Profiles of blood pressure among children and adolescents with different body mass index categories in Shandong, China.

BACKGROUND: The International Obesity Task Force recently developed an extended body mass index (BMI) cut-offs for screening thinness, overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. The present study examined the profiles of blood pressure (BP) among children and adolescents with different BMI categories in Shandong, China. METHODS: Data for this study were obtained from a large cross-sectional survey of schoolchildren. A total of 44,630 students (22,404 boys and 22,226 girls) aged 7-18 years participated in this study. The grades of body weight (thinness grade 1-3, normal weight, overweight and obesity grade 1-3) was defined by the international BMI cut-offs. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were measured on one occasion. High BP was defined as SBP and/or DBP ≥95th percentile for age and gender. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of thinness (grade 1-3), overweight and obesity (grade 1-3) were 7.80, 18.74 and 8.56% for boys and 11.16, 13.53 and 3.70% for girls, respectively, boys had a lower prevalence of thinness and higher prevalence of overweight and obesity than girls (p < .01). Urban boys and girls had a lower prevalence of thinness and higher prevalence of overweight and obesity than their rural counterparts (p < .01). Children and adolescents with high BMI had a higher BP levels than their counterparts with normal and low BMI. CONCLUSION: High BMI is strongly related to elevated BP. Our findings emphasize the importance of the prevention of overweight/obesity to prevent future-related problems such as hypertension in children and adolescents.

[Analysis of genotype IV distribution of hepatitis E virus infections in Wuhan by sequencing the open reading frame 3 gene].

OBJECTIVE: To determine the distribution of genotype IV among hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections in Wuhan by sequencing the open reading frame (ORF) 3 gene of HEV clinical isolates. METHODS: Serum samples were collected from 103 individuals who tested positive for the anti-HEV IgM antibody, and total HEV RNA was extracted for targeted gene sequencing analysis. Reverse transcription-nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify two fragments of the ORF3 gene (5020 to 5392 nt and 5347 to 5956 nt, EF570133). The two PCR products were sequenced and the sequences were stitched with the ContigExpress program and used to determine the HEV genotype. RESULTS: Both ORF3 gene fragments were amplified in 18 out of the 103 anti-HEV IgM-positive serum samples. These 18 HEV isolates shared 92.5% to 99.4% identity with each other at the nucleotide level. Nucleotide sequence homology analysis of the HEV genotypes I, II, III, and IV indicated the highest homology was with genotype IV; specifically, homology with genotype I was 83.5% to 86.7%, with genotype II was 83.2% to 85.2%, with genotype III was 84.6% to 87.2%, and with genotype IV was 92.0% to 96.5%. CONCLUSION: Targeted sequencing of the HEV ORF3 gene facilitated genotyping of clinical isolates. Using this method, it was determined that nearly 20% of HEV clinical isolates from Wuhan belong to genotype IV.

Human leukocyte antigen-C and killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor gene polymorphisms among patients with syphilis in a Chinese Han population.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum spirochete bacterium. The killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR), interacting with human leukocyte antigens (HLA), regulate the activations of natural killer (NK) cells and certain T-cell subsets in response to microbe infection. The objective of this study was to explore whether KIR and HLA-C gene polymorphisms were associated with syphilis in a Chinese Han population. Polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) method was used to genotype KIR and HLA-C genes in 231 syphilis patients and 247 healthy controls. Framework genes KIR2DL4, KIR3DL2, KIR3DL3 and KIR3DP1 were present in all individuals. The frequencies of KIR2DS3 and KIR3DS1 were higher in syphilis patients than in healthy controls (p = 0.030 and p = 0.038, respectively), while the frequency of KIR2DS5 was higher in healthy controls than in syphilis patients (p = 0.015; OR = 0.575). The homozygote for HLA-C1 allele (HLA-C1C1) was more common in controls compared with syphilis patients (p = 0.030; OR = 0.667). The frequency of individuals with HLA-C1C1 and KIR2DL3 genotype was higher in control group relative to syphilis patient group (p = 0.018; OR = 0.647). These data indicated that KIR2DS3 and KIR3DS1 were more prevalent in syphilis patients than in controls, and that KIR2DS5, HLA-C1C1 and HLA-C1C1-KIR2DL3 were more prevalent in controls than in syphilis patients, respectively. These will require further investigation using functional studies.