Search

A halophilic archaeon named strain LR21T was isolated from a salt mine in Yunnan Province, PR China. Cells were spherical, Gram-stain-negative and motile. Strain LR21T grew at 20–50 °C (optimum, 42 °C), with 8–30 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 23 %) and at pH 5.5–9.5 (optimum, pH 7.5–8.5). Mg2+ was not required for growth. The major polar lipid profile comprised phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol phosphate methyl ester and phosphatidylglycerol sulfate. Strain LR21T had two dissimilar 16S rRNA genes (rrnA and rrnB) and they were closely related to Halomicroarcula limicola YGHS32T, Hma. pellucida BNERC31T and Hma. salina YGHS18T with sequence similarities of 95.3–99.0, 93.0–96.2 and 93.2–95.9 %, respectively, and much lower values to other members. The rpoB′ gene sequence similarities between strain LR21T and Hma. limicola YGHS32T, Hma. pellucida BNERC31T and Hma. salina YGHS18T were 95.2, 91.2 and 91.2 % respectively. The values of average nucleotide identity (ANI) and average amino-acid identity (AAI) between strain LR21T and Hma. limicola YGHS32T, were 89.0 and 90.1 %, respectively. DNA relatedness between strains LR21T and Hma. limicola YGHS32T determined by in silico DNA–DNA hybridization was 36.8 %. Values of ANI and AAI between strain LR21T and other members in the genus Halomicroarcula were far below 95 % and the DNA–DNA relatedness values between strain LR21T and its close relatives were much lower than 70 %, which is far below the boundary for delineation of a new species prokaryote. The DNA G+C content of strain LR21T was 62.0 mol% (genome). The results suggested that strain LR21T represents a novel species of the genus Halomicroarcula , for which the name Halomicroarcula amylolytica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is LR21T (=CGMCC 1.13611T=NBRC 113588T).

Two halophilic archaeal strains, Gai3-2Tand NJ-3-1T, were isolated from salt lake and saline soil samples, respectively, collected in PR China. The 16S rRNA gene sequences of the two strains were 97.5% similar to each other. Strains Gai3-2Tand NJ-3-1Thad the highest sequence similarities to ‘Halobonum tyrrellense’ G22 (96.7 and 97.8%, respectively), and displayed similarities of 91.5–93.5% and 92.3–94.7%, respectively, toHalobaculummembers. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the two strains formed different branches and clustered tightly with ‘H. tyrrellense’ G22 andHalobaculummembers. The average nucleotide identity (ANI), in silico DNA–DNA hybridization (isDDH) and amino acid identity (AAI) values between the two strains were 83.1, 26.9 and 77.9%, respectively, much lower than the threshold values proposed as a species boundary. These values between the two strains and ‘H. tyrrellense’ G22 (ANI 77.9–78.2%,isDDH 22.5–22.6% and AAI 68.8–69.3%) andHalobaculummembers (ANI 77.53–77.63%,isDDH 21.8–22.3% and AAI 68.4–69.4%) were almost identical, and much lower than the recommended threshold values for species delimitation. These results suggested that strains Gai3-2Tand NJ-3-1Trepresent two novel species ofHalobaculum. Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic properties, strains Gai3-2T(=CGMCC 1.16080T=JCM 33550T) and NJ-3-1T(=CGMCC 1.16040T=JCM 33552T) represent two novel species of the genusHalobaculum, for which the nameHalobaculum halophilumsp. nov. andHalobaculum salinumsp. nov. are proposed.

IntroductionThe present study aimed to compare the efficacy of vindesine with that of leurocristine for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia and their effects on the quality of life.Material and methodsWe included 94 patients with pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia admitted to our hospital for treatment and categorized them into two groups: treatment with vindesine (group A, n = 48) and treatment with leurocristine (group B; n = 48). The effective rate, adverse reactions (thrombocytopenia, anemia, peripheral neurotoxic reaction, infection, nausea, and vomiting) and basic clinical conditions (medical expenses and length of hospital stay) of the patients were observed. In addition, IL-6 and TNF-α expressions were determined by ELISA before and after treatment, posttreatment quality of life score was determined by the Karnofsky performance scale (KPS), and the 5-year overall survival was determined in both groups.ResultsGroup A showed no statistical difference in the total efficacy rate and 5-year overall survival after treatment (P > 0.05) and had lower medical expenses, length of hospital stay, IL-6 and TNF-α expressions, and total incidence of adverse reactions and higher KPS scores than group B (P < 0.05).ConclusionsAlthough no statistical difference was observed between vindesine and leurocristine in treating pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, patients administered vindesine had fewer adverse reactions, shorter length of hospital stay, lower medical expenses, and higher quality of life than those administered leurocristine, indicating a potential association with decreased serum IL-6 and TNF-α expressions.

Background: Previous infectious or inflammatory events may be involved in the pathogenesis of neuromyelitis optica (NMO), potentially by triggering an autoimmune response. Cytomegalovirus (CMV)-related NMO (CMV-NMO) is rarely reported. Acute hemorrhagic rectal ulcer (AHRU) is a rare disease with a largely unknown pathogenesis. Herein, we reported a co-NMO and AHRU case associated with CMV infection. In addition, we review previously reported cases of CMV-NMO and CMV-AHRU. Case presentation: A 40-year-old female diagnosed with aquaporin4 (AQP4)-IgG+ NMO and a poor response to high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone and immunoglobulin, followed by three rounds of plasma exchange was transferred to Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. She developed repeated acute lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage from the third day of admission. Abdominal computed tomography angiography (CTA) and interventional angiography did not detect any bleeding vessel. Bedside colonoscopy revealed a large ulcer-like lesion at 10 cm above the anus. Rectal biopsy pathology confirmed a CMV infection on day 23 post-admission, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pathogen gene sequencing detected CMV gene copies on day 25 post-admission. After 2 weeks of treatment with ganciclovir and sodium phosphinate, the patient's lower gastrointestinal bleeding stopped, and her limb muscle strength and visual acuity gradually improved. After 4 weeks of antiviral therapy, colonoscopy showed that the intestinal wall of the original lesion was smooth. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining and immunohistochemistry (IHC) of a biopsy specimen was negative for CMV, her right eye vision was normal, and limb muscle strength had recovered. Serum AQP4-IgG was negative, and lesions on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) manifested shrinkage. Conclusions: The benefits of antiviral therapy remain unclear; however, clinicians should be aware of the possibility of CMV-related NMO, if NMO was refractory to high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone, immunoglobulin, and plasma exchange. Moreover, clinicians should consider the possibility of CMV-related AHRU when recurrent acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding occurs in a patient.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the influence of pre-pregnancy parental body mass index (BMI), maternal weight gain during pregnancy, and their interaction on neonatal birth weight. METHODS: A total of 1 127 pregnant women who underwent regular prenatal examinations and full-term singleton delivery in the First Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University from January 2017 to October 2018 were enrolled. The data on their pre-pregnancy BMI, maternal weight gain during pregnancy, pre-pregnancy BMI of the husband, and neonatal birth weight were collected. The interaction between pre-pregnancy parental BMI and maternal weight gain during pregnancy was analyzed, and their correlation with neonatal birth weight was analyzed. RESULTS: Among the 1 127 full-term neonates, the detection rates of low birth weight neonates and macrosomia were 2.22% (25/1 127) and 3.82% (43/1 127) respectively. There were significant differences in pre-pregnancy parental BMI and maternal weight gain during pregnancy among the low birth weight, normal birth weight, and macrosomia groups (P < 0.05). Neonatal birth weight was positively correlated with pre-pregnancy parental BMI and maternal weight gain during pregnancy (r=0.097-0.322, P < 0.05). Low maternal weight before pregnancy increased the risk of low birth weight (RR=4.17, 95%CI:1.86-9.38), and maternal overweight/obesity before pregnancy (RR=3.59, 95%CI:1.93-6.67) and excessive weight gain during pregnancy (RR=3.21, 95%CI:1.39-7.37) increased the risk of macrosomia. No interaction between pre-pregnancy maternal BMI and maternal weight gain during pregnancy was observed. CONCLUSIONS: Pre-pregnancy parental BMI and maternal weight gain during pregnancy are related to neonatal birth weight, and there is no interaction between pre-pregnancy maternal BMI and maternal weight gain during pregnancy.

To observe the effects of acupotomy intervention on the behavior, morphology and tensile mechanics of knee osteoarthritis (KOA) rabbits, and to explore the biomechanical effects of acupotomy on KOA.Twenty-four New Zealand male rabbits were randomly divided into four groups: normal group, model group, electroacupuncture group and needle-knife group, with 6 rabbits in each group. In each model group, rabbit KOA model was established by fixing Videman's left hind limb in straight position for 6 weeks. In the electroacupuncture group, rats were treated left on Liang Qiu, Xue Hai, Nei Xi Yan and Wai Xi Yan 3 times a week for 3 weeks. In the acupotomology group, the left quadriceps femoris tendon was released with acupotomology, and the treatment was once a week for 3 weeks. Behavioral tests were performed using Lequesne MG knee joint evaluation method one week after the end of modeling and one week after the end of treatment, and HE staining and mechanical tests were performed one week after the end of treatment.Behavioral observation before treatment showed that there were significant differences in local pain, gait response, joint activity and joint swelling between the normal group and the model group(Acupotomy intervention can significantly change the behavior and morphology, significantly improve the mechanical properties of quadriceps femoris tendon stretch, and exert its biomechanical effects to achieve the purpose of treating KOA.

A 3D flower-shape ultra-wideband antenna array, with performance of dual circular-polarized, for the monopulse application of tracking radar has been designed and tested. The array, constructed by eight vivaldi-shape antennas, has a stable wide beam of sum-and-difference patterns on working band and gain of 10.5 dB. The sum and difference patterns can be obtained by out-phase excitations of the eight coaxial ports. The measurement results demonstrate that the working bandwidth of the proposed antenna array is up to 170%. The simulation result shows that, the 3-dB beamwidth of the sum pattern both for the E plane and H plane is more than 30° over the working bandwidth, and the null depths of the difference pattern are below -30 dB in both planes.

Purpose To identify bioactive equivalent combinatorial components (BECCs) in herbal medicines. The exact composition of effective components in herbal medicines is often elusive due to the lack of adequate screening methodology. Herein, we propose a hypothesis that BECCs accounting for the whole efficacy of original herbal medicines could be discovered from a complex mixture of constituents. Methods We developed a bioactive equivalence oriented feedback screening method and applied it to discover the BECCs from an herbal preparation Cardiotonic Pill (CP). The operations include chemical profiling of CP, followed by an iterative loop of determining, collecting and evaluating candidate BECCs. Results A combination of 18 compounds was identified as BECCs from CP, which accounts for 15.0% (w/w) of original CP. We have demonstrated that the BECCs were as effective as CP in cell models and in a rat model of myocardial infarction. Conclusions This work answers the key question of which are real bioactive components for CP that have been used in clinic for many years, and provides a promising approach for discovering BECCs from herbal medicines. More importantly, the BECCs could be extended to improve quality control of herbal products and inspire an herbal medicines based discovery of combinatorial therapeutics. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11095-013-1283-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This paper presents a compact tunable bandpass filter that is based on open split ring resonator to achieve high out-of-band rejection. Exact equations and design procedures are given based on strict theoretical analysis. By loading the varactor diodes, the center frequency and bandwidth of the bandpass filter could realize reconfigurable. Then defected ground structure was adopted in the input and output ports for the sake of high out-of-band rejection. In order to verify the result of theoretical analysis, a compact tunable bandpass filter with defected ground structure, whose range of frequency was 1.61 GHz ∼ 1.82 GHz and range of relative bandwidth was 8.3% ∼ 24.8%, had been simulated and fabricated. Good agreement between the measured data and the anticipated results is achieved.

A pattern synthesis approach based on a modifled alternating projection method in an a-ne coordinate system is proposed in this paper. The approach is suitable for large planar arrays with skewed element layout. According to the a-ne transformation theory, the radiation pattern of the array with a periodic parallelogram element layout could be written down immediately from that of a conventional one with rectangle cells when a pattern invariant group is deflned. Just as known, the conventional alternating projection method is sensitive to the starting point and easy to fall into local optimum; in this paper we introduce a modifled alternating projection method with a variable projection operator. To verify the rationality of the proposed method, several examples have been performed on our personal computer. Results show that the method could quickly synthesize the array patterns to the required with high accuracy. In addition, if the array has a triangle or parallelogram element layout, the required antennas to flll up the aperture is reduced when compared with the conventional one with antennas arranged along a rectangle grid. In our examples, the maximum reduction is about 18.09%, which is quite beneflcial to reduce the weight and cost of the array.

A pattern synthesis approach based on a modifled alternating projection method for large planar arrays is presented in this paper. In the alternating projection method, pattern synthesis problem is considered as flnding the intersection between two sets: the speciflcation set and the feasible set. The former contains all the patterns that want to be obtained, while the latter contains all the patterns that can be realized. An element belongs to both sets is a solution to the problem. In this paper, a modifled projection operator which varies with the iteration number is introduced because the conventional alternating projection method is known to sufier from low convergence rate and/or trapping on local optimum depending on the starting point. When the planar array has a nonuniform element layout, the unequally spaced elements are interpolated into virtual uniform elements with an interpolation of the least square sense. Then the synthesis problem is converted to the problem of a uniform array. Finally, several examples are presented to validate the advantages of the proposed method. Results show that the modifled method is fast and obtains better results than the conventional one.

In this paper, a new approach using quasi-self-complementary antenna (QSCA) to reduce the wideband mutual coupling is proposed and discussed. QSCA element proposed in this paper is composed of a semi-circular radiation patch and a complementary-cut ground plane, which is easy to achieve ultra-wideband operation because its impedance is frequency independent. The proposed compact four-element ultra-wideband (UWB) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) array consists of four QSCA elements, and by arranging them anticlockwise, a good impedance matching and high port-to-port isolation (|S11| covers 2.95-12.1 GHz with |S21| = |S31 |≤− 15 dB, |S41 |≤− 17. 8d B) can be achieved. Notably, the isolation is obtained without using any other decoupling methods and totally benefits from the asymmetrical radiation property of QSCA. As an example, the proposed four-element UWB MIMO array is fabricated and tested. And the measured radiation pattern, gains and total efficiencies are displayed and show good performances which make it a nice candidate for future UWB diversity applications.

A case-control study was conducted to investigate associations between organophosphate pesticide (OP) exposure, aggression, impulsivity, and attempted suicide. The purpose of this study was to explore whether genomic polymorphisms in the alpha 1(XI) collagen gene (COL11A1) were associated with the risk and severity of Kashin-Beck disease (KBD). Twenty-two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in COL11A1 were genotyped in 274 KBD cases and 249 healthy controls using the Sequenom MassARRAY system. The expression of type XI collagen (COL11A) in the knee articular cartilage of 22 KBD patients and 21 controls was analyzed by immunohistochemistry. Our results showed that the frequency distribution of genotypes of the rs2229783 polymorphism in COL11A1 was significantly different between the KBD and control groups (P = 0.0003). Moreover, the expression level of COL11A in cartilage was significantly lower in the KBD group than in the controls (t = 2.637, P = 0.02). However, no association was found between the rs2229783 and the severity of KBD, suggesting a role of COL11A1 in the susceptibility to but not the severity of KBD.

A reconflgurable half-mode substrate integrated waveg- uide (HMSIW) bandpass fllter (BPF) loaded by complementary split- ring resonator (CSRR) is investigated. The proposed HMSIW-CSRR structure allows the implementation of a forward-wave passband prop- agating below the characteristic cutofi frequency of the waveguide. By changing the efiective capacitance to ground of the CSRR, frequency tuning of the resonator is observed without other external circuit. The proposed fllter exhibits improved selectivity due to the employment of the pseudo-S defected structure to generate transmission zero at the low stopband. To verify the presented design method, the predicted compact reconflgurable fllter, tuned between 3.6GHz and 4.5GHz with insertion loss less than 3.6dB and return loss better than 17dB, is fabricated based on the standard printed circuit board process. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulation.

A new frequency reconflgurable unequal U-slot antenna is presented in this paper. The U-slot antenna loaded with two lumped variable varactors is capable of 6 difierent frequencies switching between 2.3GHz and 3.6GHz. The small slots in the ground plane are employed for the biasing circuit to minimize the parasitic efiects towards the performance of the antenna. It is found that the unequal U-slot fed by an L-shaped feed line can reduce 30% of the size of the conventional U-slot antenna. Moreover, the proposed antenna ofiers stable radiation characteristics for each operating frequency in the tunable range. The antenna ofiers a gain of 4.5dB in average. The designs are verifled through both numerical simulations and measurements of an experimental prototype. Details of the antenna designs and measured results are presented and discussed.

Objective To assess the three dimensional (3D) accuracy of deciduous tooth surface model reconstruction from cone-beam CT(CBCT) scans using image superimposition method. Methods 14 sound extracted human deciduous teeth were scanned by micro-CT and CBCT scanner. The digital tooth models reconstructed from CBCT scans were superimposed onto the standard model from micro-CT scans respectively. Distribution patterns of shape discrepancy were presented using histogram, as well as shown in different colors on the superimposed images. The voluminal discrepancy versus the volume of the standard image (RVD/VS) were calculated and analyzed, using t test. Results There was no statistically significant difference between deciduous anterior teeth and molars(P>0.05). The mean RVD/VS of digital tooth images obtained by CBCT scans was 3.932±4.038%, and significant difference were found (P