Aim: Hemorrhagic transformation is the major complication of intravenous thrombolysis. Calcification is used widely as an imaging indicator of atherosclerotic burden and cerebrovascular function. The ...relationship between intracranial calcification and hemorrhagic transformation has not been explored fully. We aimed to identify and quantify calcification in the main cerebral vessels to investigate the correlations between quantitative calcification parameters, hemorrhagic transformation, and prognosis. Methods: Acute, non-cardiogenic, ischemic stroke patients with anterior circulation who received intravenous thrombolysis therapy in the First Hospital of Jilin University were retrospectively and consecutively included. All included patients underwent a baseline CT before intravenous thrombolysis and a follow-up CT at 24 hours. A third-party software, ITK-SNAP, was used to segment and measure the calcification volume. A vascular non-bone component with a CT value ＞130 HU was considered calcified. Hemorrhagic transformation was determined based on the ECASS II classification criteria. Results: The study included 242 patients, 214 of whom were identified as having calcification. Thirty-one patients developed hemorrhagic transformation. The calcification volume on the lesion side (0.1ml) was associated with hemorrhagic transformation (p=0.004, OR=1.504, 95% CI: 1.140–1.985). Ninety-six patients had poor prognoses. The poor prognosis group had more calcified vessels than the good prognosis group (p=0.014, OR=1.477, 95% CI: 1.083–2.015). Conclusions: The arterial calcification volume on the lesion side is associated with hemorrhagic transformation after thrombolysis. The higher the number of calcified vessels, the greater the risk of poor prognosis.
Display omitted
•s-ZVI-coupled Myriophyllum aquaticum-derived biochar favors C storage more than I.H.•Biochar nature or feedstock may control C trap and N removal gains from Fe-C coupling.•Biochars ...trigger C dynamics depending on trade-offs between priming and increased MBC.•Enhanced iron gate contributes to synergistic C sequestration and C sink augmentation.•β-glucosidase activity and Fe-OC increases jointly drive C cumulation in Fe-C ditches.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a more powerful greenhouse gas due to its enhanced instantaneous radiative forcing. Since agricultural ecological ditches (eco-ditches) controlling agricultural non-point source pollution are potential CO2 hotspots, carbon capture technologies must be deployed immediately to sequester carbon and combat climate change. Zero-waste biochar, a negative-carbon technology, remains contentious regarding C sequestration. Iron (Fe) enhances long-term organic carbon (OC) preservation, but the cascading effects of Fe-biochar interactions on the promotion of C accumulation are unclear in eco-ditches. In this paper, we fill these research gaps and employ sponge iron (s-ZVI) and biochar coupling (Fe-C) to enhance the iron gate C protection in eco-ditches. The results reveal that Myriophyllum aquaticum(M.A.)-derived biochar prepared by low-temperature pyrolysis (Biochar_M.A.) enjoys the highest FI, the lowest SUVA254 and SUVA280 and moderate dissolution stability. The coupling of s-ZVI and environmentally compatible Biochar_M.A. achieve a triple benefit situation of C sequestration, C sink, and pollutant removal. Overall carbon gain is jointly determined by abiotic controls and biotic controls. The carbon burial effects of biochar-amended eco-ditches are mainly controlled by the trade-offs between Fe-bound OC mineralization via the biochar-induced prime effect and preservation of OC derived from microbial biomass. The unique Fe-C boosts the rusty sink and yields a negative priming as a result of the dominance of Fe-OC. The upregulated β-glucosidase activity and new-formed Fe-OC indirectly and directly contribute to overall C gain in Fe-C-filled eco-ditches, respectively. These findings provide novel insights into the coupled biotic-abiotic contribution mechanisms underlying the iron gate and reverse enzyme latch phenomenon and advance more robust and prospective theoretical knowledge of C dynamics that are not restricted to eco-ditches, soil, constructed wetlands C storage.
Aim This study aimed to identify the ‘centres of endemism' of the Chinese spermatophyte flora in order to indirectly detect the locations of past glacial refugia. The role of these areas as places ...for plant survival (‘plant museums') and/or areas for plant evolution and speciation (‘plant cradles') was also assessed. Location China. Methods Distribution patterns of 555 plant endemic taxa, taken as a representative sample of the Chinese endemic flora, were mapped on a 1° × 1° latitude/longitude grid. For each grid cell, species richness (total count of species) and weighted richness (down-weighting each species by the inverse of its range) were calculated. Grid cells within the top 5% of highest values of weighted richness were considered centres of endemism. Based on available information, all plant taxa included in this study were classified into palaeoendemics and neoendemics, and their distributional patterns were represented separately. Results Twenty areas of endemism were identified in central and southern China, roughly corresponding to mountain ranges, including the Hengduan and Daxue Mountains, the Yungui Plateau, central China Mountains, the Nanling Mountains, eastern China Mountains, and Hainan and Taiwan. Although almost all centres of endemism contained both palaeoendemic and neoendemic taxa, considerable differences in their respective numbers were recorded, with the majority of neoendemics on the eastern fringe of the Tibetan Plateau (Hengduan Mountains sensu lato) but more palaeoendemics towards the east. Main conclusions Owing to their varied topography, the mountainous regions of central and southern China have provided long-term stable habitats, which allowed palaeoendemics to persist and facilitated the process of speciation. Contrasting patterns between the palaeoendemics and neoendemics within refugia might be attributable to the geological and tectonic history of specific areas. The eastern fringe of the Tibetan Plateau clearly constitutes the ‘evolutionary front' of China, probably as a result of the uninterrupted uplift of the plateau since the late Neogene. In contrast, the tectonic stability of central and southern China during the Tertiary may have facilitated the persistence of relict plant lineages.
•The effect of substrate thermal conductivity is utilized to tune the granularity.•The relation of granularity with vortex dynamics is revealded.•The underlying flux pinning mechanism evolution is ...revealed.
Among various ways to tune the granularity in superconducting films, the effect of substrate thermal conductivity has rarely been considered. Here, as an effort to further study the effect of granularity on superconducting properties, superconducting Pb films with different granularity and morphology were grown on substrates with different thermal conductivity by using low temperature electron beam evaporation technique. Despite the similar lattice mismatch ratio, the granularity of Pb films changes monotonically with the substrate thermal conductivity. With decreasing the grain size, the upper critical field of Pb films increases, and Pb films tend to feature flux avalanche at low magnetic fields. Further analysis suggests that, the pinning mechanism gradually evolves from mixed δTc+δl to δl pinning. Our results further enrich the way to tune granularity of superconducting films, and open up a promising perspective for studying the pinning mechanism of granular superconductors and provide favorable conditions for potential applications of manipulative vortex pinning by adjusting the granularity of superconducting films.
Elymus breviaristatus and Elymus sinosubmuticus are perennial herbs, not only morphologically similar but also sympatric distribution. The genome composition of E. sinosubmuticus has not been ...reported, and the relationship between E. sinosubmuticus and E. breviaristatus is still controversial. We performed artificial hybridization, genomic in situ hybridization, and phylogenetic analyses to clarify whether the two taxa were the same species.
The high frequency bivalent (with an average of 20.62 bivalents per cell) at metaphase I of pollen mother cells of the artificial hybrids of E. breviaristatus (StYH) × E. sinosubmuticus was observed. It illustrated that E. sinosubmuticus was closely related to E. breviaristatus. Based on genomic in situ hybridization results, we confirmed that E. sinosubmuticus was an allohexaploid, and the genomic constitution was StYH. Phylogenetic analysis results also supported that this species contained St, Y, and H genomes. In their F
hybrids, pollen activity was 53.90%, and the seed setting rate was 22.46%. Those indicated that the relationship between E. sinosubmuticus and E. breviaristatus is intersubspecific rather than interspecific, and it is reasonable to treated E. sinosubmuticus as the subspecies of E. breviaristatus.
In all, the genomic constitutions of E. sinosubmuticus and E. breviaristatus were StYH, and they are species in the genus Campeiostachys. Because E. breviaristatus was treated as Campeistachys breviaristata, Elymus sinosubmuticus should be renamed Campeiostachys breviaristata (Keng) Y. H. Zhou, H. Q. Zhang et C. R. Yang subsp. sinosubmuticus (S. L. Chen) Y. H. Zhou, H. Q. Zhang et L. Tan.
The genetic mechanisms underlying the poor prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) are not well understood. Here, we report somatic mutations found in ESCC from sequencing 10 ...whole-genome and 57 whole-exome matched tumor-normal sample pairs. Among the identified genes, we characterized mutations in VANGL1 and showed that they accelerated cell growth in vitro. We also found that five other genes, including three coding genes (SHANK2, MYBL2, FADD) and two non-coding genes (miR-4707-5p, PCAT1), were involved in somatic copy-number alterations (SCNAs) or structural variants (SVs). A survival analysis based on the expression profiles of 321 individuals with ESCC indicated that these genes were significantly associated with poorer survival. Subsequently, we performed functional studies, which showed that miR-4707-5p and MYBL2 promoted proliferation and metastasis. Together, our results shed light on somatic mutations and genomic events that contribute to ESCC tumorigenesis and prognosis and might suggest therapeutic targets.
Objectives
This study was designed to evaluate the performance of high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (HR-MRI) in detecting giant cell arteritis (GCA), evaluate superficial extracranial artery ...and other MRI abnormalities, and compare three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) techniques.
Methods
PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library were screened up to March 7, 2021, and further selection was performed according to the eligibility criteria. Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 was used for quality assessment, and heterogeneity assessment and statistical calculations were also performed.
Results
In total, 1851 records were retrieved from online databases, and 15 studies were finally included. Regarding the performance of HR-MRI, the superficial extracranial artery had 75% sensitivity and 89% specificity, respectively, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.91. Positive and negative post-test possibilities were 86% and 20%, respectively, with clinical diagnosis as reference. When referenced with temporal artery biopsy, the sensitivity was 91%, specificity was 78%, AUC was 0.92, and positive and negative post-test possibilities were 78% and 10%, respectively. 3D HR-MRI and 2D HR-MRI had 70% and 72% sensitivity, respectively, and 91% and 84% specificity, respectively.
Conclusions
HR-MRI is a valuable imaging modality for GCA diagnosis. It provided high accuracy in the diagnosis of GCA and played a potential role in identifying GCA-related ischemic optic neuropathy. 3D HR-MRI had better specificity than 2D HR-MRI.
Key Points
HR-MRI helps clinicians to diagnose GCA
.
Superficial extracranial arteries and other MRI abnormalities can be assessed with HR-MRI
.
HR-MRI can help in assessing GCA-related optic neuropathy
.
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a double-stranded DNA virus etiologically associated with multiple malignancies. Both latency and sporadic lytic reactivation contribute to ...KSHV-associated malignancies, however, the specific roles of many KSHV lytic gene products in KSHV replication remain elusive. In this study, we report that ablation of ORF55, a late gene encoding a tegument protein, does not impact KSHV lytic reactivation but significantly reduces the production of progeny virions. We found that cysteine 10 and 11 (C10 and C11) of pORF55 are palmitoylated, and the palmytoilation is essential for its Golgi localization and secondary envelope formation. Palmitoylation-defective pORF55 mutants are unstable and undergo proteasomal degradation. Notably, introduction of a putative Golgi localization sequence to these palmitoylation-defective pORF55 mutants restores Golgi localization and fully reinstates KSHV progeny virion production. Together, our study provides new insight into the critical role of pORF55 palmitoylation in KSHV progeny virion production and offers potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of related malignancies.
Over‐harvesting, habitat loss and fragmentation, and biological invasions have led to a sharp decline in wild medicinal plants population in China, where they are an essential component of ...traditional medicine and used widely. The current national list of protected medicinal materials, the State Key‐protected Wild Medicinal Species List (SKPWMSL), which has not been revised for 30 years, is in urgent need of an update. This study proposes a new scoring system with seven indicators that set the conservation priorities of threatened medicinal plants. The advantages of our approach include: (i) quantitative methods with high repeatability and comparability; and (ii) consideration of the evolutionary history of medicinal species. After assessing 911 threatened medicinal angiosperms in China, we identified 112 species as key medicinal plants for conservation priority (KMPCP). We suggest promoting the SKPWMSL with KMPCP as a supplement and update. Meanwhile, our scoring system will improve the future setting of conservation priority and can be extended to other countries or regions.
We propose a new robust and highly repeatable scoring system that includes seven indicators (i.e., threatened and conservation status, evolutionary distinctiveness, harvesting parts, medicinal usage, ecological value, and number of uses) to set the conservation priorities of threatened medicinal plants. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the evolutionary distinctiveness is considered for setting conservation priorities of medicinal plants.
To evaluate the impact and cost-benefit value of pharmacist interventions for prophylactic antibiotic use in surgical patients undergoing clean or clean-contaminated operations.
A pre-to-post ...intervention study was performed in the Department of Urological Surgery of a tertiary hospital. Patients admitted from January through June 2011, undergoing clean or clean-contaminated surgery, served as the pre-intervention group; patients admitted from January through June 2012 formed the post-intervention group. Pharmacist interventions were performed for the surgeries in the post-intervention group. The criteria for the rational use of antibiotic prophylaxis were established by the hospital administration. The pharmacist interventions included real-time monitoring of medical records and controlling of the prescriptions of prophylactic antibiotics against the criteria. The pre- and post-intervention groups were then compared to evaluate the outcomes of the pharmacist interventions. A cost-benefit analysis was performed to determine the economic effects of implementing the pharmacist intervention on preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis.
After the pharmacist intervention, a significant decrease was found in the rate of no indications for prophylactic antibiotic use (p = 0.004), the rate of broad-spectrum antibiotic use (p<0.001), the rate of drug replacement (p<0.001) and the rate of prolonged duration of prophylaxis (p<0.001). Significant reductions were observed in the mean antibiotic cost (p<0.001), the mean duration of antibiotic prophylaxis (p<0.001) and the mean number of antibiotics used (p<0.001). A significant increase was observed in the rate of correct choice of antibiotics (p<0.001). The ratio of the net mean cost savings for antibiotics to the mean cost of pharmacist time was approximately 18.79:1.
Real-time interventions provided by a clinical pharmacist promoted rational use of prophylactic antibiotics, with a significant reduction in antibiotic costs, thus leading to favorable economic outcomes.
PDF
