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Yanru Pei,* Mingyue Shi,* Juanjuan Song, Xiaona Niu, Shengjie Wei, Liurui Dou, Mengyu Xiao, Dan Li, Fangfang Xu, Yanliang Bai, Kai Sun Department of Hematology, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Henan, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Kai Sun; Yanliang BaiDepartment of Hematology, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, No. 7 Weiwu Road, Jinshui District, Zhengzhou, Henan, 450003, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-18237110038; +86-13783605211Email sunkai@cellscience.org; yanliangbai@126.comBackground: Hemorrhagic complications are the most common cause of early death in patients with APL and remain a major challenge in the management of APL. Early fatal bleeding events occur not only in high-risk but also in non-high-risk acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) patients with normal or low WBC counts.Objectives and Methods: To demonstrate the role of the absolute number of circulating leukemic cells in early bleeding events in APL patients. Clinical and laboratory characteristics of 149 patients newly diagnosed with APL were obtained from medical records and retrospectively investigated.Results: In this study, circulating absolute leukemic cells were positively correlated with the WBC count (r=0.9813, p< 0.001) in all patients with APL, and importantly, they were strongly associated with significant bleeding events in non-high-risk patients. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the absolute number of leukemia cells was an independent risk factor for significant bleeding events in APL patients. A cut-off value of 2.59× 109/L for circulating leukemic cells to predict significant bleeding events in APL patients was obtained by ROC curve analysis. We further confirmed that the significant bleeding rate of patients with non-high-risk APL was statistically increased when the absolute number of circulating leukemic cells was ≥ 2.59× 109/L.Conclusion: Circulating leukemic cell content has great clinical value for predicting early bleeding events in APL patients, especially in non-high-risk APL.Keywords: circulating leukemic cells, early fatal bleeding events, non-high-risk acute promyelocytic leukemia

Cytoplasmic vacuoles, which are a morphological feature of dysplasia, can be observed under a microscope at initial diagnosis. Recently, this typical morphological feature has been found to be associated with impaired survival. To investigate the clinical significance of the grading of blasts with vacuoles in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), we retrospectively studied 152 patients newly diagnosed with non-M3 AML. The patients were categorized into three groups according to the percentage of blasts with vacuoles (>20 %, 11-20 %, 0-10 %). A high percentage of blasts with vacuoles (>20 %) was positively associated with the European Leukemia Net (2017-ELN) high-risk AML, a complex karyotype, TP53 and IDH1/2 mutations, and CD71 expression and negatively associated with the ELN low-risk category. Importantly, patients who had a higher percentage of blasts with vacuoles had a lower complete remission rate in response to first-cycle induction chemotherapy. The overall survival and event-free survival of patients who had a higher percentage of blasts with vacuoles were significantly shorter. Moreover, multivariate analysis showed that blast vacuolization was an independent high prognostic factor for AML. In conclusion, a higher percentage of leukemic blasts with vacuoles predicts worse outcomes in AML and may have potential as a prognostic marker.

Background Thinopyrum ponticum (2n = 10× = 70, JSJSJSJSJJJJJJ) is an important wild perennial Triticeae species that has a unique gene pool with many desirable traits for common wheat. The partial amphiploids derived from wheat-Th. ponticum set up a bridge for transferring valuable genes from Th. ponticum into common wheat. Results In this study, genomic in situ hybridization (GISH), multicolor GISH (mcGISH) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) were used to analyze the genomic constitution of SN0389, SN0398 and SN0406, three octoploid accessions with good resistance to rust. The results demonstrated that the three octoploids possessed 42 wheat chromosomes, while SN0389 contained 12 Th. ponticum chromosomes and SN0398 and SN0406 contained 14 Th. ponticum chromosomes. The genomic constitution of SN0389 was 42 W + 12JS, and for SN0398 and SN0406 it was 42 W + 12JS + 2 J. Chromosomal variation was found in chromosomes 1A, 3A, 6A, 2B, 5B, 6B, 7B, 1D and 5D of SN0389, SN0398 and SN0406 based on the FISH and McGISH pattern. A resistance evaluation showed that SN0389, SN0398 and SN0406 possessed good resistance to stripe and leaf rust at the seedling stage and adult-plant stage. Conclusions The results indicated that these wheat-Th. ponticum partial amphiploids are new resistant germplasms for wheat improvement.

Carbon neutrality is a long-term climate goal in the context of global warming and can be achieved by reducing carbon emissions and increasing carbon sinks. Vegetation has a very important and irreplaceable role in increasing carbon sinks, but it is often destroyed, especially in desertification and mining areas. Therefore, restoration of the vegetation in these areas is essential. Seeking the optimal solution for landscape spatial structure through adjustment and optimization can promote ecological processes, improve environment and soil conditions on a large scale, provide favorable conditions for vegetation growth, and is an effective way to achieve vegetation restoration to increase carbon sinks. Here, a targeted landscape spatial structure optimization scheme called EFCT model was developed for complex ecological situation of Ordos, with the goal of increasing carbon sinks to achieve carbon neutrality. The scheme identified areas where the landscape spatial structure needs to be optimized and the direction of optimization based on the differences in the synergy degree between ecological function and connectivity of the patches. The study also compared the carbon sink function and robustness of the landscape spatial structure before and after optimization according to the scheme. The results show that the patches in the landscape spatial structure of Ordos form four separate clusters distributed in a differentiated east-west part of the structure, with higher ecological function and poorer connectivity in the east and the opposite in the west. In the landscape spatial structure optimized by the EFCT model, the ecological function of 42 patches was enhanced, and 19 patches and 44 corridors were added. The total carbon sink in the optimized structure increased by 31.51% compared to the unoptimized structure, mainly due to the improved ecological function of the grassland patches in the western structure, in addition to the carbon sink contribution of the new patches and corridors. At the same time, the connectivity between the four clusters had been enhanced and the structure was more coherent and stable.

The diagnosis and monitoring of aplastic anemia (AA) rely heavily on a complete blood count (CBC), and multiple-site bone marrow (BM) aspirations and biopsies. However, these approaches have certain limitations. We aimed to assess high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a complementary approach for evaluating BM hypoplasia and monitoring treatment response in adults with AA in the current era. Twelve newly diagnosed AA patients and 12 sex- and age-matched healthy controls were enrolled in this study from January 2017 to August 2018. A bilateral iliac 3.0T MRI was used to collect data for each subject, and the signal intensity on the T1-weighted images (T1WIs) were expressed as a contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). The MRI, CBC, and BM biopsy data were analyzed and compared. A qualitative analysis identified a significant difference in MRI signal characteristics between the AA group and the healthy control group. The clinical classifications of very severe aplastic anemia (VSAA) and severe aplastic anemia (SAA) corresponded to pattern I and pattern II on the MR images, respectively. However, this imaging classification did not correlate with the biopsy-based BM cellularity measure. A quantitative analysis showed a significantly higher signal intensity in AA patients than in controls. A within-group comparison revealed that more severe types of AA, based on the clinical classification, corresponded to stronger signals. Notably, MRI could detect treatment response earlier than CBC, regardless of whether there were improvements in hematopoiesis. MRI can be used to predict the therapeutic effects in patients with AA and is an important complementary tool for evaluating and monitoring BM hypoplasia.