Search

The chemical composition of black tea during tea processing is in a state of flux. However, the dynamic changes of this sophisticated metabolic process are far from clear. GC-MS-based metabolomic analyses were performed to examine changes in volatile and non-volatile compounds throughout the five stages of tea processing. The results showed that the most striking differences were observed at the withering and rolling stages, during which 62 non-volatile and 47 volatile compounds were significantly changed. The levels of most monosaccharides decreased at the withering stage and increased in subsequent stages while di-saccharides decreased as the process progressed. Free amino acids increased sharply at the withering stage, and most kept increasing or remained stable afterwards. However, levels of catechin, epicatechin, epigallocatechin, and epigallocatechin gallate decreased after withering and remained at low levels afterwards. Among the 47 volatile compounds with altered levels, phenylpropanoids/benzenoids and carotenoid-derived volatiles, which contribute to the honey-like and rose-like fragrances and quality of Danxia2 tea, kept increasing during the processing, among them eight were newly produced. Furthermore, 19 volatiles with a grassy odor decreased during processing. This study provides a comprehensive profile of metabolic changes during black tea processing, which is potentially important for both quality control and improvement of the flavor of black teas.

The seed of Jatropha curcas is an ideal feedstock for producing biodiesel. However, low seed yield which was limited by its low female to male flower ratios is a bottleneck for its utilization. Here, six endogenous plant growth substances, Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), Gibberellin A3 (GA3), Zeatin (Zt), Abscisic acid (ABA), Jasmonic acid (JA), and Salicylic acid (SA), were evaluated in male and female floral differentiation stages to uncover the regulatory events of endogenous plant hormones in J. curcas. Our results showed that the female floral initiation was accelerated by the higher concentration of Zt, GA3, JA, SA and the ratios of JA/GA3%, JA/Zt%, and GA3/Zt%, whereas its subsequent development was involved in low concentration of Zt and GA3. Conversely, the lower concentration of Zt, GA3, JA, SA and the ratios of GA3/SA%, Zt/SA%, and JA/SA% were significantly related to male floral initiation, and its subsequent development was co-promoted by the higher concentration of IAA, Zt, GA3 and JA. In addition, the concentration of ABA was down-regulated both in male and female floral differentiation processes. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation to link floral sex differentiation with endogenous plant growth substances in J. curcas. It provided insight into the potential for the regulation of flowering and the increase of fruit yield with exogenous plant growth substances.

BackgroundGiven their geographical proximity but differences in cultural and religious dietary customs, we hypothesize that children from the three main ethnic populations (Han, Hui, and Tibetan) residing in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau region differs in their non-iatrogenic antibiotic loads.MethodsTo determine the antibiotic burden of the school children unrelated to medical treatment, we quantified the antibiotic residues in morning urine samples from 92 Han, 72 Tibetan, and 85 Muslim Hui primary school children aged 8 to 12 years using high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, and performed correlation analysis between these data and concurrent dietary nutrition assessments.ResultsSixteen of the 18 targeted antibiotics (4 macrolides, 3 β-lactams, 2 tetracyclines, 4 quinolones, 3 sulfonamides, and 2 aminoanols) were identified in the urine samples with an overall detection frequency of 58.63%. The detection frequency of the six antibiotic classes ranged from 1.61% to 32.53% with ofloxacin showing the single highest frequency (18.47%). Paired comparison analysis revealed significant differences in antibiotic distribution frequency among groups, with Tibetans having higher enrofloxacin (P = 0.015) and oxytetracycline (P = 0.021) than Han children. Norfloxacin (a human/veterinary antibiotic) was significantly higher in the Hui children than in the Han children (P = 0.024). Dietary nutrient intake assessments were comparable among participants, showing adequate levels of essential vitamins and minerals across all three ethnic groups. However, significant differences in specific foods were observed among groups, notably in lower fat consumption in the Hui group.ConclusionsThe introduction and accumulation of antibiotic residues in school children through non-iatrogenic routes (food or environmental sources) poses a serious potential health risk and merits closer scrutiny to determine the sources. While the exact sources of misused or overused antibiotics remains unclear, further study can potentially correlate ethnicity-specific dietary practices with the sources of contamination.

A determination method to identify and quantify 18 multi-class antibiotics in urine was developed using liquid chromatography triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (LC-QqQ-MS/MS). Targeted antibiotics were extracted using preliminary dilution followed by d-SPE extraction. Specificity and selectivity, linearity, LOD and LOQ, accuracy, and precision were validated. LOQ of the majority of targeted compounds ranged from 0.3–7.5 μg/L. Excellent recovery in the range of 73–136% was achieved for most antibiotics, except macrolides whose recovery were of 52–78%. High precision was obtained with coefficients of variation (CV) less than 20%. All compounds were clearly separated and detected after a total run time of 15 min. Following development and validation, the method was applied to real urine samples where five out of 18 antibiotics were detected and high precision with CV less than 15% was obtained. The method was validated to be capable of quantifying antibiotics in urine for applications in supervision of antibiotics consumption or in pharmacokinetic studies.

Measuring the level of serum lipase has been used for the clinical diagnosis of acute pancreatitis. Reports showed that the serum lipase level increased in patients of clinical renal failure. In this study, we aimed to measure the change of serum lipase levels in chronic kidney diseases and determine whether it could serve as a clinical laboratory index for clinical renal failure diagnosis. Materials: The OLYMPUS AU5400 automatic biochemical analyzer was used to determine the serum levels of lipase and creatinine. The study included 120 cases in the clinical renal failure group, 76 cases in the nephrotic syndrome group, 81 cases in the chronic nephritis group, and 80 healthy controls from our hospital volunteers in the same period. We then compared the lipase levels and conducted statistical analyses among these groups.The serum lipase levels were 15.3 U/L, 79.8 U/L, 45.1 U/L, and 51.0 U/L in the normal control, clinical renal failure, nephrotic syndrome, and chronic nephritis groups, respectively. The lipase levels in the groups with diseases were significantly different compared with that of the normal control group (p0.01). The lipase level of the clinical renal failure group was significantly higher than that of the nephrotic syndrome group and chronic nephritis group (p0.01). However, no statistically significant difference between the nephrotic syndrome and chronic nephritis group (p0.05) was observed. Moreover, an association of the serum lipase with disease progression was observed in the study.Serum lipase is an effective serological index which can reflect the clinical changes in the clinical renal failure and tends to increase through the progression of renal dysfunction.

FengHuang Dancong tea is famous for its excellent aroma quality. In order to characterize the volatile components in different aroma types of FengHuang Dancong tea, both fresh leaves and manufactured teas of seven well-known aroma types and their ancestor variety, which were harvested from the same places and manufactured using the same procedure, were investigated using headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results indicated that the volatile composition and contents of manufactured teas and fresh leaves, including HuangZhi, XingRen, GuiHua, MiLan, JiangHua, YuLan YeLai and Fenghuang Shuixian, were obviously different. Linalool, (E)-2-hexenal, cis-3-hexenyl acetate, linalool oxide, methyl salicylate, geraniol, and nerolidol were the major volatile components in fresh leaves, and their total relative contents ranged from 78.44-90.07%. But in manufactured teas, hotrienol, linalool, β-myrcene, D-limonene, 1-ethyl-1H-pyrrole-2-carboxaldehyde, β-ocimene, linalool oxide, benzyl nitrile, indole, jasmone, and nerolidol were the major volatile components, ranged from 60.12-93.97%. Although there were some similarities in the aroma composition and content among the manufactured teas of different aroma types, each type had unique aroma characteristics. The obvious difference between FengHuang Shuixian and other aroma types of manufactured teas may be due to the higher content of alkene and pyrrole derivatives and lower content of alcohols, especial terpene alcohols. Furthermore, the correlations between manufactured teas and the fresh leaves indicated that the volatile compounds profile of fresh leaves may affect the aroma quality of the manufactured tea. This study provided a comprehensive comparison of the volatile profile in different aroma types of Fenghuang Dancong tea, which is a scientific foundation for further quality assessment of Fenghuang Dancong variety in the future.

Background This study aimed to investigate the clinical significance of contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in diagnosis of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) through comparing CEUS parameters between BPH and normal person. Methods A retrospective study of sixty BPH patients (aged 73.5 ± 20.5 years old) and thirty normal controls without prostate diseases (aged 75.3 ± 19.7 years old) who had accepted CEUS detection were performed. Time-intensity curves were obtained for all tests in regions of interest. Images were processed using ACQ software and the following parameters were obtained: arrival time (AT), peak intensity (P), time to peak (TP), area under the curve (AUC), mean transit time (MTT) and extinction time (ET). Differences in inner and outer gland of prostate between BPH and the normal tissue were evaluated. Results There was a clear boundary between the inner and outer gland of BPH prostate. AT, TP, MTT, ET and P in BPH outer gland were significantly higher than the control group. In inner gland, MTT, ET, AUC and P were also significantly higher than the controls. The accurate rate to diagnose BPH using CEUS was 95.6%, and the sensitivity and specificity were 95.0% and 96.7%, respectively. Conclusions Among these significantly changed parameters, the increases of MTT, ET and AUC in inner gland and AT, TP in outer gland were most likely related to BPH. These parameters provide an objective visual assessment to diagnosis of BPH. Virtual slides The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/4852383312229155.

This study aimed to investigate the clinical significance of contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in diagnosis of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) through comparing CEUS parameters between BPH and normal person. A retrospective study of sixty BPH patients (aged 73.5 ± 20.5 years old) and thirty normal controls without prostate diseases (aged 75.3 ± 19.7 years old) who had accepted CEUS detection were performed. Time-intensity curves were obtained for all tests in regions of interest. Images were processed using ACQ software and the following parameters were obtained: arrival time (AT), peak intensity (P), time to peak (TP), area under the curve (AUC), mean transit time (MTT) and extinction time (ET). Differences in inner and outer gland of prostate between BPH and the normal tissue were evaluated. There was a clear boundary between the inner and outer gland of BPH prostate. AT, TP, MTT, ET and P in BPH outer gland were significantly higher than the control group. In inner gland, MTT, ET, AUC and P were also significantly higher than the controls. The accurate rate to diagnose BPH using CEUS was 95.6%, and the sensitivity and specificity were 95.0% and 96.7%, respectively. Among these significantly changed parameters, the increases of MTT, ET and AUC in inner gland and AT, TP in outer gland were most likely related to BPH. These parameters provide an objective visual assessment to diagnosis of BPH. The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/4852383312229155