Characterization of Fusarium species causing head blight of highland barley (qingke) in Tibet, China.

Most of the research on the characterization of Fusarium species focused on wheat, barley, rice, and maize in China. However, there has been limited research in highland barley (qingke). Recently, Fusarium head blight (FHB) of qingke was recently observed in Tibet, China, especially around the Brahmaputra River. To gain a better understanding of the pathogens involver, 201 Fusarium isolates were obtained from qingke samples in 2020. Among these isolates, the most abundant species was F. avenaceum (45.3 %), followed by F. equiseti (27.8 %), F. verticillioides (13.9 %), F. acuminatum (9.0 %), F. flocciferum (3.5 %), and F. proliferatum (0.5 %). The distribution of Fusarium species varied along the Brahmaputra River, with F. avenaceum being predominant in the midstream and downstream regions, while F. equiseti was more common in the upstream region. Chemical analyses of all the isolates revealed the production of different mycotoxins by various Fusarium species. It was found that enniatins were produced by F. acuminatum, F. avenaceum, and F. flocciferum, beauvericin (BEA) and fumonisins were produced F. proliferatum and F. verticillioides, and zearalenone (ZEN) and nivalenol (NIV) were produced by F. equiseti. Pathogenicity test showed that F. avenaceum was more aggressive in causing FHB compared to F. acuminatum, F. equiseti, and F. flocciferum. The disease severity, measured by the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC), was significantly positively (P < 0.01) correlated with the concentration of total toxins produced by each species. Furthermore, all the Fusarium strains which were used for pathogenicity test were susceptible to carbendazim, and the 50 % effective concentration (EC50) ranged from 0.406 µg/mL to 0.673 µg/mL with an average EC50 of 0.551 ± 0.012 µg/mL.

Primary gastric choriocarcinoma: A case report.

Background: Choriocarcinoma is a malignant tumour of trophoblastic origin. Most are gestational choriocarcinomas, which usually occur in women with an epithelial origin of the placental chorionic villi and are associated with pregnancy. It mainly originates in the gonads such as the ovaries and testes. However, it rarely occurs in the stomach and is known as primary choriocarcinoma (PGC). Case presentation: A 69-year-old man complained of abdominal distention for 3 years, which worsened 1 week later. Gastroscopy showed chronic atrophic gastritis C1 (C1: indicates atrophic gastritis involving the sinus region); the pathology report of the gastroscopic specimen showed high-grade epithelial tumours in the mucosal glands. We diagnosed an occupying lesion in the stomach and performed a laparoscopically assisted distal gastrectomy and Billroth type 1 anastomosis. Postoperative pathology showed "gastric choriocarcinoma with cancerous tissue invading the entire gastric wall". The patient was discharged on the 11th postoperative day as there were no postoperative complications. The patient was followed up until June 2022 with a good recovery and no recurrence. Conclusion: We encountered a case of Primary Gastric Choriocarcinoma, where the cancerous tissue invades the full thickness of the gastric wall.

Study on the molecular mechanism of nightshade in the treatment of colon cancer.

The present study attempts to explore the effective components, action targets, and potential mechanism of nightshade for colon cancer treatment. The relationship network diagram of 'traditional Chinese medicine - component - target - disease' was firstly constructed by employing network pharmacology. Experiments were conducted in vivo and in vitro to verify the influence of quercetin, the core effective component of nightshade, on colon cancer. Meanwhile, the regulatory effects of quercetin on core targets and main signaling pathways were determined. Based on the network diagram of 'traditional Chinese medicine - component - target - disease' and KEGG analysis, quercetin might exhibit certain effects on colon cancer treatment by regulating the biological behavior of core targets related to cell apoptosis in tumors including PIK3R1, PIK3CA, Akt1, and Akt2. Furthermore, quercetin has been demonstrated in vitro experiments to suppress the proliferation and migration of colon cancer cells whereas promote their apoptosis in a dose-dependent fashion. In vivo experiments indicate that quercetin had an antitumor effect on human colon cancer SW480 cells in nude mice bearing tumors. Furthermore, PIK3CA could bind to quercetin directly, which is validated by immunocoprecipitation. Therefore, the activation of PI3K/AKT phosphorylation was inhibited by quercetin and moreover the expressions of apoptotic proteins caspase-3 and Bcl2-Associated X protein (BAX) were up-regulated. In conclusion, the potential mechanism of nightshade lies in the activation of the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway inhibited by quercetin, thus promoting apoptosis of colon cancer cells for colon cancer treatment.

[Effects of cytosolic bacteria on cyclic GMP-AMP synthase expression in human gingival tissues and periodontal ligament cells].

OBJECTIVE: This work aims to determine the effect of cytosolic bacteria on the expression of cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS) in human periodontal ligament cells (hPDLCs) and gingival tissues. METHODS: The ability of Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) to invade hPDLCs was detected using laser scanning confocal microscope assay at a multiplicity of infection of 10. P. gingivalis-infected cells were sorted by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). Then, quantitative real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and Western blot were used to detect cGAS expression in infected cells. Finally, the location and expression of cGAS in inflammatory and normal gingival tissues were investigated by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: P. gingivalis actively invaded hPDLCs. Moreover, cGAS expression significantly increased in P. gingivalis-infected cells. Although cGAS was expressed in the epithelial and subepithelial cells of both inflamed and normal gingival tissues, cGAS expression significantly increased in inflamed gingival tissues. CONCLUSIONS: Cytosolic bacteria can upregulate cGAS expression in infected cells. These data suggest that cGAS may act as pattern-recognition receptors and participate in recognizing cytosolic nucleic acid pathogen-associated molecular patterns.
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Fast and Orthogonal Locality Preserving Projections for Dimensionality Reduction.

The locality preserving projections (LPP) algorithm is a recently developed linear dimensionality reduction algorithm that has been frequently used in face recognition and other applications. However, the projection matrix in LPP is not orthogonal, thus creating difficulties for both reconstruction and other applications. As the orthogonality property is desirable, orthogonal LPP (OLPP) has been proposed so that an orthogonal projection matrix can be obtained based on a step by step procedure; however, this makes the algorithm computationally more expensive. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a fast and orthogonal version of LPP, called FOLPP, which simultaneously minimizes the locality and maximizes the globality under the orthogonal constraint. As a result, the computation burden of the proposed algorithm can be effectively alleviated compared with the OLPP algorithm. Experimental results on two face recognition data sets and two hyperspectral data sets are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

[Qualitative analysis of bis-(3'-5')-cyclic dimeric adenosine monophosphate of Porphyromonas gingivalis by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry].

OBJECTIVE: To test whether Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) could produce bacterial signal molecule, bis-(3'-5')-cyclic dimeric adenosine monophosphate (c-di-AMP) and lay the foundation for explorations of its roles in life metabolism and periodontitis immunity of P. gingivalis. METHODS: P. gingivalis standard strain ATCC33277 was used as the experimental strain to extract nucleic acids from the bacteria. Then, c-di-AMP was detected using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Subsequently, HPLC was used to validate the sample further. RESULTS: Based on the signal/noise (S/N) for 3 : 1, the limit of determination of HPLC-MS/MS for peak time of c-di-AMP standard substances was 7.49 min and nucleic acid extractions from P. gingivalis was 8.82 min (S/N > 3). Further confirmation of HPLC showed that nucleic acid extractions from both P. gingivalis and c-di-AMP standard substances pre- sented goal absorbent peaks at 15.7 min, with the same ultraviolet absorbent spectrum. CONCLUSION: The nucleic acid extrac- tions from P. gingivalis contained c-di-AMP, which shows that P. gingivalis could produce c-di-AMP.

DNA barcoding identification of Dermestidae species.

Dermestidae species are important stored product insects. The traditional morphological identification has its limitation. The purpose of the study is to explore the effectiveness of identification by DNA barcoding technology in Dermestidae. The COI gene sequences of 39 samples from 17 species of Dermestidae were analyzed, and we evaluated the identification ability of the sequences by the tree building method and the distance evaluation method in this study. The COI sequences whose length was 356 bp had a large difference between intra-specific and inter-specific and a significant barcoding gap. The success rate of identification was 92.5%. The results showed a certain feasibility to identify the most species of Dermestidae by this segment of COI.

[Analysis of risk factor of hyperlactacidemia after gastrointestinal surgery: a clinical data analysis of 216 patients].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the risk factors that cause arterial blood lactate (Lac) elevation in patients after gastrointestinal operation. METHODS: The data of 216 patients who had undergone gastrointestinal operation, and transferred to intensive care unit (ICU) of Ningxia Medical University General Hospital from November 2013 to November 2014 were retrospectively analyzed. According to the initial level of blood Lac after operation, the patients were divided into two groups: high Lac group (Lac > 2 mmol/L, n = 100) and normal Lac group (Lac ≤ 2 mmol/L, n = 116). The baseline data of two groups were recorded as follows: (1) baseline data: gender, age, preoperative acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II (APACHE II ) score, previous diseases, initial Lac level after operation; (2) preoperative risk factors: 24-hour total amount of fluid, and the amount of colloid for resuscitation; (3) intraoperative risk factors: the proportion of emergency operation, operation time, site of operation, usage of antibacterial drug, the highest and lowest mean arterial pressure and its difference (MAPmax, MAPmin, A MAP), total amount of fluid and colloid for resuscitation. The risk factors of increasing Lac post gastrointestinal operation was evaluated using multiple linear regression analysis. RESULTS: (1) There were no significant differences in baseline data such as gender, age, preoperative APACHE II score and previous diseases between the two groups (all P > 0.05). Initial Lac-level in high Lac group was significantly higher than that of normal Lac group (mmol/L: 5.1 ± 3.6 vs. 1.3 ± 0.4, t = 10.584, P = 0.000). (2) There were no significant differences in 24-hour amount of fluid and colloid for resuscitation before operation, and intraoperative MAPmax between two groups. Compared with normal Lac group, intraoperative A MAP [ mmHg (1 mmHg = 0.133 kPa): 35.8 ± 14.4 vs. 28.7 ± 13.7, t = 3.727, P = 0.000], the proportion of emergency operations (19.0% vs. 9.5%, χ² = 9.869, P = 0.007), intraoperative transfusion volume [mL: 4 500 (3 500, 5 800) vs. 3,700 (2,812, 5,075), Z = -3.244, P = 0.001], intraoperative colloid volume [mL: 1,000 (1,000, 1,900) vs. 1,000 (1,000, 1,787 ), Z = -2.347, P = 0.019], and operation time (minutes: 222.0 ± 91.5 vs. 187.0 ± 75.9, t = 3.026, P = 0.003) in high Lac group were significantly increased, and the levels of intraoperative MAPmin (mmHg: 68.7 ± 11.6 vs. 75.9 ± 10.6, t = -4.716, P = 0.000) and intraoperative antibiotics usage (62.0% vs. 86.2%, χ² = 18.318, P = 0.000) were significantly decreased. (3) The patients undergoing operation of esophagus, stomach, duodenal and intestine, and colon accounted for 6.9%, 22.7%, 16.7%, and 53.7%, respectively, their Lac was 2.8 (1.6, 5.4), 2.3 (1.2, 5.8), 2.5 (1.5, 5.2), 1.7 (1.1, 2.9) mmol/L, respectively, indicating that surgical site had an influence on the occurrence of postoperative hyperlactacidemia (χ² = 11.032, P = 0.012). (4) It was showed by multiple linear regression analysis that the operation site (t = -2.725, P = 0.007), MAPmin (t = -4.533, P = 0.000), non-antibiotics usage during operation (t = 2.441, P = 0.016) were the risk factors of Lac increase in patients after gastrointestinal operation. (5) The incidence of postoperative incipient procalcitonin (PCT) increase (PCT > 0.5 g/L) in patients and usage of antibiotics was significantly lower than that in patients who did not receive antibiotics during operation [17.89% (17/95) vs. 67.74% (21/31), χ² = 27.572, P = 0.000]. CONCLUSIONS: The surgical site showed an influence on the occurrence of hyperlactacidemia in patients after gastrointestinal operation, and the lowest occurrence rate was found in the colonic operation. In patients suffering from gastrointestinal operation, antibiotics should be routinely used to improve MAP. Excessive preoperative and intraoperative fluid infusion cannot reduce the occurrence of hyperlactacidemia.