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Objective: To analyze the levels of in vivo immunological indicators in patients with different types of malignanat lymphoma. Methods: A total of 69 patients with different types of malignanat lymphoma who were admitted in our hospital were included in the study, among which 31 had primary extranodular malignant lymphoma (extranodular group), and 38 had primary nodular malignant lymphoma (nodular group). Moreover, 34 patients with pure lymphnoditis were served as the control group. FCM and full-automatic speed scattering turbidimetry were used to detect T lymphocyte subsets proportion, IgG, IgA, IgM, C3, and C4 in the three groups. Results: The comparison of CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, NK cell proportion, and CD4+/CD8+ among the three groups was significantly different. When compared with the control group, CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, NK cell proportion, and CD4+/CD8+ in the extranodular group and nodular group were significantly reduced; moreover, CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, and CD4+/ CD8+ in the extranodular group were significantly lower than those in the nodular group, while NK cell in the extranodular group was significantly higher than that in the nodular group. The comparison of IgG, IgA, and C3 levels among the three groups was statistically significant. When compared with the control group, IgG and IgA levels in the extranodular group and nodular group were significantly elevated, while C3 level was significantly reduced, and the comparison between the extranodular group and nodular group between the two groups was statistically significant. IgM level in the extranodular group and nodular group was elevated, C4 level was reduced, but the comparison with the control group was not statistically significant. Spearman correlation analysis showed that CD3+ and CD4+ were significantly correlated with IgA, IgG, and C3. Conclusions: With the increasing of severity degree of lymphoma, the immunological level is reduced, while CD3+ and CD4+ are significantly correlated with IgA, IgG, and C3, indicating that detection of CD3+ and CD4+ proportion or IgA, IgG, and C3 contents in combined with pathological characteristics can evaluate the severity degree of malignant lymphoma in order to provide guidance for the clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Background Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is one of the proteins that contributes to the survival, growth, maintenance of neurons, and plays important roles in the pathophysiology of depression. It has been reported that depression is closely associated with the pathogenesis of acne vulgaris disease. But, there is no report of serum BDNF levels in patients with acne vulgaris. The study aimed to determine the potential association between BDNF and depressive symptoms in young adults with acne vulgaris. Methods In this analytical cross-sectional study, the serum BDNF levels were measured in peripheral blood samples of 20 consecutive acne vulgaris patients with depression and 98 consecutive acne vulgaris patients without depression and also compared it with a 59 healthy control group by using a ELISA. The potential correlation between the BDNF levels, interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and depressive symptoms such as nine-item patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Athens insomnia scale (AIS) were evaluated with multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results Our results showed that levels of BDNF expression were lower in consecutive acne vulgaris patients when compared with healthy control (P 0.05). Similarly, the overall area under the curve of receiver operating characteristic was 0.82, indicating the highly conserving of serum BDNF levels as an biomarker for screening of depression in young adults with acne vulgaris (72% sensitivity and 85% specificity). Conclusion Serum BDNF levels were decreased and negatively associated with depressive symptoms in young Chinese adults with acne vulgaris. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12888-019-2182-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Dioecious plant species represent an major component of terrestrial ecosystems. Little is known about sex-specific responses to soil salinity. Populus cathayana Rehd, which is a dioecious, deciduous tree, was employed as a test species in our study. In a semi-controlled environment, physiological responses to salinity were investigated in male and female P. cathayana cuttings, which were subjected to two salt regimes: 0 and 80 mM NaCl added to the Hoagland’s solution for one month growth. Relative to the control, the saline treatment significantly decreased net photosynthetic rate ( P n ), transpiration ( E ), stomatal conductance ( g s ), carotenoids (Caro), chlorophyll a (Chl a ), total chlorophyll (TC) and catalase (CAT) activity, but increased Na + , Ca 2+ , K + , malondialdehyde (MDA) content, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and carbon isotope composition ( δ 13 C) in both sexes. Different sensitivity to saline conditions between males and females was detected. With higher soil salinity, females exhibited lower P n , Chl a , TC, Chl a / b , Ca 2+ , Ca 2+ /Na + , K + /Na + , SOD and CAT activities but higher Na + and MDA content than males. However, there were no significant differences in these traits (except for SOD and CAT activities) detected in the control group. Our results indicated that males may be more tolerate to salinity than females, with females having lower gas exchanges, chlorophyll pigments, antioxidant enzyme activities, K + /Na + ratio and water use efficiency (WUE) than males.

Reciprocally patchy environments, where the availability of two resources are patchily distributed and negatively correlated in each patch, are common in many ecosystems. Interconnected ramets of clonal plants can specialize in the uptake of locally abundant resources. Ramet pairs of the stoloniferous herb Duchesnea indica were grown in reciprocally patchy environments i.e., one ramet of a pair was grown in the high light but low water patch (high light patch) and the other in the low light but high water patch (high water patch). Biomass allocation pattern (root-shoot ratio), morphological traits (leaf area and root length) and physiological traits (photosynthetic rate and chlorophyll content) were altered in a way that potentially enables ramets to enhance the capture of the locally abundant resource (i.e., increase the capture of light resource in the high light patch and of water in the high water patch). As a result,biomass and number of ramets in the connected ramet pairs were greatly improved. Functional specialization of ramets, modified by clonal integration, may have contributed greatly to the growth increase of D. indica in the reciprocally patchy environment.

Aims In natural environments, resources of critical importance to plant growth are patchily distributed, even at a small spatial scale. The aims of this study are to address: 1) Centella asiatica exploitation of heterogeneous microsites in different habitats, 2) hierarchical effects of habitats and microsites with different herbaceous coverage on growth traits of C. asiatica, and 3) differences in hierarchical response patterns for large and small scales of heterogeneous habitats. Methods Microsites with low and high herbaceous coverage were selected in abandoned grassland slope and forest edge habitats. We measured morphological and physiological characteristics of C. asiatica in spring 2004 and 2005 at three levels: ramet population, clonal fragment and leaf. Environmental factors of different microsites were investigated again in September 2006. Important findings At the ramet population level, we observed no effect of habitat (forest edge vs. abandoned grassland slope). Root-shoot ratio of ramet population with low herbaceous coverage was significantly higher than that with high herbaceous coverage. At the level of clonal fragment, root dry weight, flower and fruit dry weight were significantly higher and internode length of primary and total stolons were shorter on abandoned grassland slope. Root-shoot ratio and number of primary stolons were significantly larger with low herbaceous coverage, but flower and fruit dry weight, internode length of secondary stolon and internode length of total stolon were lower. At the leaf level, lamina length, lamina width and lamina area were larger on abandoned grassland slope and with high herbaceous coverage. Plants with high herbaceous coverage had larger petiole length and specific petiole length. No significant effects of habitat and microsite on chlorophyll content were observed. These findings indicated that there were hierarchical effects of habitat and microsite on the growth traits of C. asiatica, and different hierarchical responses of C. asiatica to different habitats and microsites with different herbaceous coverage were observed. Plastic response to heterogeneous habitat is stronger at smaller scale than that at larger scale.

In order to obtain substantial clonal plants, we studied the cuttings propagation technology.The cutting roots and stems of Acanthopanax trifoliatus were used as plant materials, and different materias, seasons and other conditions for cutting propagation were tested.It showed that the survival rate of stem segments was higher than that of root segments. The test of age of plant materials found that high survival rate could be obtained from semi-lignified stem segments and the segments from the base stem could survive successfully. Autumn was more suitable for plants' survival. Moreover, the rooting rate reached 89.4% by inserting segments with leaves into sand soil after dipping into 1500 mg/L IBA for 10 s, and with plastic membrane and shading net covered.The rooting rate can increase significantly by collecting semi-lignified basal stems in autumn, cutting them for leaf cuttings, and inserting them into sand soil after dipping into 1500 mg/L IBA for 10 s.