Enzymatic mechanism of organic nitrogen conversion and ammonia formation during vegetable waste composting using two amendments.

Elucidating the mechanism of nitrogen conversion during composting is crucial for controlling nutrient loss and improving the quality of compost. To explore the enzymatic mechanism of organic conversion during composting, composting experiments using vegetable waste and chicken manure mixed with wheat straw and corn stalk as two separate treatments: WS and CS, respectively, were conducted in 63 L aerated static pile reactors for 33 d. The changes in the nitrogen fractions and related-enzymes activities were analyzed during different periods. The total nitrogen content increased by 34.3% during WS and decreased by 6.22% during CS after 33d of composting. The ammounium nitrogen content decreased by 79.6% and 51.4% during WS and CS. The nitrate, nitrite, organic, acid-insoluble organic nitrogen contents increased by approximately 52.6-123.9%, 590.9-5875%, 59.1-213.8%, and 764.4-7834.1%, respectively. The amount of total hydrolysable organic nitrogen increased by 18.8% during WS and decreased by 26.7% in CS. Structural equation modeling revealed that the contributions of different types of nitrogen to the formation of NH4+ during WS composting decreased as follows: amine nitrogen (AN) > amino acid nitrogen (AAN) > amino sugar nitrogen (ASN) > hydrolysable unknown nitrogen (HUN), while the corresponding nitrogen contributions during CS decreased as follows: AAN > AN > HUN > ASN. The AN and AAN were most easily converted into NH4+ during WS and CS, respectively, while ASN was synthesized from NH4+ during vegetable waste composting. Using redundancy analysis it was revealed that nitrate reductase (50.1%), nitrite reductase (23.2%) and urease (7.1%) played leading roles in nitrogen transformation. Furthermore, total organic carbon (59.6%) was the main factor that affected enzymes activities.

Antituberculosis drug prescribing for inpatients in a national tuberculosis hospital in China, 2011-2015.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to describe trends in antituberculosis drug prescribing for inpatients from 2011-2015 in a Chinese national tuberculosis (TB) hospital. METHODS: This retrospective study, performed in March 2016, reviewed the medical records of all inpatients from Beijing Chest Hospital diagnosed with TB between 2011-2015. Medication used for TB treatment during the inpatient period was recorded. RESULTS: A total of 11465 inpatients were enrolled in the study. The most frequently prescribed drug for inpatients was isoniazid (71.2%; 8164/11465), followed by ethambutol (67.5%; 7738/11465), pyrazinamide (59.7%; 6839/11465) and rifampicin (40.0%; 4589/11465). In addition, amikacin (16.5%; 1889/11465), levofloxacin (33.0%; 3789/11465), para-aminosalicylic acid (12.4%; 1422/11465) and clarithromycin (3.5%; 406/11465) were the most common drugs used in the treatment of inpatients for Group II, III, IV and V drugs, respectively. A significant increasing trend in prescribing was found for rifampicin, pyrazinamide, capreomycin, moxifloxacin, prothionamide, para-aminosalicylic acid, cycloserine, clofazimine and linezolid, respectively, whilst there was a significant decreasing trend in the rate of prescribing of ethambutol, amikacin, levofloxacin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and clarithromycin during the 5-year study period (Ptrend<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: These data demonstrate that prescription of anti-TB drugs varied greatly across clinical diagnostic categories, treatment history and drug susceptibility profiles of TB patients. The World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed standard regimen should be more extensively employed under conditions where drug susceptibility testing is unavailable in order to guide clinicians to formulate a suitable treatment regimen for TB patients.

Therapeutic effects of traditional Chinese medicine Niubeixiaohe in mouse tuberculosis models.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The traditional Chinese medicine Niubeixiaohe (NBXH) is an effective anti-tuberculosis prescription, which is made up of Bulbus Fritillariae Cirrhosae, Rhizoma Bletillae, Radix Platycodonis, Fructus Arctii, Herba Houttuyniae and Glutinous rice. In this study, NBXH powder (I) and three kinds of NBXH extracts (II, III, and IV) were prepared. The water decoction of NBXH had been used to treat TB in clinic sixteen years suggested that it was effective to treat TB. AIM OF THE STUDY: This study evaluated the effects of different processing products of NBXH on mouse TB model in vivo and provide a new Chinese medicine for the clinical treatment of TB. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, 120 female BALB/c mice infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv, were treated with distilled water, M. vaccae vaccine, the low, middle and high doses of NBXH I, the low, middle and high doses of NBXH II, the low, middle and high doses of NBXH III, the low, middle and high doses of NBXH IV for 12 weeks, respectively. RESULTS: The body weights of mice in all NBXH groups were higher than that in the water group. The weight indexes of the spleens in M. vaccae group, the middle dose of NBXH II group, the low dose of NBXH IV group and in the high dose of NBXH IV group were significantly lower than that in the water group(P<0.05). Compared with the water group, the spleen colony counts in the low dose of NBXH I group, the high dose of NBXH II group, the low dose of NBXH III group and the high dose of NBXH IV group reduced by 0.43, 0.46, 0.73, 0.58 logs (P<0.05), respectively. But the lung colony counts had no significant difference between each group. Pulmonary general pathology and histopathology displayed that the lung lesions in treatment groups were improved at certain degree, especially in the low dose of NBXH IIIand IV groups, in which their areas of the lesions were less than 50%, and the half normal lung structure in half of the mice could be observed. CONCLUSION: Powder and three extracts of traditional Chinese medicine NBXH all had anti-tuberculosis therapeutic effects on mouse tuberculosis model, and this study provided a base for the further development of Chinese patent medicine NBXH. Also, this is the first report on comprehensive experimental research of NBXH extracts coming from six kinds of traditional Chinese medicine.