Synergistic effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and biochar are highly beneficial to Ligustrum lucidum seedlings in Cd-contaminated soil.

Cadmium (Cd) contamination is a widespread environmental issue. There is a lack of knowledge about the impacts of applying arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and biochar, either alone or in their combination, on alleviating Cd phytotoxicity in Ligustrum lucidum. Therefore, a pot experiment was conducted in a greenhouse, where L. lucidum seedlings were randomly subjected to four regimes of AMF treatments (inoculation with sterilized AMF, with Rhizophagus irregularis, Diversispora versiformis, alone or a mixture of these two fungi), and two regimes of biochar treatments (with or without rice-husk biochar), as well as three regimes of Cd treatments (0, 15, and 150 mg kg-1), to examine the responses of growth, photosynthetic capabilities, soil enzymatic activities, nutritional concentrations, and Cd absorption of L. lucidum plants to the interactive effects of AMF, biochar, and Cd. The results demonstrated that under Cd contaminations, AMF alone significantly increased plant total dry weight, soil pH, and plant nitrogen (N) concentration by 84%, 3.2%, and 13.2%, respectively, and inhibited soil Cd transferring to plant shoot by 42.2%; biochar alone significantly enhanced net photosynthetic rate, soil pH, and soil catalase of non-mycorrhizal plants by 16.4%, 9%, and 11.9%, respectively, and reduced the soil Cd transferring to plant shoot by 44.7%; the additive effect between AMF and biochar greatly enhanced plant total dry weight by 101.9%, and reduced the soil Cd transferring to plant shoot by 51.6%. Furthermore, dual inoculation with D. versiformis and R. irregularis conferred more benefits on plants than the single fungal species did. Accordingly, amending Cd-contaminated soil with the combination of mixed-fungi inoculation and biochar application performed the best than either AMF or biochar alone. These responses may have been attributed to higher mycorrhizal colonization, soil pH, biomass accumulation, and biomass allocation to the roots, as well as photosynthetic capabilities. In conclusion, the combined use of mixed-fungi involving D. versiformis and R. irregularis and biochar addition had significant synergistic effects on enhancing plant performance and reducing Cd uptake of L. lucidum plants in Cd-contaminated soil.

The potential for synthesized invasive plant biochar with hydroxyapatite to mitigate allelopathy of Solidago canadensis.

Few studies tried to explore the mitigation effect and underlying mechanisms of biochar and their complex for negative allelopathy from invasive plants, which may provide a new way in the invasive plant management. Herein, an invasive plant (Solidago canadensis)-derived biochar (IBC) and its composite with hydroxyapatite (HAP/IBC) were synthesized by high temperature pyrolysis, and characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersion spectrometer, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Then, both the batch adsorption and pot experiments were conducted to compare the removal effects of kaempferol-3-O-ß-D-glucoside (C21 H20 O11 , kaempf), an allelochemical from S. canadensis, on IBC and HAP/IBC, respectively. HAP/IBC showed a stronger affinity for kaempf than IBC due to its higher specific surface area, more functional groups (P-O, P-O-P, PO4 3- ), stronger crystallization [Ca3 (PO4 )2 ]. The maximum kaempf adsorption capacity on HAP/IBC was six times higher than on IBC (10.482 mg/g > 1.709 mg/g) via π-π interactions, functional groups, and metal complexation. The kaempf adsorption process could be fitted best by both pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir isotherm models. Furthermore, HAP/IBC addition into soils could enhance and even recover the germination rate and/or seedling growth of tomato inhibited by negative allelopathy from the invasive S. canadensis. These results indicate that the composite of HAP/IBC could more effectively mitigate the allelopathy from S. canadensis than IBC, which may be a potential efficient approach to control the invasive plant and improve invaded soils.

Resistance of Mycorrhizal Cinnamomum camphora Seedlings to Salt Spray Depends on K+ and P Uptake.

Salt spray is a major environmental issue in coastal areas. Cinnamomum camphora is an economically important tree species that grows in the coastal areas of southern China. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can alleviate the detrimental effects of abiotic stress on host plants. However, the mechanism by which AMF mitigates the adverse effects of salt spray on C. camphora remains unclear. A pot experiment was conducted in a greenhouse, where C. camphora seedlings were exposed to four AMF regimes (inoculation with sterilized fungi, with Glomus tortuosum, Funneliformis mosseae, either alone or in combination) and three salt spray regimes (applied with distilled water, 7, and 14 mg NaCl cm-2) in order to investigate the influence on root functional traits and plant growth. The results showed that higher salt spray significantly decreased the K+ uptake, K+/Na+ ratio, N/P ratio, total dry weight, and salinity tolerance of non-mycorrhizal plants by 37.9%, 71%, 27.4%, 12.7%, and 221.3%, respectively, when compared with control plants grown under non-salinity conditions. Mycorrhizal inoculation, particularly with a combination of G. tortuosum and F. mosseae, greatly improved the P uptake, total dry weight, and salinity tolerance of plants grown under higher salt spray conditions by 51.0%, 36.7%, and 130.9%, respectively, when compared with their counterparts. The results show that AMF can alleviate the detrimental effects of salt spray on C. camphora seedlings. Moreover, an enhanced uptake of K+ and P accounted for the resistance of the plants to salt spray. Therefore, pre-inoculation with a combination of G. tortuosum and F. mosseae to improve nutrient acquisition is a potential method of protecting C. camphora plants against salt spray stress in coastal areas.

An Adaptive Multi-Scale Network Based on Depth Information for Crowd Counting.

Crowd counting, as a basic computer vision task, plays an important role in many fields such as video surveillance, accident prediction, public security, and intelligent transportation. At present, crowd counting tasks face various challenges. Firstly, due to the diversity of crowd distribution and increasing population density, there is a phenomenon of large-scale crowd aggregation in public places, sports stadiums, and stations, resulting in very serious occlusion. Secondly, when annotating large-scale datasets, positioning errors can also easily affect training results. In addition, the size of human head targets in dense images is not consistent, making it difficult to identify both near and far targets using only one network simultaneously. The existing crowd counting methods mainly use density plot regression methods. However, this framework does not distinguish the features between distant and near targets and cannot adaptively respond to scale changes. Therefore, the detection performance in areas with sparse population distribution is not good. To solve such problems, we propose an adaptive multi-scale far and near distance network based on the convolutional neural network (CNN) framework for counting dense populations and achieving a good balance between accuracy, inference speed, and performance. However, on the feature level, in order to enable the model to distinguish the differences between near and far features, we use stacked convolution layers to deepen the depth of the network, allocate different receptive fields according to the distance between the target and the camera, and fuse the features between nearby targets to enhance the feature extraction ability of pedestrians under nearby targets. Secondly, depth information is used to distinguish distant and near targets of different scales and the original image is cut into four different patches to perform pixel-level adaptive modeling on the population. In addition, we add density normalized average precision (nAP) indicators to analyze the accuracy of our method in spatial positioning. This paper validates the effectiveness of NF-Net on three challenging benchmarks in Shanghai Tech Part A and B, UCF_ CC_50, and UCF-QNRF datasets. Compared with SOTA, it has more significant performance in various scenarios. In the UCF-QNRF dataset, it is further validated that our method effectively solves the interference of complex backgrounds.

Label-reconstruction-based pseudo-subscore learning for action quality assessment in sporting events.

Most existing action quality assessment (AQA) methods provide only an overall quality score for the input video and lack an evaluation of each substage of the movement process; thus, these methods cannot provide detailed feedback for users. Moreover, the existing datasets do not provide labels for substage quality assessment. To address these problems, in this work, a new label-reconstruction-based pseudo-subscore learning (PSL) method is proposed for AQA in sporting events. In the proposed method, the overall score of an action is not only regarded as a quality label but also used as a feature of the training set. A label-reconstruction-based learning algorithm is built to generate pseudo-subscore labels for the training set. Moreover, based on the pseudo-subscore labels and overall score labels, a multi-substage AQA model is fine-tuned from the PSL model to predict the action quality score of each substage and the overall score for an athlete. Several ablation experiments are performed to verify the effectiveness of each module. The experimental results show that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance.

'People listen more to what actors say': A qualitative study of tuberculosis-related knowledge, behaviours, stigma, and potential interventions in Puducherry, India.

India has made substantial advancements in reducing the burden of tuberculosis (TB), but persons living with active TB (PLWATB) still face myriad challenges in seeking and receiving care, including TB-related stigma. To meet the END TB targets, it is critical that PLWATB engage in care and are able to adhere to treatment. This qualitative study aimed to understand TB-related stigma (perceived, enacted, and internalised) and possible interventions to reduce stigma in Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, India. We conducted 47 in-depth interviews with PLWATB and household members and eight focus group discussions: two each with PLWATB, their household members, healthcare workers, and key informants. We found varying TB-related knowledge: the vast majority of interview participants reported incorrect modes of transmission, although most were also aware that TB is curable. Participants reported high levels of perceived stigma, with nearly two-thirds of PLWATB choosing to hide their disease to avoid being stigmatised in their community. Participants supported interventions including celebrity advocacy and school-based programming to increase community knowledge and reduce enacted stigma as well as support groups and counselling to reduce internalised stigma in PLWATB. This study has the potential to inform future interventions to reduce TB-related stigma in India.

Effect of the joint fermentation of pyracantha powder and glutinous rice on the physicochemical characterization and functional evaluation of rice wine.

Pyracantha fortuneana, as a kind of wild plant resource for both medicine and food, has high nutrition and health-care value. This study was to explore the effect of the joint fermentation of pyracantha powder and glutinous rice on the physicochemical and functional characterization of rice wine, aiming to improve the rice wine functional quality. As a result, a light dry rice wine fermented with P. fortuneana (PRW) was obtained using the fermentation technology of the Chinese rice wine. Although the contents of alcohol and protein in PRW were lower compared with the rice wine (RW) without adding pyracantha powder, the contents of sugar, ascorbic acid, total phenols, total flavonoids, and anthocyanins were higher in PRW. The analysis of volatile compounds by GC-IMS showed that the contents of most aldehydes, alcohols, and esters increased in PRW. The quantification of organic acids and phenolic monomers indicated that most of the monomers determined were more abundant in PRW. Besides, the antioxidant capacity of PRW, including the scavenging rate of DPPH• and ABTS+•, was significantly stronger than that of RW. The bacteriostatic effect of the phenolic extracts from PRW was also observed obviously. It was expected to provide an effective way for the comprehensive utilization of P. fortuneana resource by producing a kind of nutritious and healthy pyracantha rice wine.

Effects of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Glomus mosseae on the Growth and Medicinal Components of Dysosma versipellis Under Copper Stress.

In order to investigate the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) (Glomus mosseae) inoculations and additions of copper (Cu) ion at gradual concentrations (0, 200, and 400 mg kg-1) on different parameters of Dysosma versipellis such as growth, lipid peroxidation (MDA and MRP), antioxidation enzymatic (SOD, POD and CAT) activities, and active medicinal components. Pot experiments have been conducted. The results showed that additions of Cu could inhibit growth and the activity of antioxidant enzymes, increase the degree of membrane lipid peroxidation, and decrease the podophyllotoxin content of D. versipellis compared with the control. Meanwhile, inoculations with AMF enhanced its antioxidant capacity and reduced the degree of membrane lipid peroxidation in leaves of D. versipellis under Cu stress. Besides, AMF inoculations significantly increased the biomass and content of podophyllotoxin in roots of D. versipellis, while it decreased Cu absorption content in roots. Thus, inoculations with AMF could effectively alleviate the Cu stress and improve the active components content of D. versipellis, which might be important for Cu stress adaptation and the improved productivity and quality of D. versipellis.

Adsorption and mechanistic study of the invasive plant-derived biochar functionalized with CaAl-LDH for Eu(III) in water.

Herein, we developed the invasive plant-derived biochar (IPB) functionalized with CaAl-LDH at five mass ratios using a physical mixture method, assessed their adsorption perform for Eu(III), and explored the relative mechanisms. Results show that the IPB successfully loaded CaAl-LDH in five composites and their Eu(III) sorption affinities were strongly affected by solution pH, contact time, temperature, and the mass ratio of LDH and IPB. All the sorpiton process for Eu(III) occurred on the heterogeneous surface of five composites and the boundary layer diffusion limited the chemical sorption rate. Interestingly, the CaAl-LDH/IPB composite with high ratio of IPB had higher sorption capacity than the one with high ratio of LDH due to larger porosity of the former. Three mechanisms containing ion exchange between Al and Eu ions, surface complexation with carboxyl- and oxygen-containing functional groups, and precipitation were involved in the Eu(III) sorption, but the dominant sorption mechanism for each CaAl-LDH/IPB composite differed with different mass ratio of CaAl-LDH and IPB. In composite with more IPB (e.g., CaAl-LDH/IPB-13), both ion exchange and surface complexes dominated the sorption process and the intensity of Eu3+ was identified with the one of Eu2O3. Whereas in composites with high LDH, ion exchange dominated the sorption and the intensity of Eu3+ was obviously higher than the one of Eu2O3. This research will provide a new perspective for the application of the LDH/biochar materials.

Retraction Note to: The role of seed appendage in improving the adaptation of a species in definite seasons: a case study of Atriplex centralasiatica.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

The role of seed appendage in improving the adaptation of a species in definite seasons: a case study of Atriplex centralasiatica.

BACKGROUND: As a common accompanying dispersal structure, specialized seed appendages play a critical role in the successful germination and dispersal of many plants, and are regarded as an adaptation character for plants survival in diverse environments. However, little is known about how the appendages modulate the linkage between germination and environmental factors. Here, we tested the responses of germination to seasonal environmental signals (temperature and humidity) via seed appendages using Atriplex centralasiatica, which is widely distributed in salt marshlands with dry-cold winter in northern China. Three types of heteromorphic diaspores that differ in morphology of persistent bracteole and dormancy levels are produced in an individual plant of A. centralasiatica. RESULTS: Except for the nondormant diaspore (type A, with a brown seed enclosed in a persistent bracteole), bracteoles regulated inner seed dormancy of the other two dormant diaspore types, i.e., type B (flat diaspore with a black inner seed) and type C (globular diaspore with a black inner seed). For types B and C, germination of bracteole-free seeds was higher than that of intact diaspores, and was limited severely when incubated in the bracteole-soaking solution. Dormancy was released at a low temperature (< 10 °C) and suitable humidity (5-15%) condition. Oppositely, high temperature and unfit humidity induced secondary dormancy via inhibitors released by bracteoles. Type C with deeper dormancy needed more stringent conditions for dormancy release and was easier for dormancy inducement than type B. The germination windows were broadened and the time needed for dormancy release decreased after the bracteole flushing for the two dormant types in the field condition. CONCLUSIONS: Bracteoles determine the germination adaptation by bridging seeds and environmental signals and promising seedlings establishment only in proper seasons, which may also restrict species geographical distribution and shift species distributing ranges under the global climate change scenarios.

The relative contributions of climate, soil, diversity and interactions to leaf trait variation and spectrum of invasive Solidago canadensis.

BACKGROUND: Invasive plants commonly occupy diverse habitats and thus must adapt to changing environmental pressures through altering their traits and economics spectra, and addressing these patterns and their drivers has an importantly ecological and/or evolutionary significance. However, few studies have considered the role of multiple biotic and abiotic factors in shaping trait variation and spectra. In this study, we determined seven leaf traits of 66 Solidago canadensis populations, and quantified the relative contributions of climate, soil properties, native plant diversity, and S. canadensis-community interactions (in total 16 factors) to leaf trait variation and spectrum with multimodel inference. RESULTS: Overall, the seven leaf traits had high phenotypic variation, and this variation was highest for leaf dry matter content and lowest for leaf carbon concentration. The per capita contribution of climate to the mean leaf trait variation was highest (7.5%), followed by soil properties (6.2%), S. canadensis-community interactions (6.1%), and native plant diversity (5.4%); the dominant factors underlying trait variation varied with leaf traits. Leaf production potential was negatively associated with leaf stress-tolerance potential, and the relative contributions to this trade-off followed in order: native plant diversity (7.7%), climate (6.9%), S. canadensis-community interactions (6.2%), and soil properties (5.6%). Climate, diversity, soil, and interactions had positive, neutral or negative effects. CONCLUSIONS: Climate, soil, diversity, and interactions contribute differentially to the leaf trait variation and economics spectrum of S. canadensis, and their relative importance and directions depend on plant functional traits.

Regulation of OLC1 protein expression by the anaphase-promoting complex.

Overexpressed in lung cancer 1 (OLC1) is a potential oncogene overexpressed in human lung cancer and in other types of malignant tumor. The elevated expression of OLC1 contributes to tumor genesis and progression. However, the mechanisms regulating the expression of OLC1 remain unclear. In the present study, using lung and esophageal cancer cell lines, it was demonstrated that OLC1 was a short-lived, cell cycle-dependent protein regulated through the anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/c)-ubiquitin pathway by directly interacting with the APC2 subunit. Through the action of two co activator proteins, cadherin 1 (Cdh1) and cell-division cycle protein 20 (Cdc20), the OLC1 protein was ubiquitinated and degraded. Following treatment with a proteasome inhibitor, OLC1 protein levels were elevated. Inversely, the upregulation of Cdh1 and Cdc20 facilitated OLC1 degradation. By inducing point mutations of the assumed degradation motif of OLC1, it was revealed that an intact destruction (D)-box was necessary. As expected, the D-box-mutated OLC1 exhibited a higher capacity for promoting cell growth and clone formation. Collectively, these findings indicate that the expression of the candidate oncogene OLC1 is cell cycle-dependent and is regulated by an APC/c mediated ubiquitin-proteasome pathway.

Performance of biochar derived from rice straw for removal of Ni(II) in batch experiments.

Biochar, as a cost-efficient adsorbent, is of major interest in the removal of heavy metals from wastewater. Herein, batch experiments were conducted to investigate the performance of biochar derived from rice straw for the removal of Ni(II) as a function of various environmental conditions. The results showed that Ni(II) sorption was strongly dependent on pH but independent of ionic strength and the effects of electrolyte ions could be negligible over the whole pH range. Ionic exchange and inner-sphere surface complexation dominated the sorption of Ni(II). Humic/fulvic acids clearly enhanced the Ni(II) sorption at pH <7.2 but inhibited the sorption at pH >7.2. The sorption reached equilibrium within 10 hours, and the kinetics followed a pseudo-second-order rate model. Any of the Langmuir, Freundlich, or Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherm models could describe the sorption well, but the Langmuir model described it best. The maximum sorption capacity calculated from the Langmuir model was 0.257 m·mol/g. The thermodynamic parameters suggested that Ni(II) sorption was a spontaneous and endothermic process and was enhanced at high temperature. The results of this work indicate that biochar derived from rice straw may be a valuable bio-sorbent for Ni(II) in aqueous solutions, but it still requires further modification.

Dissecting Solidago canadensis-soil feedback in its real invasion.

The importance of plant-soil feedback (PSF) has long been recognized, but the current knowledge on PSF patterns and the related mechanisms mainly stems from laboratory experiments. We aimed at addressing PSF effects on community performance and their determinants using an invasive forb Solidago canadensis. To do so, we surveyed 81 pairs of invaded versus uninvaded plots, collected soil samples from these pairwise plots, and performed an experiment with microcosm plant communities. The magnitudes of conditioning soil abiotic properties and soil biotic properties by S. canadensis were similar, but the direction was opposite; altered abiotic and biotic properties influenced the production of subsequent S. canadensis communities and its abundance similarly. These processes shaped neutral S. canadensis-soil feedback effects at the community level. Additionally, the relative dominance of S. canadensis increased with its ability of competitive suppression in the absence and presence of S. canadensis-soil feedbacks, and S. canadensis-induced decreases in native plant species did not alter soil properties directly. These findings provide a basis for understanding PSF effects and the related mechanisms in the field conditions and also highlight the importance of considering PSFs holistically.

What determines positive, neutral, and negative impacts of Solidago canadensis invasion on native plant species richness?

Whether plant invasions pose a great threat to native plant diversity is still hotly debated due to conflicting findings. More importantly, we know little about the mechanisms of invasion impacts on native plant richness. We examined how Solidago canadensis invasion influenced native plants using data from 291 pairs of invaded and uninvaded plots covering an entire invaded range, and quantified the relative contributions of climate, recipient communities, and S. canadensis to invasion impacts. There were three types of invasion consequences for native plant species richness (i.e., positive, neutral, and negative impacts). Overall, the relative contributions of recipient communities, S. canadensis and climate to invasion impacts were 71.39%, 21.46% and 7.15%, respectively; furthermore, the roles of recipient communities, S. canadensis and climate were largely ascribed to plant diversity, density and cover, and precipitation. In terms of direct effects, invasion impacts were negatively linked to temperature and native plant communities, and positively to precipitation and soil microbes. Soil microbes were crucial in the network of indirect effects on invasion impacts. These findings suggest that the characteristics of recipient communities are the most important determinants of invasion impacts and that invasion impacts may be a continuum across an entire invaded range.

Feed-Forward Reciprocal Activation of PAFR and STAT3 Regulates Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Platelet-activating factor receptor (PAFR), a G-protein-coupled receptor, has been implicated in tumorigenesis, but its contributions to metastatic progression have not been investigated. Here, we show that PAFR is overexpressed in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) as well as in breast, colorectal, and gastric carcinomas. Expression of PAFR correlates closely with clinical stages, survival time, and distant metastasis. In human NSCLC cells, activation of the PAF/PAFR signaling axis accentuated malignant character, including by stimulating epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). In contrast, silencing PAFR in aggressive NSCLC cells inhibited these effects. Mechanistic investigations showed that PAFR stimulated EMT by activating STAT3 via upregulation of G-protein-dependent SRC or JAK2 kinase activity. Notably, STAT3 transcriptionally elevated PAFR expression. Thus, activation of PAFR in NSCLC cells initiated a forward feedback loop responsible for mediating the aggressive malignant character of NSCLC cells in vitro and in vivo. Reinforcing this reciprocal activation loop, PAF/PAFR signaling also upregulated IL6 expression and thereby STAT3 activation. Overall, our results elucidated an important role for PAFR dysregulation in the pathogenicity of NSCLC and unraveled a forward feedback loop between PAFR and STAT3 that acts to drive the malignant progression of NSCLC.

Establishment of a new OSCC cell line derived from OLK and identification of malignant transformation-related proteins by differential proteomics approach.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is usually preceded by the oral premalignant lesions, mainly oral leukoplakia (OLK) after repeated insults of carcinogens, tobacco. B(a)P and DMBA are key carcinogens in tobacco smoke. In the present study, for the first time we established the cancerous cell line OSCC-BD induced by B(a)P/DMBA mixture and transformed from dysplastic oral leukoplakia cell line DOK. Cell morphology, proliferation ability, migration ability, colony formation, and tumorigenicity were studied and confirmed the malignant characteristics of OSCC-BD cells. We further identified the differential proteins between DOK and OSCC-BD cells by stable isotope dimethyl labeling based quantitative proteomic method, which showed 18 proteins up-regulated and 16 proteins down-regulated with RSD < 8%. Differential proteins are mainly related to cell cycle, cell proliferation, DNA replication, RNA splicing and apoptosis. Abberant binding function, catalysis activity and transportor activity of differential proteins might contribute to the malignant transformation of OLK. Of the 34 identified differential proteins with RSD < 8%, 13 novel cancer-related proteins were reported in the present study. This study might provide a new insight into the mechanism of OLK malignant transformation and the potent biomarkers for early diagnosis, meanwhile further facilitate the application of the quantification proteomics to carcinogenesis research.

GFA Taq I polymorphism and cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P) risk.

The transforming growth factor alpha (TGFA) Taq I polymorphism has been indicated to be correlated with cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P) susceptibility, but study results are still debatable. Thus, a meta-analysis was conducted. We conducted a comprehensive search of Embase, Ovid, Web of Science, the Cochrane database, PubMed, the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM-disc, 1979-2014), the database of National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI, 1979-2014) and the full paper database of Chinese Science and Technology of Chongqing (VIP, 1989-2014) to identify suitable studies. There were 18 studies suitable for this meta-analysis, involving a total of 3135 cases and 3575 controls. Significantly increased CL/P risk was observed (OR = 1.49; 95% CI 1.17-1.89; P = 0.001). In subgroup analyses stratified by ethnicity, there was evidence in the Caucasian population for an association between this polymorphism and CL/P risk (OR = 1.52; 95% CI 1.14-2.02; P = 0.004). However, no significant association was found between this his polymorphism and CL/P risk in African and Hispanic populations. According to a specific CL/P type, increased clip lip and palate risk and clip palate risk were found (OR = 1.38; 95% CI 1.10-1.73; P = 0.005; OR = 1.29; 95% CI 1.01-1.66; P = 0.042). In conclusion, the present meta-analysis found that the TGFA Taq I polymorphism may be associated with CL/P susceptibility.