[Spatiotemporal distribution and multi-source characteristics of microplastics in the soil and water environment of Poyang Lake Wetland, China]. / 鄱阳湖湿地水土环境中微塑料的时空分布及多源性.

The increasing microplastics (MPs) pollution in freshwater wetlands has received global concerns. To investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of MPs in the wetlands of Poyang Lake, surface water and sediment samples were collected from five rivers entering the lake as well as the confluence of Poyang Lake into the Yangtze River, in both dry and wet seasons. The MPs in water and sediment were extracted by the digestion-filtration method and flotation-separation-digestion-filtration method, respectively. Light microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscope were used for microplastic characterization. The results showed that the abundance of MPs ranged from 32.1 to 127.3 n·L-1 in water samples, and from 533.3 to 1286.6 n·kg-1 in sediment samples during the wet season. In the dry season, the abundance of MPs ranged from 87.1 to 295.5 n·L-1 in water and from 460.0 to 1368.0 n·kg-1 in sediment. Compared with other freshwater wetlands, Poyang Lake had higher abundance of MPs. There were temporal and spatial differences among regions. The main forms of MPs included beads, fragment, film and fiber, and the corresponding polymer components were mainly polystyrene, polypropy-lene and polyethylene. Beads (35.7% in wet season and 52.0% in dry season) were the main form of MPs in water, while fragment (45.8% in wet season and 69.7% in dry season) was the main form of MPs in sediment. Small size (<0.1 mm) MPs were dominant (>50%) in water and sediment in both seasons. The abundance of MPs with different sizes decreased with the increases of size. The potential main sources of MPs in the wetlands of Poyang Lake included the discharge of industrial wastewater, discharge from urban and rural domestic sewage treatment plants, agricultural and fishing activities, and improper disposal of domestic wastes.

Evaluation of short-term and long-term efficacy of surgical and non-surgical treatment in patients with early-stage small cell lung cancer: A comparative study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to compare surgery with adjuvant chemoradiotherapy versus non-surgical treatments for patients with early-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC) based on the short-term and long-term efficacy. METHODS: SCLC patients who underwent a pulmonary lobectomy with post-surgical radiotherapy or chemotherapy were assigned to the surgical group. SCLC patients who received radiotherapy or chemotherapy alone were classified into the non-surgical group. The clinical efficacy was evaluated as complete remission (CR), partial remission (PR), stable disease (SD), or progressive disease (PD). The total effectiveness rate was calculated as CR + PR. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates of the two groups were compared. RESULTS: Compared with the non-surgical group, the CR rate and the total effectiveness rate were higher in the surgical group, and the total effectiveness rate for male patients and patients without a smoking history were also higher in the surgical group. Distant metastasis and local recurrence concurrent with distant metastasis in the surgical group were both lower in the surgical group than in the non-surgical group. Compared with the non-surgical group, the local recurrence in male patients was lower in the surgical group, and patients in the surgical group had lower distant metastasis at TNM stage IIb. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates were higher in the surgical group than in the non-surgical group. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that for patients with early-stage SCLC, better scores in effectiveness rate, disease progression, and 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates were observed in patients who underwent surgery followed by adjuvant chemoradiotherapy when compared with patients without surgical treatment.

Biochemical and molecular characterization of a putative endoglucanase in Magnaporthe grisea.

Microbial pathogens secrete an array of cell wall-degrading enzymes to break down the structure of the host cell wall to facilitate colonization of the host tissue. To better understand their role in the pathogenesis, a putative endoglucanase from Magnaporthe grisea was characterized in this paper. SignalP-3.0 analysis indicates that the protein encoded by gene MGG_02532.5 in M. grisea (named MgEGL1 for M. grisea endoglucanase 1) contains a secretory signal peptide. Multiple alignment shows that MgEGL1 has high level of homology to endoglucanases (EC 3.1.1.4) from Aspergillus nidulans and Trichoderma reesei. The three proteins share a conserved catalytic domain, but only the one from T. reesei contains a cellulose binding module. MgEGL1 was constitutively expressed with the highest level in mycelia and the lowest in conidia. Interestingly, the MgEGL1 RNA could be alternatively processed when cultured in vitro and after infection of rice. Expression analysis confirmed that the MgEGL1 is a secreted protein. Its endoglucanase activity was assayed by Congo red plates, and further confirmed by the dinitrosalicylic acid method. The finding in this paper will provide the basis for further determination of the biochemical properties of the endoglucanase protein and its relevant function in fungal pathogenesis.