Assembly and succession of the phyllosphere microbiome and nutrient-cycling genes during plant community development in a glacier foreland.

The phyllosphere, particularly the leaf surface of plants, harbors a diverse range of microbiomes that play a vital role in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. However, our understanding of microbial successions and their impact on functional genes during plant community development is limited. In this study, considering core and satellite microbial taxa, we characterized the phyllosphere microbiome and functional genes in various microhabitats (i.e., leaf litter, moss and plant leaves) across the succession of a plant community in a low-altitude glacier foreland. Our findings indicate that phyllosphere microbiomes and associated ecosystem stability increase during the succession of the plant community. The abundance of core taxa increased with plant community succession and was primarily governed by deterministic processes. In contrast, satellite taxa abundance decreased during plant community succession and was mainly governed by stochastic processes. The abundance of microbial functional genes (such as C, N, and P hydrolysis and fixation) in plant leaves generally increased during the plant community succession. However, in leaf litter and moss leaves, only a subset of functional genes (e.g., C fixation and degradation, and P mineralization) showed a tendency to increase with plant community succession. Ultimately, the community of both core and satellite taxa collaboratively influenced the characteristics of phyllosphere nutrient-cycling genes, leading to the diverse profiles and fluctuating abundance of various functional genes during plant community succession. These findings offer valuable insights into the phyllosphere microbiome and plant-microbe interactions during plant community development, advancing our understanding of the succession and functional significance of the phyllosphere microbial community.

Microbial controls over soil priming effects under chronic nitrogen and phosphorus additions in subtropical forests.

The soil priming effect (PE), defined as the modification of soil organic matter decomposition by labile carbon (C) inputs, is known to influence C storage in terrestrial ecosystems. However, how chronic nutrient addition, particularly in leguminous and non-leguminous forests, will affect PE through interaction with nutrient (e.g., nitrogen and phosphorus) availability is still unclear. Therefore, we collected soils from leguminous and non-leguminous subtropical plantations across a suite of historical nutrient addition regimes. We added 13C-labeled glucose to investigate how background soil nutrient conditions and microbial communities affect priming and its potential microbial mechanisms. Glucose addition increased soil organic matter decomposition and prompted positive priming in all soils, regardless of dominant overstory tree species or fertilizer treatment. In non-leguminous soil, only combined nitrogen and phosphorus addition led to a higher positive priming than the control. Conversely, soils beneath N-fixing leguminous plants responded positively to P addition alone, as well as to joint NP addition compared to control. Using DNA stable-isotope probing, high-throughput quantitative PCR, enzyme assays and microbial C substrate utilization, we found that positive PE was associated with increased microbial C utilization, accompanied by an increase in microbial community activity, nutrient-related gene abundance, and enzyme activities. Our findings suggest that the balance between soil available N and P effects on the PE,  was dependent on rhizosphere microbial community composition. Furthermore, these findings highlight the roles of the interaction between plants and their symbiotic microbial communities in affecting soil priming and improve our understanding of the potential microbial pathways underlying soil PEs.

Value of AFP and PIVKA-II in diagnosis of HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma and prediction of vascular invasion and tumor differentiation.

BACKGROUND: To explore the value of alpha fetoprotein (AFP) and protein induced by vitamin K absence or antagonist-II (PIVKA-II) in diagnosis of HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and their relationship with vascular invasion, tumor differentiation and size. METHODS: A total of 433 participants were enrolled in this study including 266 cases with HBV-related HCC, 87 cases with HBV DNA positive benign liver disease and 80 healthy individuals. Then we explored the correlation between AFP, PIVKA-II serum level and several pathological features such as vascular invasion, tumor differentiation and size. The value of these two markers used singly or jointly in diagnosing HBV-related HCC was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The ROC curve was also plotted to identify AFP, PIVKA-II serum cut-off values that would best distinguish HBV-related HCC patients with and without vascular invasion. RESULTS: The level of AFP and PIVKA-II in HBV-related HCC group was significantly higher (Z was 7.428, 11.243 respectively, all P < 0.01). When AFP and PIVKA-II were used as the individual tumor marker, the areas under the ROC curve (AUC) of HBV-related HCC diagnosis were 0.765 (95% CI, 0.713 ~ 0.8170) for AFP, 0.901 (95% CI, 0.868 ~ 0.935) for PIVKA-II, and 0.917 (95% CI, 0.886 ~ 0.948) for AFP and PIVKA-II simultaneously. The serum levels of AFP and PIVKA-II were positively correlated with tumor differentiation and size. High AFP and PIVKA-II expression was significantly associated with the presence of vascular invasion (P was 0.007 and 0.014 respectively). The AFP level > 64.4 ng/ml or PIVKA-II level > 957.61mAU/ml was the best critical value to predict the presence of vascular invasion. CONCLUSION: Our results validate that AFP and PIVKA-II play a significant role in the diagnosis of HBV-related HCC. The diagnostic value of AFP and PIVKA-II combined detection or single assay of PIVKA-II is higher than that of separate assay of AFP. Moreover, their concentration has important clinical value in judging tumor size, tumor cell differentiation and vascular invasion.

[The long term (9-year) survival of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis patients compared to non-multidrug-resistant tuberculosis patients in Henan province].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the long term survival of MDR-TB patients compared to non-MDR-TB in Henan province in 2010. METHODS: Participants were randomly selected in 2010 from a dataset generated by an anti-TB drug resistance surveillance survey conducted by the Tuberculosis Control Institute, Henan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001, supported by the World Health Organization. Information on patient's demographic profile and medical records was extracted by trained doctors and nurses at local anti-TB dispensaries. Interviews were carried out using questionnaires to collect information on the socioeconomic features and survival status. Bivariate and multivariate with logistic regression were performed for data analysis. RESULTS: The long term outcome of MDR-TB patients was much poorer when compared to non-MDR-TB patients. The case fatality was much higher among MDR-TB than non-MDR-TB patients (22.1% vs. 6.7%). The risk factors associated with the poorer outcome would include drug resistance status, disease relapse, hospitalization for treatment and long treatment period. Compared to non-MDR-TB, the survival time for MDR-TB was much shorter after having had the disease (6.7 years vs. 8.0 years). CONCLUSION: MDR-TB patients had poor long term outcomes. As most of the cured TB patients were under productive age in the society, the high case fatality rate of MDR-TB would impose big burden on the related family and communities. Findings from this study suggested that the TB control programs should involve more efforts be paid on MDR-TB control, in order to reduce the burden of the disease.

Effects of biodiversity and plant community composition on productivity in semiarid grasslands of Hulunbeir, Inner Mongolia, China.

Many recent studies have focused on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, such as investigations into the productivity of experimental plant communities. One of the central issues affecting the functioning of ecosystems is the diversity of resident species richness and the composition of the plant community. However, one challenge to experimental studies is that results from artificial ecosystems may have little value for predicting loss of diversity and function degradation in natural ecosystems. Thus, recent studies have focused more on investigations of natural ecosystems; these studies have found that species diversity and ecosystem productivity usually correlate with various abiotic factors including environmental effects, such as soil nutrition and precipitation, as well as anthropic activities, such as grazing and agricultural yield. In this study, we aimed to test the validity of biotic factors reported in experimental studies to be major factors affecting the productivity of ecosystems, and then to determine whether the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function is confounded by environmental factors. We investigated the effects of plant biodiversity and community composition on ecosystem function (productivity) in semiarid grassland in Inner Mongolia, China that contained three vegetation types: arid steppe, steppe, and meadow steppe. Our results show that both diversity and community composition significantly affect productivity and are better predictors of productivity than environmental factors, such as soil conditions. Our findings are consistent with the assumptions of niche complementarity. This study suggests that both biodiversity and community composition are important biotic factors in the functioning of ecosystems located in semiarid grasslands. In addition, environmental parameters, such as soil conditions influence productivity indirectly by affecting both biotic factors at the same time.

[A survey on the infection rate of tuberculosis among employees of the antituberculosis institutions in Henan province, China].

OBJECTIVE: To study the situation of tuberculosis (TB) infection among the employees of the anti-TB institutions in Henan. METHODS: Cross-sectional study was adopted the employees working in all municipal-level- anti-TB institutions and 40 anti-TB institutions at county-level selected randomly from 109 counties of the province were regarded as surveyed objects. Tuberculin skin test (TST) was used to test the infection with PPD. RESULTS: 2153 employees accepting the TST and the positive rate was 60.6%, of which the positive rate was 66.1% among healthcare workers. Among the employees and healthcare workers, the positive rates of TST adjusted by the stratum weights between municipal-level and county-level institutions were 57.3% and 62.8% respectively with Chi-square test the analysis of multivariate logistic vegression, both positive rate and strong positive rate among healthcare workers, the employees older than 30 years of age and working in municipal-level institutions were significantly higher than those among non-healthcare workers, the employees younger than 30 years old and working in county-level institutions, respectively. There were not significant differences of positive and strong positive rates between employees with and without BCG-history, or between male employees and female employees. CONCLUSION: Program on TB infection control in anti-TB institutions of Henan were weak and the employees especiolly healthcare workers had a high vocational exposure.