Origin tracing and adulteration identification of bird's nest by high- and low-field NMR combined with pattern recognition.

Edible bird's nest (EBN) is a high-value health food with various nutrients and bioactive components. With increasing demand for EBN, they are often adulterated with cheaper ingredients or falsely labeled by the origin information, thus harming consumer interests. In this study, high- and low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (HF/LF-NMR) technology combined with multivariate statistical analysis was used to identify the geographical marker of EBN from different origins and authenticate the adulterated EBN with various adulterants at different adulteration rates. Authentic EBN samples from Malaysia were used to simulate adulteration using gelatin (GL), agar (AG) and starch (ST) at 10 %, 20 %, 40 %, 60 %, 80 %, and 100 % w/w, respectively. The results showed significant differences in composition among EBN from different origins, with isocaproate and citric acid serving as geographical markers for Malaysia and Vietnam, respectively. Leucine, glutamic acid, and N-acetylglycoprotein serving as geographical markers for Indonesia. In addition, PLS model further verified the accuracy of origin identification of EBN. The LF-NMR results of adulteration EBN showed a linear correlation between the transverse relaxation (T2, S2) and the adulterated ratio. The OPLS-DA based on T2 spectra could accurately identify authentic EBN from adulterated with GL, AG and ST at 40 %, 20 %, and 20 %, respectively. Fisher discrimination model was able to differentiate at 20 %, 20 %, and 40 %, respectively. These results show that the 1H NMR combined with multivariate statistical analysis method could be a potential tool for the detection of origin and adulteration of EBN.

Clinical efficacy of duodenoscopy combined with laparoscopy in the treatment of patients with severe acute pancreatitis and pancreatic pseudocyst, and the effects on IL-6 and CRP.

The study aimed to investigate the clinical efficacy of duodenoscopy combined with laparoscopy in the treatment of patients with severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) and pancreatic pseudocyst (PP), and its effects on serum inflammatory factors. Altogether 94 patients complicated with SAP and PP who were admitted to Weifang People's Hospital (Weifang, China) from September 2015 to December 2018 were included. Based on the different operation methods, 49 patients who underwent traditional laparotomy under laparoscopic surgery were included in group A, and 45 patients who underwent duodenoscopy and laparoscopy under duodenoscope to treat the drainage of nipple and pancreatic pseudocysts were included in group B. The expression levels of related serum indexes and serum stress indexes before and at 48 h after surgery, the postoperative nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain scores, as well as the clinical efficacy, perioperative related indexes, recovery and complications were compared between the two groups. The prognostic factors in both groups were assessed via Logistic univariate and multivariate analyses. C-reactive protein (CRP), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-ß (IL-ß), endotoxin and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) were significantly lower in group B than those in group A (P<0.001). Upregulating cortisol and norepinephrine in group B was lower than that in group A (P<0.001). The total effective rate in group B was higher than that in group A (P<0.05). The perioperative related indexes, recovery, and postoperative complications in group B were better than those in group A (P<0.05). Scores of abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting in group B were markedly lower than those in group A (P<0.001). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that CRP, TNF-α, IL-6, IL-ß and surgical methods were independent risk factors for the prognosis of patients with SAP and PP. In conclusion, the combined treatment with duodenoscopy and laparoscopic surgery has little inflammatory and stress reaction, and it is highly safe, worthy to be popularized.

A comparative study of insertion/deletion polymorphisms applied among Southwest, South and Northwest Chinese populations using Investigator(®) DIPplex.

The low mutation rates, short amplicon sizes and length variation characteristics of biallelic insertion/deletion polymorphisms (INDELs) are features that allow combining advantages of both STR and SNP markers for genetic analysis. The Qiagen Investigator DIPplex kit contains 30 biallelic autosomal INDELs plus Amelogenin for forensic personal identification and parentage testing. This study compares general performances, forensic and population data collected in 7 Chinese ethnic populations (Han, Tibetan, Yi, Zhuang, Dong, Miao and Uyghur) from three areas (Southwest, South and Northwest) of China by DIPplex kit. There were no significant departures from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) of the 30 markers in all the tested populations after Bonferroni correction. The combined matching probabilities ranged from 1.4273×10(-10) for the Dong minority to 1.2817×10(-12) for the Uyghur minority. The combined power of paternity exclusion was from 0.9854 to 0.9968. All pairwise genetic differences (FST) between the seven ethnic groups were less than 0.05, and the results of STRUCTURE analysis did not indicate the presence of substructures suggesting genetic similarity among the populations in these three areas. The DIPplex kit can be used as a good additional tool for forensic personal identification in these three areas of China.