Abstract Objective This article discusses the performance and distortions of pharmaceutical market in China and provides some reflections and policy implications for currently implemented reform. ...Methods This study is based on literature review and publicly available data by searching electronic databases and official web pages of the Chinese government on the internet. Results China's economic transition and the incremental and piecemeal nature of health care reform have created a pharmaceutical market with a number of deficiencies, including ineffective supervision, mark-up price pattern, distortion of the price schedule, and lack of authoritative drug formulary. Conclusions We conclude that the root cause of the market and government failures is that higher-than-cost drugs preferred by all suppliers. New drug pricing mechanism is the key to the current pharmaceutical reform and should be implemented in coordination with other health system reforms.
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common degenerative joint disease in the elderly, while oxidative stress-induced chondrocyte degeneration plays a key role in the pathologic progression of OA. One possible ...reason is that the expression of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), which acts as the intracellular defense factor against oxidative stress, is significantly inhibited in chondrocytes. Spinosin (SPI) is a potent Nrf2 agonist, but its effect on OA is still unknown. In this study, we found that SPI can alleviate tert-Butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP)-induced extracellular matrix degradation of chondrocytes. Additionally, SPI can effectively activate Nrf2, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), and NADPH quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) in chondrocytes under the TBHP environment. When Nrf2 was silenced by siRNA, the cartilage protective effect of SPI was also weakened. Finally, SPI showed good alleviative effects on OA in mice. Thus, SPI can ameliorate oxidative stress-induced chondrocyte dysfunction and exhibit a chondroprotective effect through activating the Nrf2/HO-1 pathway, which may provide a novel and promising option for the treatment of OA.
Linn. is a large genus within the family Asteraceae that includes several important medicinal plants. Because of their similar morphology and chemical composition, traditional identification methods ...often fail to distinguish them. Therefore, developing an effective identification method for
species is an urgent requirement. In this study, we analyzed 15 chloroplast (cp) genomes, including 12 newly sequenced genomes, from 5
species. The cp genomes from the five
species had a typical quadripartite structure and were highly conserved across species. They had varying lengths of 151,132-151,178 bp, and their gene content and codon preferences were similar. Mutation hotspot analysis identified four highly variable regions, which can potentially be used as molecular markers to identify
species. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the five
species investigated in this study were sister branches to each other, and individuals of each species formed a monophyletic clade. This study shows that the cp genome can provide distinguishing features to help identify closely related
species and has the potential to serve as a universal super barcode for plant identification.
The species of
Lataste 1887 with their related genera remains undetermined owing to inconsistent morphological characteristics and molecular phylogeny. To investigate the phylogenetic relationship ...and speciation among species of the genus
, we sequenced and annotated the whole mitochondrial genomes of three individual species, namely
Radde 1861,
Milne-Edwards 1871, and
(
)
Büchner 1889. The nucleotide sequences of the circular mitogenomes were identical for each individual species of
,
, and
. Each species contained 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs, and 2 ribosomal RNAs, with mitochondrial genome lengths of 16,557 bp, 16,562 bp, and 16,324 bp, respectively. The mitogenomes and PCGs showed positive AT skew and negative GC skew. Mitogenomic phylogenetic analyses suggested that
,
, and
Pallas 1779 belong to the genus
, whereas
belongs to the genus
grouped with
.
showed the closest relationship with
Büchner 1889 and
Kuroda 1920, which are considered as the paraphyletic species of genera Microtus.
and niche model analysis revealed that
may have first appeared during the early Pleistocene epoch. Further,
separated from others over 1.53 million years ago (Ma) and then diverged into
and
0.76 Ma. The relative contribution of climatic fluctuations to speciation and selection in this group requires further research.
Lindera obtusiloba Blume is the northernmost tree species in the family Lauraceae, and it is a key species in understanding the evolutionary history of this family. The species of L. obtusiloba in ...East Asia has diverged into the Northern and Southern populations, which are geographically separated by an arid belt. Though the morphological differences between populations have been observed and well documented, intraspecific variations at the plastomic level have not been systematically investigated to date. Here, ten chloroplast genomes of L. obtusiloba individuals were sequenced and analyzed along with three publicly available plastomes. Comparative plastomic analysis suggests that both the Northern and the Southern populations share similar overall structure, gene order, and GC content in their plastomes although the size of the plasome and the level of intraspecific variability do vary between the two populations. The Northern have relatively larger plastomes while the Southern population possesses higher intraspecific variability, which could be attributed to the complexity of the geological environments in the South. Phylogenomic analyses also support the split of the Northern and Southern clades among L. obtusiloba individuals. However, there is no obvious species boundary between var. obtusiloba and var. heterophylla in the Southern population, indicating that gene flow could still occur between these two varieties, and this could be used as a good example of reticulate evolution. It is also found that a few photosynthesis‐related genes are under positive selection, which is mainly related to the geological and environmental differences between the Northern and the Southern regions. Our results provide a reference for phylogenetic analysis within species and suggest that phylogenomic analyses with a sufficient number of nuclear and chloroplast genomic target loci from widely distributed individuals could provide a deeper understanding of the population evolution of the widespread species.
Lindera obtusiloba in East Asia has diverged into the Northern and Southern populations, which are geographically separated by an arid belt. Here, ten chloroplast genomes of L. obtusiloba species were sequenced and analyzed along with three publicly available plastomes support the split of the Northern and the Southern clades and found a fewer photosynthesis‐related genes were under positive selection, which mainly related to the difference geological environments between Northern and Southern regions.
In this study, the capacity to tune root morphogenesis by a plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium,
L4, was investigated from various aspects including microbial physiology, root development, and root ...endophytic microbial community. Strain L4 was isolated from the root-associated soil of 7-year plantation of
. Aiming at revealing the promotion mechanism of
on root growth and development, this study first evaluated the growth promotion characters of
.
L4, followed by investigation in the effect of L4 inoculation on root morphology, endophytic microbiota of root system, and expression of genes involved in root development in
.
L4 is able to hydrolyze organic and inorganic phosphorus, fix nitrogen, and produce IAA, ACC deaminase, and siderophore, which shaped specific structure of endophytic bacterial community with dominant
in roots and promoted the development of roots. From the observation of root development characteristics, root length, root diameter, and the number of root hairs were increased by inoculation of strain L4, which were verified by the differential expression of root development-related genes in
.
. Genomic traits of
.
L4 which further revealed its capacity for plant growth promotion in which genes involved in phosphorus solubilization, ACC deamination, iron transportation, and IAA production were identified. This root growth-promoting strain has the potential to develop green method for regulating plant development. These findings provide us ecological knowledge of microenvironment around root system and a new approach for regulating root development.
The internal stress difference between soft-ductile aluminum alloy substrate and hard-brittle Ni–W alloy coating will cause stress concentration, thus leading to the problem of poor bonding force. ...Herein, this work prepared the Ni–W graded coating on aluminum alloy matrix by the pulse electrodeposition method in order to solve the mechanical mismatch problem between substrate and coatings. More importantly, a backward propagation (BP) neural network was applied to efficiently optimize the pulse electrodeposition process of Ni–W graded coating. The SEM, EDS, XRD, Vickers hardness tester and Weighing scales are used to analyze the micromorphology, chemical element, phase composition, and micro hardness as well as oxidation weight increase, respectively. The results show that the optimal process conditions with BP neural network are as follows: the bath temperature is 30 °C, current density is 15 mA/cm2 and duty cycle is 0.3. The predicted value of the model agrees well with the experimental value curve, the relative error is minor. The maximum error is less than 3%, and the correlation coefficient is 0.9996. The Ni–W graded coating prepared by BP neural network shows good bonding with the substrate which has flat and smooth interface. The thickness of the coating is about 136 μm, which slows down the oxidation of the substrate and plays an effective role in protecting the substrate.
Premature Ovarian Failure (POF) is a genetically heterogenous disorder that leads to hypergonadotropic ovarian failure and infertility. We screened 100 Chinese women with POF for mutations in the ...oocyte-specific gene
FIGLA and identified three variants in four women: missense mutation c.11C → A (p.A4E) was found in two women; deletion c. 15–36 del (p.G6fsX66), resulting in a frameshift that leads to haploinsufficiency, was found in one woman; and deletion c.419–421 delACA (p.140 delN) was found in one. Functional analyses by the yeast two-hybrid assay demonstrated that the p.140 delN mutation disrupted FIGLA binding to the TCF3 helix-loop-helix (HLH) domain. Our findings show that a subset of Chinese women with sporadic, premature ovarian failure harbor mutations in
FIGLA.
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a complex heterogeneous endocrine disease affected by genetic and environmental factors. In this manuscript, we aimed to describe the composition of bile acid ...metabolomics in the follicular fluid (FF) of PCOS. The FF was collected from 31 control patients and 35 PCOS patients diagnosed according to the Rotterdam diagnostic criteria. The Bile Acid Assay Kit and ultra-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) were used in this study to detect the total bile acid and 24 bile acid metabolites. Glycocholic acid (GC3A), taurocholic acid (TCA), glycochenodeoxycholic acid (GCDCA), and chenodeoxycholic acid-3-β-d-glucuronide (CDCA-3Gln) were elevated in the PCOS group. GCDCA was positively correlated with the serum follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) (r = 0.3787,
= 0.0017) and luteinizing hormone (LH) (r = 0.2670,
= 0.0302). The level of CDCA-3Gln also rose with the increase in antral follicle counts (AFC) (r = 0.3247,
= 0.0078). Compared with the control group, the primary bile acids (
= 0.0207) and conjugated bile acids (
= 0.0283) were elevated in PCOS. For the first time, our study described the changes in bile acid metabolomics in the FF of PCOS patients, suggesting that bile acids may play an important role in the pathogenesis of PCOS.
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