[MRI anatomy and injury of the lateral collateral ligaments of ankle].

Objective: To explore the MRI features of the lateral collateral ligament injuries of the ankle and determine the value MRI in diagnosing the ligament injuries of the ankle. Methods: The study was reviewed and approved by an institutional review board of hospital. Retrospective analysised 10 healthy volunteers and 26 ankle injury cases underwent surgery since January 2013 to September 2016, the MR imaging findings of patients were compared with volunteers' and operative documents, to analysis the MRI feature of the ligament injuries of the ankle. Results: The normal anterior talofibular ligament and posterior talofibular ligament can be manifest in 3-4 layers of MRI, and can be fully displayed in 1 layer. The normal calcaneofibular ligament can be manifest in 3 layers of MRI, but can not be fully displayed in 1 layer. 26 cases of lateral ligament injury (including 1 case of ATFL injury, 1 case of CFL injury, 3 cases of ATFL conjunction with CFL injury, 3 cases of ATFL conjunction with CFL and PTFL injury) manifested the heterogeneous signal of the T(1)-weighted image, the ligament disruption, the increased signal intensity on fat-suppression PD-weighted image , the surrounding soft tissue edema and bone marrow edema. Conclusion: MR imaging is an accurate method for evaluation of the ligament injuries of the ankle, and it is a useful tool for diagnosis and treatment.

[Classification and MR imaging of triangular fibrocartilage complex lesions].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the MRI characteristics of injuries of triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC), and provide imaging basis for the early diagnosis and treatment of the injuries. METHODS: A total of 10 healthy volunteers without wrist injuries and 200 patients from Beijing Jishuitan Hospital who complained ulnar-sided wrist pain and were highly suspected as the injury of TFCC underwent the wrist magnetic resonance examination. All subjects were in a prone position and underwent examination on coronal T1WI scan and PD-FS on 3 planes respectively. Then the MRI characteristics of 3 healthy volunteers and 67 patients with TFCC injuries that confirmed by operation were analyzed. According to the comparative analysis of normal anatomy and Palmer classification, the injuries were classified and MRI features of different types of injuries were analyzed. At last, imaging findings were compared with surgical results. RESULTS: Three healthy volunteers without injuries showed mainly in low signal intensity on T1WI and PD-FS images. According to Palmer classification, there were 52 traumatic injuries (ⅠA 9, ⅠB 25, ⅠC 3, ⅠD 13, In addition, 1 has central perforation and ulnar avulsion and 1 has ulnar and radial injuries simultaneously) and 15 degenerative injuries (ⅡA 5, ⅡB 1, ⅡC 2 , ⅡD 1 , ⅡE 6) among 67 patients. The central perforation mainly demonstrated as linear high signal perpendicular to the disk, and run in a sagittal line. The ulnar, distal, and radial avulsion mainly showed the injuries were irregular, the structures were ambiguous, and there was high signal intensity in the injured structures on PD-FS. Degenerative injuries demonstrated the irregularity of TFC and heterogeneous signals on PD-FS. There were mixed intermediate-high signals and changes in the articular cartilage of lunate and ulna, high signal in the lunotriquetral ligament and ulnocarpal or radioulnar arthritis. CONCLUSION: MRI can demonstrate the anatomy of TFCC accurately, evaluate and make the general classification of injuries. It is of significance for the early diagnosis and treatment protocols of the TFCC injuries.

Genetic diversity in the germplasm of black pepper determined by EST-SSR markers.

This study aimed to assess genetic diversity in the germplasm of black pepper from around the world using SSR markers from EST. In total, 13 markers were selected and successfully amplified the target loci across the black pepper germplasm. All the EST-SSR markers showed high levels of polymorphisms with an average polymorphism information content of 0.93. The genetic similarity coefficients among all accessions ranged from 0.724 to 1.000, with an average of 0.867. These results indicated that black pepper germplasms possess a complex genetic background and high genetic diversity. Based on a cluster analysis, 148 black pepper germplasms were grouped in two major clades: the Neotropics and the Asian tropics. Peperomia pellucida was grouped separately and distantly from all other accessions. These results generally agreed with the genetic and geographic distances. However, the Asian tropics clade did not cluster according to their geographic origins. In addition, compared with the American accessions, the Asian wild accessions and cultivated accessions grouped together, indicating a close genetic relationship. This verified the origin of black pepper. The newly developed EST-SSRs are highly valuable resources for the conservation of black pepper germplasm diversity and for black pepper breeding.

Construction of a cDNA library and preliminary analysis of expressed sequence tags in Piper hainanense.

Black pepper is a perennial climbing vine. It is widely cultivated because its berries can be utilized not only as a spice in food but also for medicinal use. This study aimed to construct a standardized, high-quality cDNA library to facilitated identification of new Piper hainanense transcripts. For this, 262 unigenes were used to generate raw reads. The average length of these 262 unigenes was 774.8 bp. Of these, 94 genes (35.9%) were newly identified, according to the NCBI protein database. Thus, identification of new genes may broaden the molecular knowledge of P. hainanense on the basis of Clusters of Orthologous Groups and Gene Ontology categories. In addition, certain basic genes linked to physiological processes, which can contribute to disease resistance and thereby to the breeding of black pepper. A total of 26 unigenes were found to be SSR markers. Dinucleotide SSR was the main repeat motif, accounting for 61.54%, followed by trinucleotide SSR (23.07%). Eight primer pairs successfully amplified DNA fragments and detected significant amounts of polymorphism among twenty-one piper germplasm. These results present a novel sequence information of P. hainanense, which can serve as the foundation for further genetic research on this species.

Combining polymerase chain reaction restriction enzyme analysis with phenotypic characters for mycobacteria identification in Taiwan.

SETTING: Many hospitals use the fully-automated BACTEC 960 Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) system and acid-fast staining to detect acid-fast bacilli (AFB) in clinical specimens; however, labour-intensive biochemical methods are used for further mycobacterial species identification. OBJECTIVE: To develop a user-friendly algorithm for mycobacterial species identification from AFB smear-positive BACTEC tubes. DESIGN: AFB smear-positive BACTEC tubes were collected and mycobacteria were isolated and identified by biochemical methods. The tubes were subgrouped by rpoB duplex polymerase chain reaction restriction enzyme analysis (rpoB DPRA). The results were combined with key phenotypic characters of mycobacteria isolated from the tubes to develop a species identification algorithm with 16S rDNA sequencing of the isolate being used as the gold standard method. RESULTS: By rpoB DPRA, 441 AFB smear-positive BACTEC tubes were correctly subgrouped into 100 tubes containing Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, 335 tubes containing non-tuberculous mycobacteria and six tubes containing both. A species identification algorithm was developed by combining the rpoB DPRA results of the tubes with growth rate, photoreactivity and two biochemical results of mycobacteria recovered from the tubes. CONCLUSION: This user-friendly algorithm can be used for mycobacterial species identification from AFB smear-positive BACTEC tubes.