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BACKGROUND & AIMS Severe burn injury has been demonstrated to delay gastric emptying. The aim of this study was to investigate effects and cellular mechanisms of auricular electroacupuncture (AEA) at the acupoints innervated by the auricular branch of vagus nerve (ABVN) on burn-induced gastric dysmotility in rats. METHODS Propranolol (β-adrenoceptor antagonist) was injected intraperitoneally after the rats underwent burn injury. All experiments were performed six hours following burn/sham burn injury. AEA was performed at bilateral auricular acupoints for 45min. Electrocardiogram was recorded for 30min. Plasma hormones were measured; cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 expressions in gastric tissue were measured using western blotting and real time RT-PCR. RESULTS 1) Burn injury delayed gastric emptying (P=0.006) and AEA increased gastric emptying by 49% (P=0.045). 2) Burn injury evoked a significant elevation in plasma noradrenaline, which was suppressed by AEA. 3) Burn injury significantly increased protein and mRNA expressions of COX-2 in gastric fundus and antrum. AEA suppressed burn-induced increase in protein expressions but not mRNA expressions of COX-2. CONCLUSIONS Burn injury delays gastric emptying by up-regulating COX-2 attributed to sympathetic overactivity. AEA improves burn-induced delay in gastric emptying, possibly mediated via the sympathetic-COX-2 pathway.

The CitM transporter from Bacillus subtilis transports citrate as a complex with Mg2+. In this study, CitM was functionally expressed and characterized in E. coli DH5a cells. In the presence of saturating Mg2+ concentrations, the Km for citrate in CitM was 274 mM, similar to previous studies using whole cells of B. subtilis. CitM has a high substrate specificity for citrate. Other di- and tricarboxylic acids including succinate, isocitrate, cis-aconitate and tricarballylic acid did not significantly inhibit the uptake of citrate in the presence of Mg2+. However, CitM accepts complexes of citrate with metal ions other than Mg2+. The highest rate of citrate transport was seen in the presence of Mg2+, followed in order of preference by Mn2+, Ba2+, Ni2+, Co2+ and Ca2+. Citrate transport by CitM appears to be proton coupled. The transport was inhibited in transport buffers more alkaline than pH 7.5 and not affected by pH at acidic values. Transport was also inhibited by ionophores that affect the transmembrane proton gradient, including FCCP, TCC and nigericin. Valinomycin did not affect the uptake by CitM, suggesting that transport is electroneutral. In conclusion, the cloned CitM transporter from B. subtilis expressed in E. coli has properties similar to the transporter in intact B. subtilis cells. The results support a transport model with a coupling stoichiometry of one proton coupled to the uptake of one complex of (Mg2+-citrate)1-.

The mechanisms of rickettsial attachment have been studied by measuring quantitative changes in rickettsial binding to host cells by flow cytometry after different treatments of the rickettsiae and host cells. Time-dependent binding of Rickettsia conorii to host cells was demonstrated by the increasing intensity of host cell surface fluorescence of rickettsia-host cell combinations when examined with a rickettsia-specific monoclonal antibody. More than 70% of host cells had intensity of fluorescence above the threshold value after 10 min of incubation, owing to rickettsiae bound to the cell surface, and the greatest fluorescence intensity indicative of binding occurred at 20 min. The binding kinetics was rickettsial dose dependent. The binding of rickettsiae to host cells was greatly decreased when host cells or rickettsiae were treated with 1% paraformaldehyde for 30 min or 0.25% trypsin for 5 or 15 min, respectively. Rickettsiae that were heated at 56 degrees C for 15 min lost more than 80% of their ability to attach to host cells. R. rickettsii, an organism closely related to R. conorii, competitively inhibited the attachment of R. conorii (51% inhibition when mixed in equal numbers). These results indicate that the rickettsial binding structures are trypsin and heat sensitive and likely to be surface proteins.

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Conclusion: In summary, we conducted an exome-wide sequencing through pair wised lung primary and brain metastasis samples and identified some novel cancer and metastasis related mutation which provided potential biomarkers for prognosis and novel therapeutics.