derived from the reciprocity in analysis of conditions, subjects and objects, in the given biomedical events, the number of routes for observation of glucagon and insulin was increased by 38.1 % and 136.4% over the conventional object-oriented searching, respectively. The intersection operation of condition sets indicates that it is possible through QMSOC to increase markedly the degree of definity of causality of biomedical events. 70 new binary quantitative relations have been created through operator 1, achieving an increment of 22.6% over the total of original binary relations in the data base. The characteristics and the significance of QMSOC are discussed.

In this paper, the elastic moduli of the rat uterine cervix were measured under different physiological conditions. It was found that the moduli significantly changed with the sex cycle, being higher in diestrus than in estrus, and highest in early pregnancy. The results suggest that active changes occur in the function of the uterine cervix under the modulation of hormones.

The ultrastructure of 5 griseofulvin-resistant fungi of favus was studied by image processing with microcomputer. It was found that the cell walls of the fungi consisted of 8 layers, and the inner layer containing cytoplasm was loose. It was also found that all structures within the cytoplasm possessed a 1–3 layers integral envelope with chromatins in the nucleus. These might be contributing factors in the development of resistance to gri eofulvin. This multiple-layered, thick cell wall might act as a barrier responsible for the impermeability of the cell to gritseofulvin.