Texture Feature Extraction from 1H NMR Spectra for the Geographical Origin Traceability of Chinese Yam.

Adulteration is widespread in the herbal and food industry and seriously restricts traditional Chinese medicine development. Accurate identification of geo-authentic herbs ensures drug safety and effectiveness. In this study, 1H NMR combined intelligent "rotation-invariant uniform local binary pattern" identification was implemented for the geographical origin confirmation of geo-authentic Chinese yam (grown in Jiaozuo, Henan province) from Chinese yams grown in other locations. Our results showed that the texture feature of 1H NMR image extracted with rotation-invariant uniform local binary pattern for identification is far superior compared to the original NMR data. Furthermore, data preprocessing is necessary. Moreover, the model combining a feature extraction algorithm and support vector machine (SVM) classifier demonstrated good robustness. This approach is advantageous, as it is accurate, rapid, simple, and inexpensive. It is also suitable for the geographical origin traceability of other geographical indication agricultural products.

Pyrosequencing for rapid detection of tuberculosis resistance in clinical isolates and sputum samples from re-treatment pulmonary tuberculosis patients.

BACKGROUND: Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a major public health problem. Early diagnosis of MDR-TB patients is essential for minimizing the risk of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) transmission. The conventional drug susceptibility testing (DST) methods for detection of drug-resistant M. tuberculosis are laborious and cannot provide the rapid detection for clinical practice. METHODS: The aim of this study was to develop a pyrosequencing approach for the simultaneous detection of resistance to rifampin (RIF), isoniazid (INH), ethambutol (EMB), streptomycin (SM), ofloxacin (OFL) and amikacin (AMK) in M. tuberculosis clinical isolates and sputum samples from re-treatment pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients. We identified the optimum conditions for detection mutation of rpoB, katG, rpsl, embB, gyrA and rrs gene by pyrosequencing. Then this approach was applied to detect 205 clinical isolates and 24 sputum samples of M. tuberculosis from re-treatment PTB patients. RESULTS: The mutations of rpoB and gyrA gene were detected by pyrosequencig with the SQA mode, and the mutations of katG, rpsl, embB, gyrA and rrs gene were detected by pyrosequencing with SNP mode. Compared with the Bactec MGIT 960 mycobacterial detection system, the accuracy of pyrosequencing for the detection of RIF, INH, EMB, SM, AMK and OFL resistance in clinical isolates was 95.0%, 79.2%, 70.3%, 84.5%, 96.5% and 91.1%, respectively. In sputum samples the accuracy was 83.3%, 83.3%, 60.9%, 83.3%, 87.5% and 91.7%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The newly established pyrosequencing assay is a rapid and high-throughput method for the detection of resistance to RIF, INH, SM, EMB, OFL and AMK in M. tuberculosis. Pyrosequencing can be used as a practical molecular diagnostic tool for screening and predicting the resistance of re-treatment pulmonary tuberculosis patients.

[Clinical study on treatment of mid-advanced crescentic nephritis by qingre huoxue recipe].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the therapeutic effect of integrative Chinese and Western medicine in treating mid-advanced crescentic nephritis (MACN). METHODS: Thirty-two patients, their diagnosis was confirmed as MACN by renal biopsy, were divided, adopting randomized, controlled method, into two groups, the treated group and the control group, they were all, excepting one, treated with impact therapy of methyl-prednisolone followed with oral intake of prednisone, to part of them cyclophosphamide or mycophenolate mofetil was given in addition, to those with hypo-hemoglobin (< 90 g/L), subcutaneous injection of erythropoietin was administered. Decoction of Qingre Huoxue recipe (QHR), consisted of oldenlandia herb 30 g, honey-suckle stem 30 g, violet herb 30 g, red peony root 15 g, rehmannia root 15 g, solomonseal rhizome 15 g, asiabell root 30 g, red sage root 30 g, prepared rhubarb 12 g and giant-hyssop herb 12 g, were additionally given one dose per day to patients in the treated group. The renal function, improvement of anemia and immunosuppressive agents needed in patients were observed after 3 months treatment. RESULTS: After treatment, renal function was improved in both groups, but the effect in the treated group was better than that in the control group (P < 0.05). Anemia was partially alleviated in the two groups with no significant difference. The dosage of glucocorticoids used in the treated group was obviously lesser than that used in the control group (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Integrative Chinese and western medicine could treat crescentic nephritis to obtain good effect, and reduce the quantity of glucocorticoid necessity for treatment.