To clarify the association between premature coronary heart disease of patients ≤55 years and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) plasma levels.
Searches were performed between 2002 and 2013 ...using PubMed, Web of Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. The original articles selected published premature coronary heart disease diagnosed by World Health Organization criteria or via angiograph both in males and females ≤55 years and with plasma HDL-C levels in both the case and control groups. The 'related articles' function and manual searches of the related references was used to broaden the search. The Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale was used to assess the quality of papers. Standard mean difference with 95% confidence interval was used as a measure of the association between HDL and premature coronary heart disease, after pooling data across trials in a random effect model. Sensitivity and subgroup analyses were used to explore sources of heterogeneity and the effect of potential confounders. The influences of publication year, sample size and district were assessed by meta-regression. STATA (version 11.0) was used to conduct all statistical analyses.
Only 13 case-control studies met the criteria, which included 1775 patients and 1989 controls. The Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale score was about 5-7. A strong association was identified between HDL-C and premature coronary heart disease. The premature coronary heart disease patients had lower levels of HDL-C compared with the controls: standard mean difference = -0.48, 95% confidence interval = -0.71 to -0.26, p < 0.001, pheterogeneity < 0.001. By meta-regression and subgroup analysis, we found publication year might be the source of heterogeneity, but not the main reason for heterogeneity. After removing the heterogeneity of outlier studies, the significant association between low HDL-C levels and premature coronary heart disease was still retained.
Low plasma HDL-C levels are positively associated with premature coronary heart disease in patients ≤55 years. As only small sample size case-control studies were found to focus on this age group in the last 10 years, additional population-based cohort studies with large samples are necessary.
Protoplast fusion has great potential in citrus improvement. Although citrus mesophyll protoplasts usually cannot divide and regenerate,symmetric protoplast fusion of embryogenic callus protoplast + ...mesophyll protoplast sometimes results in the regeneration of mesophyllparent-type cybrids. It suggested that mitochondrial DNA(mt DNA) from protoplasts of embryogenic callus parent plays an important role in stimulating division and regeneration of mesophyll protoplasts. Herein, somatic fusion was conducted via electrofusion between callus protoplasts isolated from Valencia orange Citrus sinensis(L.) Osbeck cell suspension cultures and transgenic GFP-tagged mesophyll protoplasts from the same genotype, i.e. transgenic Valencia orange plants containing the green fluorescent protein(GFP) gene, in an effort to elucidate whether mt DNA of callus line could stimulate the division and regeneration of mesophyll protoplasts from the same genotype. Two embryoids and one plantlet with GFP expression were successfully obtained and subsequent ploidy analysis by flow cytometry indicated that they were all diploids. The regenerated diploid embryoids and plantlet with GFP expression could be considered as ‘cybrids’ with mt DNA from the callus protoplasts of Valencia orange. The result indicated that citrus mesophyll-parent-type cybrid regeneration needed the stimulation of mt DNA from protoplasts of embryogenic callus parent regardless of their origin either from another genotype or the same genotype as the mesophyll parent.
Summary
Hybridomas secreting monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against excretory-secretory (ES) antigen of
Trichinella spiralis
muscle larvae were produced. The 12 monoclones (designated 3A11, 7D9, 7F6, ...5A7, 6H7, 39F3, 38H2, 37E7, 35B9, 29A11, 39C9 and 39A6) secreted IgM, IgG3 and IgG2b, respectively. Western blot using
T. spiralis
ES antigens showed that ten of 12 MAbs recognized the bands between 119.8 − 19.3kDa (mainly 68.4 − 28.7kDa) and two MAbs (3A11, 37E7) did not recognize any protein constituents of ES antigens. Nine of 12 MAbs also recognized the larval antigens of
T. nativa, T. pseudospiralis
and
T. nelsoni
at 40 days post-infection (dpi). No cross-reactions were found with the somatic antigens of adult worms of
P. westermani, C. sinensis
, and
T. solium
cysticercus. However, three (3A11, 6H7 and 39A6) were cross-reacted with the somatic antigens of adult worms of
S. japonicum
. Immunofluorescent location showed that the nine MAbs reacted with the cuticle and internal organs of
T. spiralis
larvae. Additionally, five and eight MAbs generated in this study can recognize the early antigens of pre-encapsulated
T. spiralis
larvae at 11 dpi and 13 dpi, respectively. The generation and characterization of the MAbs against
T. spiralis
ES antigens provide foundation for the development of specific early serodiagnostic techniques for trichinellosis.
To investigate the clinical features and T lymphocytes subsets in patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection.
A total of 48 hospitalized patients ...with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1/AIDS and CMV infections were recruited at Peking Union Medical College Hospital from Jan 2010 to Aug 2017. Their clinical features and immune function were retrospectively analyzed. Patients with only HIV/AIDS in previous study were recruited as controls.
All 48 patients were at C3 stage, including 36 men and 12 women. Five of them were younger than 30 years old, 33 cases within 31-50 years old, and 10 cases older than 50 years old. Thirty-five patients had CD(4)(+)T lymphocytes ≤ 50 cells/μl, 7 cases with CD(4)(+)T cells 51-100/μl, 3 cases with 101-200 cells/μl, and 3 cases over 200 cells/μl. As to CMV infections, there were 31 cases of CMV viremia, 1 case of CMV encephalitis, 1 case of CMV enteritis, 5 cases of CMV pneumonia, and 9 cases of CMV retinitis. Other opportunisti
Changes in the metabolites of table grapes (Vitis vinifera) reportedly occur during postharvest senescence. The aim of this study was to determine the metabolomic differences in postharvest table ...grapes (‘Red Globe’) after being subjected to different senescence periods. To this end, we used widely targeted metabolomics based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. A total of 135 differential metabolites were identified. During postharvest senescence, the levels of most differential flavonoids (e.g., pelargonidin 3-O-glucoside, quercetin-3-O-glucoside, and cyanidin 3-O-glucoside) and L-aspartic acid decreased, while the levels of phenolic acids (e.g., trans-4-hydroxycinnamic acid methyl ester) and pantothenol increased. During early and late senescence, the levels of most differential lipids, especially LysoPC, as well as those of nucleotides and their derivatives, such as uridine, decreased and increased, respectively. Collectively, the findings of this study provide fundamental insights into the reasonable control of table grape fruit postharvest senescence and lay a solid foundation for further research.
Interactions between herbivore pressure and resource availability may result in growth--defense trade-offs in plants （resource availability hypothesis）, which promote the potential for ecological ...diversification and have recently been proposed as a new mechanism of plant invasion （resource-enemy release hypothesis）. In the present study, we tested this idea by comparing patterns of maximum growth rate and antiherbivore defense capacity against Agasicles hygrophila （a specialist phytophagous insect on Alternanthera philoxeroides） among six morphs of A. philoxeroides from both native （Argentina） and introduced （US and China） ranges. The results revealed that herbivore resistance consistently exhibited a significant trade-off against the growth rate of A. philoxeroides. Compared with native morphs in Argentina, introduced morphs generally exhibited a higher growth rate and lower defense. The results demonstrate that the combination of flea beetle pressure and resource availability facilitates geographical divergence of A. philoxeroides, and that release from natural specialists and increased resource availability may interact to contribute to its successful invasion.
The adsorption of thorium(IV) Th(IV) was studied using a novel 6-o-monotosyl-deoxy-β-cyclodextrin inclusion complex of dibenzoyl (inclusion complex), which was acquired by the reaction of dibenzoyl ...and 6-OTs-β-CD with the mole ratio of 1:2. The adsorption of Th(IV) onto inclusion complex were investigated as a function of pH value, contact time, temperature, interfering ions and Th(IV) concentration using batch adsorption technique. The maximum adsorption of Th(IV) and the equilibrium adsorption capacity were found to be 89 ± 1 % and 17.83 mg g
−1
respectively at pH 3.0, equilibrium time 20 min and initial Th(IV) concentration 20 mg L
−1
. Adsorption kinetics, adsorption isotherm and thermodynamics were carried out.
This paper presents a validation and confutation analysis using the methods of the robust satellite data analysis technique (RST) to detect seismic anomalies within the bi-angular Advanced ...Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) data based on spatial/temporal continuity analysis. The distinguishing feature of our method is that we carried out a comparative analysis of seismic anomalies from bi-directional observation, which could help understanding seismic thermal infrared (TIR) anomalies. The proposed method has been applied to analyse bi-angular AATSR gridded brightness temperature data with longitude from 5 to 25° E and latitude from 35 to 50° N associated with the earthquake that occurred in Abruzzo, Italy, on 6 April 2009, and a full data set of 7 yr data from 2003 to 2009 during the months of March and April has been analysed for validation purposes. Unperturbed periods (March-April 2008) have been considered for confutation analysis. Combining with the tectonic explanation of spatial and temporal continuity of the abnormal phenomena, along with the analysed results, a number of anomalies could be associated with possible seismic activities, which follow the same time and space. Therefore, we conclude that the anomalies observed from 29 March 2009 to 5 April 2009, about eight days before the Abruzzo earthquake, could be earthquake anomalies.
Relevance feedback and region-based representations are two effective ways to improve the accuracy of content-based image retrieval systems. Although these two techniques have been successfully ...investigated and developed in the last few years, little attention has been paid to combining them together. We argue that integrating these two approaches and allowing them to benefit from each other will yield better performance than using either of them alone. To do that, on the one hand, two relevance feedback algorithms are proposed based on region representations. One is inspired from the query point movement method. By assembling all of the segmented regions of positive examples together and reweighting the regions to emphasize the latest ones, a pseudo image is formed as the new query. An incremental clustering technique is also considered to improve the retrieval efficiency. The other is the introduction of existing support vector machine-based algorithms. A new kernel is proposed so as to enable the algorithms to be applicable to region-based representations. On the other hand, a rational region weighting scheme based on users' feedback information is proposed. The region weights that somewhat coincide with human perception not only can be used in a query session, but can also be memorized and accumulated for future queries. Experimental results on a database of 10 000 general-purpose images demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
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