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To assess the association of C677T polymorphism of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene with autistic behavior and inheritance pattern of children patients.Ninety three autism patients were selected as the study group, whilst 93 healthy children were selected as the control group. The C677T genotype of the MTHFR gene was determined, and the correlation between the genotype and the autistic behavior and inheritance pattern were investigated.MTHFR gene C677T locus revealed three genotypes CC, CT and TT. Compared with the control group, the study group had fewer CC genotype but more TT genotype (P0.05). Individuals with the three genotypes showed a statistically significant difference in the frequencies of four problem behaviors (P0.05). Regression analysis showed that at least one T allele encoding the degree of 1 and 2 for the 4 problem behaviors that were statistically different. MTHFR gene C677T genotype was associated with autism under the recessive inheritance model and allelic inheritance model (P0.05).The C677T polymorphism of the MTHFR gene is associated with autistic behaviors. Children with the TT genotype or T allele are at higher risk of developing autism, particularly direct gaze, complex limb movements, self-injurious behavior and hyperactivity 1 and 2 related with the degree of coding.

A new type of liquid crystal microlens array (LCMLA) constructed by a single-layered LC material is proposed. The basic dual-mode integrated LC microlens includes a concentric microhole electrode and a central plate electrode. Compared with traditional LC microlenses driven electrically, the dual-mode integrated LC microlens presents a better light control effect, such as being flexibly adjusted between the beam convergence and divergence modes, enlarging both the tunable range of the signal voltage and the focal length and also reducing the focal spot assisted by a convex electric-field generated by the central plate electrode, acquiring a sharper beam diverging microring formed by the concave LC microlens assisted by a concave electric-field generated by the microhole electrode. At the same time, we have also verified that the electric-field filling factor of the dual-mode integrated LCMLA can be obviously increased through jointly tuning the signal voltages applied independently over both the microhole electrode and the central plate electrode. This research has laid a solid foundation for continuously developing LCMLA technology.

To construct a value-based healthcare system for rural Chinese hypertensive patients through an increasing outpatient care reimbursement ratio.This comparative study sampled two similar counties, Dangyang County and Zhijiang County, in Hubei Province of China, as the intervention group and the control group, respectively. The Social Health Insurance Fund of the intervention group budgeted 600 yuan per capita per year to insured patients with third stage hypertension to cover their outpatient expenditures, while the outpatient expenditures of the control group were not covered by its Social Health Insurance Fund. The inpatient expenditure reimbursement policies in both groups were not adjusted during the study. Value improvement in this study was defined as reduction in medical costs and improvement in health outcomes within the pilot healthcare system. A propensity score matching model combined with a difference-in-differences model was used to estimate the changes in medical costs and health outcomes.In total, 1,673 pairs of patients were enrolled into statistical analysis after the propensity score matching. The intervention increased per capita annual outpatient expenditure by 81.2 (+31.8%) yuan (p .05), but decreased the per capita annual inpatient expenditure and total medical expenditure by 475.4 (-40.7%) yuan and 394.2 (-27.7%) yuan, respectively (p .05). Accordingly, the per capita annual total medical expenditure reimbursement decreased by 192.3 (-28.5%) yuan (p .05), and the per capita annual total out-of-pocket expenditure by 201.9 (-29.9%) yuan (p .05). The diastolic blood pressure of the intervention group decreased significantly by 2.9 mmHg (p .05), but no significant change was found in systolic blood pressure and prevalence of hypertension complications (p .05).Increasing the outpatient expenditures, the reimbursement ratio was beneficial to the value of the healthcare system for hypertensive patients. Outpatient care for patients with chronic diseases should be prioritized for rural China and healthcare settings with inadequate health insurance funds.

Patterned surface microstructures over a common silicon wafer are constructed by a single-mask ultraviolet (UV) photolithography and a dual-step wet potassium hydroxide etching. Oriented surface contours such as aspherical refractive profiles, diffractive phase steps, or even the composite appearance shaped by combining both refractive and diffractive microprofiles can be accurately predicted and finely configured through computational fitting. This critical operation involves a careful adjustment of the location of silicon microholes with suitable apertures and concave depths so as to outline a needed square microwindow map defined by the single-mask UV photolithography. This approach leads to an aspherical surface or phase steps with required roughness based on a greedy algorithm developed in-house. The obtained micro-optical films can be effectively used to transform common laser beams with a typical Gaussian profile into patterned beams with various complicated wavefronts. The proposed method highlights a low-cost development of adaptive optical imaging by constructing relatively complicated wavefront or objective circumstances for quantitatively evaluating imaging efficiency. The technology should find typical applications in antilaser interference or attack imaging.

Cry1A and Cry2A toxins, which are widely used in Bt transgenic crops, can specifically bind to insect midguts and exert their insecticidal effects. There are interactions between insect midgut-binding proteins and Cry1A toxins; however, little is known about the insect protein that specifically binds to Cry2A. Midgut membrane-bound alkaline phosphatases (ALPs), which are important for the binding of proteins to Cry1A, play dominant roles in Cry1A-mediated toxicity in some lepidopteran larvae. In this study, we cloned and expressed one partial ALP2 peptide from susceptible Spodoptera exigua larvae and studied the binding characteristics of SeALP2 with Cry2Aa. The ALPs proteins was expressed at all larval stages and highly expressed in the first and second instar larvae. The heterologously expressed SeALP2 peptide bound specifically to Cry2Aa with a high affinity. Knocking down ALP2 in vivo revealed that it plays an important role in the susceptibility of S. exigua to Cry2Aa. Based on these findings, we propose that ALP2 in S. exigua serves as a functional receptor for Cry2Aa.

Yumei Wang,1 Yinmou Guo,2 Jianzhi Gao,3 Xiangdong Yuan1 1Department of Children’s Rehabilitation, Shangqiu First People’s Hospital of Henan, Shangqiu, Henan, China; 2First Department of Oncology, Shangqiu First People’s Hospital of Henan, Shangqiu, Henan, China; 3Department of Oncology, Zhuozhou Hospital of Beijing 301 Hospital, Beijing, China Background: SIRT4 is a member of the sirtuin family of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-dependent enzymes located in the mitochondria, and is involved in regulating energy metabolism, stress response, and cellular lifespan in mammalian cells. However, its function in human neuroblastoma (NB) remains unexplored. Methods: Expression of SIRT4 in 158 pairs of human NB tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues collected from March 2009 to October 2012 was analyzed by immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, and real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR. For in vitro study, SIRT4 was overexpressed in SH-SY5Y, SK-N-BE, and IMR-32 cells to study the effects of SIRT4 expression on proliferation, invasion, and migration of human NB cells and on mitochondrial function. Results: SIRT4 gene expression in human NB tumor tissues was significantly lower than that in adjacent normal tissues (P

A pyramid strategy combining the Cry1A and Cry2A toxins in Bt crops has been widely used throughout the world to delay pest adaption to transgenic crops and broaden the insecticidal spectrum. Midgut membrane-bound cadherin (CAD), aminopeptidase-N (APN) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) are important for Cry1A toxicity in some lepidopteran larvae, but the proteins that bind Cry2A in the midgut of target insects and their role in the Cry2A mechanism of action are still unclear. In this study, we found that heterologously expressed CAD, APN4 and ALP2 peptides from the midgut of Helicoverpa armigera could bind to the Cry2Aa toxin with a high affinity. Additionally, the efficiency of Cry2Aa insecticidal activity against H. armigera larvae was obviously reduced after the genes encoding these proteins were silenced with specific siRNAs: CAD- and ALP2-silenced larvae showed significantly similar reductions in mortality due to the Cry2Aa toxin (41.67% and 43.06%, respectively), whereas a larger reduction in mortality was observed in APN4-silenced larvae (61.11%) than in controls. These results suggest that CAD, APN4 and ALP2 are involved in the mechanism of action of Cry2Aa in H. armigera and may play important functional roles in the toxicity of the Cry2Aa toxin.

With the commercialization of transgenic cotton that expresses Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) insecticidal proteins, mirid bugs have become key pests in cotton and maize fields in China. Genetically engineered (GE) crops for controlling mirids are unavailable owing to a lack of suitable insecticidal genes. In this study, we developed and validated a dietary exposure assay for screening insecticidal compounds and for assessing the potential effects of insecticidal proteins produced by GE plants on Apolygus lucorum, one of the main mirid pests of Bt cotton and Bt maize. Diets containing potassium arsenate (PA) or the cysteine protease inhibitor E-64 were used as positive controls for validating the efficacy of the dietary exposure assay. The results showed that with increasing concentrations of PA or E-64, A. lucorum larval development time was prolonged and adult weight and fecundity were decreased, suggesting that the dietary exposure assay was useful for detecting the toxicity of insecticidal compounds to A. lucorum. This assay was then used to assess the toxicity of Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac, Cry1F, Cry2Aa, and Cry2Ab proteins, which have been transformed into several crops, against A. lucorum. The results showed that A. lucorum did not show a negative effect by feeding on an artificial diet containing any of the purified Cry proteins. No significant changes in the activities of digestive, detoxifying, or antioxidant enzymes were detected in A. lucorum that fed on a diet containing Cry proteins, but A. lucorum fitness was reduced when the insect fed on a diet containing E-64 or PA. These results demonstrate that A. lucorum is not sensitive to the tested Cry proteins and that the dietary exposure assay is useful for evaluating the toxicity of insecticidal compounds to this species.

Hollow cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanospheres of about 260 nm average diameters and about 30 nm shell thickness can be easily synthesized via a sonochemical process, in which polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles were employed as templates. In order to remove the PS templates, both etching and calcination were applied in this paper. The influence of the two different template removal methods on the surface micromorphology, crystal structure, and photocatalytic activity of hollow CdS nanospheres was carefully performed a comparative study. Results of X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray, FT-IR, thermogravimetric analysis, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, diffused reflectance spectra, and decolorization experiments showed that the different template removal methods exhibited a significant influence on the surface micromorphology, crystal structure, and photocatalytic activity of hollow CdS nanospheres. The CdS hollow nanospheres as-prepared by etching had pure cubic sphalerite structure, higher –OH content, less defects and exhibited good photocatalytic activity for rhodamine-B, Methylene Blue and methyl orange under UV–vis light irradiation. However, CdS hollow nanospheres obtained by calcination with a hexagonal crystal structure, less –OH content, more defects have shown worse photocatalytic activity. This indicated that surface micromorphology and crystalline phase were mainly factors influencing photocatalytic activity of hollow CdS nanospheres.

A novel series of oligomers consisting of thiophene as a p-type unit and oxadiazole as an n-type unit were separately synthesized. On the basis of the characterization of photophysical and electrochemical properties, the structure-property relationships of the oligomers were investigated. Cyclic voltammogram studies showed that changing the number of thiophene and oxadiazole units could effectively modulate the electronic properties of the p-n diblock and triblock oligomers. The effect of molecular regiochemistry on electronic properties is also investigated. The observed electronic properties were consistent with theoretical calculations. These systems serve as excellent examples, demonstrating the band gap control principle in the p-n heterostructure oligomers.