Differences between male and female leaves of Schisandra sphenanthera: based on RNA-Seq / 中国中药杂志

Schisandra sphenanthera is dioecious and only the fruits of female plants can be used as medicine and food. It is of great significance for the cultivation and production of S. sphenanthera to explore the differences between male and female plants at the non-flowering stage and develop the identification markers at non-flowering or seedling stage. In this study, the transcriptome of male and female leaves of S. sphenanthera at the non-flowering stage was sequenced by Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology and analyzed based on bioinformatics. A total of 236 682 transcripts were assembled by Trinity software and 171 588 were chosen as unigenes. Finally, 1 525 differentially expressed genes(DEGs) were identified, with 458 up-regulated and 1 067 down-regulated in female lea-ves. The down-regulated genes mainly involve photosynthesis, photosynthesis-antenna protein, carbon fixation in photosynthetic or-ganisms, and other pathways. Real-time quantitative PCR(qPCR) identified two genes between male and female leaves and one of them was a HVA22-like gene related to floral organ development and abscisic acid(ABA). Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) was applied to determine the content of ABA, auxin, gibberellin, and zeatin riboside(ZR) in leaves of S. sphenanthera. The results showed that the content of ABA and ZR in male leaves was significantly higher than that in female leaves. The involvement of down-regulated genes in female leaves in the photosynthesis pathway and the significant differences in the content of endogenous hormones between male and female leaves lay a scientific basis for analyzing the factors affecting sex differentiation of S. sphenanthera.

Analysis of bacterial community structure and diversity during mountain-agarwood formation / 中国中药杂志

As an important substitute for agarwood, mountain-agarwood, belonging to the family Oleaceae, comes from the root, stem and thick branch of Syringa pinnatifolia, which has a wide range of application in Inner Mongolia, China. It has good clinical efficacy in the use of cardiovascular diseases. However, the formation speed of mountain-agarwood is extremely slow, and its cultivated seedlings have low resin content. Therefore, how to speed up the formation of mountain-agarwood and increase the resin content is a hot research topic in this field. In this work, 16 S rDNA amplicon sequencing method was used to systematically analyze the bacterial communities of different samples of mountain-agarwood. Our data revealed that the samples of mountain-agarwood had more obvious species diversity than the ones of non-mountain-agarwood, especially the wild mountain-agarwood samples. By analysis of bacterial community composition and species abundance, Sphingomonas, Modestobacter and unidentified Cyanobacteria genus were three dominant bacterial genera in all samples. In addition, there are two identified genera of dominant bacteria, namely Actinoplanes and Microbacterium in both wild and cultivated mountain-agarwood, by bacterial community composition and species richness analysis. Meanwhile, Roseomonas was the dominant bacterial genus in both wild and cultivated non-mountain-agarwood samples. Our work could provides basic data for exploring the mechanism of the mountain-agarwood formation, and help to exploit resource of endophytic bacteria reasonably.

Microscopic histochemical comparison during mountain-agarwood formation / 中国中药杂志

Mountain-agarwood plays an important role in ethnic medicine in China for its pharmaceutical value. Modern pharmacological researches demonstrated that mountain-agarwood was effective for its anti-myocardial ischemia, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antitumor and analgesic effects. Mountain-agarwood derives from the peeled roots, stems or twigs of Syringa pinnatifolia which belongs to Syringa genus. It often depends on the purple substance and fragrance to estimate the formation of mountain-agarwood. However, the mechanism of mountain-agarwood formation has not been reported. To observe the microcosmic change in the process during the formation of mountain-agarwood, this study described the microscopic and histochemical characteristics of mountain-agarwood formation through histochemical staining. Our results showed that a significant difference of the distribution of tyloses existed during mountain-agarwood formation. It was observed that inchoate mountain-agarwood had more starch granules and viable cells than mountain-agarwood formed with high level or low level. The amount of polysaccharide and degree of lignification were increased during the mountain-agarwood formation. The results indicated that the mountain-agarwood, which meets the quality requirements for pharmaceutical use, contained the following characteristics: a large amount of purple tyloses in heartwood; yellow-brown tyloses distributing in heartwood and sapwood which were less in the latter; lignification with high level; a few viable cells; lots of polysaccharide and few starch granules in xylem rays cell. This study is aimed to reveal the change of histochemical characteristics during mountain-agarwood formation, and lay the foundation for exploring the mechanism of mountain-agarwood formation.

Advances on terpenoids from genus Syringa / 中国中药杂志

Syringa plants are of important value in ornamental, economic and medical fields. The terpenoids in Syringa plants mainly include iridoids, sesquiterpenoids, and triterpenoids, most showing activities such as cardioprotective, neuroprotective, hypoglycemic, anti-flu virus, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-oxidation effects. Among the above active compounds, sesquiterpenoids have attracted increasing attention. In this review, the phytochemical and pharmacological activities of Syringa terpenoids were summarized in order to provide an overview for further research and development of Syringa plants.

Analysis of bacteria distribution characteristics in different layers of agarwood based on Hiseq sequencing / 中国中药杂志

To explore the diversity of bacterial community structure between different layers of agarwood, Hiseq(high-throughput sequencing) was used to analyze the bacterial community structure of samples from different layers of agarwood. Our results showed that 1 150 096 optimized sequences and 9 690 OTUs were obtained from 15 samples of 5 layers of agarwood, which belonged to 28 bacterial phyla, 61 classes, 110 orders, 212 families and 384 genera. Further analysis revealed that the normal layer(NL) had the lowest bacterial species richness and the smallest number of OTUs. And the total number of OTUs of the agarwood layer(AL) and NL was zero, which was quite different.At the same time, there were significant differences in bacterial community structure and species diversity between NL and the other four layers. While there were some common dominant bacterial genera in both transition layer(TL) and NL. The similarity of bacterial distribution in 4 non-NL layers was relatively high, which had four common genera, such as Acidibacter, Bradyrhizobium, Acidothemus and Sphingomonas. While Acidibacter, Bradyrhizobium and Acidothemus were the dominant bacterial genus of DA and AL, and all of these layers contained volatile oil. In addition, the Bradyrhizobium was the most abundant in agarwood layer. Our results showed that bacterial community diversity and abundance were decreasing from DL to AL, and different layers showed significant differences in bacterial enrichment. It provided the clues to investigate how bacteria participate in the formation of agarwood.

Comparison of Intracorporeal and Extracorporeal Esophagojejunostomy after Laparoscopic Total Gastrectomy for Gastric Cancer: A Meta-Analysis Based on Short-Term Outcomes / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>Background:</b>Laparoscopic total gastrectomy (LTG) is increasingly performed in patients with gastric cancer. However, the usage of intracorporeal esophagojejunostomy (IEJ) following LTG is limited, as the safety and efficacy remain unclear. The present meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the feasibility and safety of IEJ following LTG.</p><p><b>Methods:</b>Studies published from January 1994 to January 2017 comparing the outcomes of IEJ and extracorporeal esophagojejunostomy (EEJ) following LTG were reviewed and collected from the PubMed, EBSCO, Cochrane Library, Embase, and China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI). Operative results, postoperative recovery, and postoperative complications were compared and analyzed. The weighted mean difference (WMD) and odds ratio (OR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using the Review Manager 5.3.</p><p><b>Results:</b>Seven nonrandomized studies with 785 patients were included. Compared with EEJ, IEJ has less blood loss (WMD: -13.52 ml; 95% CI: -24.82--2.22; P = 0.02), earlier time to first oral intake (WMD: -0.49 day; 95% CI: -0.83--0.14; P < 0.01), and shorter length of hospitalization (WMD: -0.62 day; 95% CI: -1.08--0.16; P < 0.01). There was no significant difference between IEJ and EEJ regarding the operation time, anastomotic time, number of retrieved lymph nodes, time to first flatus, anastomosis leakage rate, anastomosis stenosis rate, and proximal resections (all P > 0.05).</p><p><b>Conclusions</b>Compared with EEJ, IEJ has better cosmesis, milder surgical trauma, and a faster postoperative recovery. IEJ can be performed as safely as EEJ. IEJ should be encouraged to surgeons with sufficient expertise.</p>