Fruit and Vegetable Consumption and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Older Chinese: The Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study

Objective

To examine the adjusted associations of fruit consumption and vegetable consumption with the Framingham score and its components in the non-Western setting of Southern China, considering health status.

Method

Linear regression was used to assess the cross-sectional associations of fruit and vegetable consumption with the Framingham score and its components, among 19,518 older Chinese (≥50 years) from the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study in Southern China (2003–2006), and whether these differed by health status.

Results

The association of fruit consumption with the Framingham score varied by health status (P-value<0.001), but not vegetable consumption (P-value 0.51). Fruit consumption was associated with a lower Framingham score (-0.04 per portions/day, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.08 to -0.004) among participants in poor health, adjusted for age, sex, recruitment phase, socio-economic position and lifestyle. However, similarly adjusted, fruit consumption was associated with a higher Framingham score (0.05, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.09) among participants in good health, perhaps due to a positive association of fruit consumption with fasting glucose. Similarly adjusted, vegetable consumption was associated with a higher Framingham score (0.03, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.05) among all participants, with no difference by health status.

Conclusion

This large study from a non-western setting found that fruit and vegetable consumption was barely associated with the Framingham score, or major CVD risk factors.     

Live Births from Domestic Dog (Canis familiaris) Embryos Produced by In Vitro Fertilization

Development of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in the dog has resisted progress for decades, due to their unique reproductive physiology. This lack of progress is remarkable given the critical role ART could play in conserving endangered canid species or eradicating heritable disease through gene-editing technologies—an approach that would also advance the dog as a biomedical model. Over 350 heritable disorders/traits in dogs are homologous with human conditions, almost twice the number of any other species. Here we report the first live births from in vitro fertilized embryos in the dog. Adding to the practical significance, these embryos had also been cryopreserved. Changes in handling of both gametes enabled this progress. The medium previously used to capacitate sperm excluded magnesium because it delayed spontaneous acrosome exocytosis. We found that magnesium significantly enhanced sperm hyperactivation and ability to undergo physiologically-induced acrosome exocytosis, two functions essential to fertilize an egg. Unlike other mammals, dogs ovulate a primary oocyte, which reaches metaphase II on Days 4–5 after the luteinizing hormone (LH) surge. We found that only on Day 6 are oocytes consistently able to be fertilized. In vitro fertilization of Day 6 oocytes with sperm capacitated in medium supplemented with magnesium resulted in high rates of embryo development (78.8%, n = 146). Intra-oviductal transfer of nineteen cryopreserved, in vitro fertilization (IVF)-derived embryos resulted in seven live, healthy puppies. Development of IVF enables modern genetic approaches to be applied more efficiently in dogs, and for gamete rescue to conserve endangered canid species.     

Cystathionine β-Synthase Inhibition Is a Potential Therapeutic Approach to Treatment of Ischemic Injury

Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) has been reported to exacerbate stroke outcome in experimental models. Cystathionine β-synthase (CBS) has been implicated as the predominant H₂S-producing enzyme in central nervous system. When SH-SY5Y cells were transfected to overexpress CBS, these cells were able to synthesize H₂S when exposed to high levels of enzyme substrates but not substrate concentrations that may reflect normal physiological conditions. At the same time, these cells demonstrated exacerbated cell death when subjected to oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD) together with high substrate concentrations, indicating that H₂S production has a detrimental effect on cell survival. This effect could be abolished by CBS inhibition. The same effect was observed with primary astrocytes exposed to OGD and high substrates or sodium hydrosulfide. In addition, CBS was upregulated and activated by truncation in primary astrocytes subjected to OGD. When rats were subjected to permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion, CBS activation was also observed. These results imply that in acute ischemic conditions, CBS is upregulated and activated by truncation causing an increased production of H₂S, which exacerbate the ischemic injuries. Therefore, CBS inhibition may be a viable approach to stroke treatment.     

副华枝樇属分类研究及三新种记述(樇目: 笛樇科: 长角枝樇亚科)

本文对副华枝樇属Parasinophasma Chen et He进行了分类研究, 其中包括3新种--斑副华枝樇Parasinophasma maculatum sp. nov., 天目山副华枝樇Parasinophasma tianmushanense sp. nov.和单色副华枝樇Parasinophasma unicolor sp. nov.樇 新种模式标本保存于中国科学院动物研究所、上海昆虫博物馆、上海师范大学和香港昆虫学会。     

Phenology shifts at start vs. end of growing season in temperate vegetation over the Northern Hemisphere for the period 1982–2008

Changes in vegetative growing seasons are dominant indicators of the dynamic response of ecosystems to climate change. Therefore, knowledge of growing seasons over the past decades is essential to predict ecosystem changes. In this study, the long‐term changes in the growing seasons of temperate vegetation over the Northern Hemisphere were examined by analyzing satellite‐measured normalized difference vegetation index and reanalysis temperature during 1982–2008. Results showed that the length of the growing season (LOS) increased over the analysis period; however, the role of changes at the start of the growing season (SOS) and at the end of the growing season (EOS) differed depending on the time period. On a hemispheric scale, SOS advanced by 5.2 days in the early period (1982–1999) but advanced by only 0.2 days in the later period (2000–2008). EOS was delayed by 4.3 days in the early period, and it was further delayed by another 2.3 days in the later period. The difference between SOS and EOS in the later period was due to less warming during the preseason (January–April) before SOS compared with the magnitude of warming in the preseason (June–September) before EOS. At a regional scale, delayed EOS in later periods was shown. In North America, EOS was delayed by 8.1 days in the early period and delayed by another 1.3 days in the later period. In Europe, the delayed EOS by 8.2 days was more significant than the advanced SOS by 3.2 days in the later period. However, in East Asia, the overall increase in LOS during the early period was weakened in the later period. Admitting regional heterogeneity, changes in hemispheric features suggest that the longer‐lasting vegetation growth in recent decades can be attributed to extended leaf senescence in autumn rather than earlier spring leaf‐out.     

Context‐dependence in an ant–aphid mutualism: direct effects of tending intensity on aphid performance

1. In ant–hemipteran mutualisms, ants receive carbohydrates in the form of honeydew, while hemipterans receive protection from natural enemies. In the absence of natural enemies, however, the direct effects of tending are generally less well known. We hypothesised that with increasing tending intensity (ant to aphid ratio), aphid performance would increase initially, then decrease at high tending levels due to the metabolic cost of producing high quality honeydew. 2. We tested our hypothesis in a greenhouse experiment by manipulating Argentine ant (Linepithema humile Mayr) colony size while holding constant the initial size of aphid (Chaitophorus populicola Thomas) aggregations. The two parameters associated with survival, aphid survivorship to maturity and longevity, declined with increasing tending intensity, whereas per capita birth rate and time to first reproduction showed no relationship to attendance. The intrinsic rate of increase declined only at relatively high tending levels, suggesting a nonlinearity in the effect of tending intensity. 3. Tending intensity measured in the experiment was similar to that observed in free‐living aggregations of C. populicola. Furthermore, the per capita recruitment rate of ants to free‐living aphid aggregations was negatively density‐dependent, indicating that small aggregations tend to experience the highest levels of tending intensity. This finding suggests that the aphid's intrinsic rate of increase may be positively density‐dependent, mediated by the aphid's mutualistic interaction with the ant. 4. In the Argentine ant–C. populicola interaction, experimental manipulation of colony size revealed a direct cost of ant attendance that was conditional upon tending intensity. Experiments that manipulate only ant presence or absence may yield an incomplete understanding of the mutualistic interaction if underlying nonlinearities exist.     

Charting epilepsy by searching for intelligence in network space with the help of evolving autonomous agents

The problem of demarcating neural network space is formidable. A simple fully connected recurrent network of five units (binary activations, synaptic weight resolution of 10) has 3.2 *10(26) possible initial states. The problem increases drastically with scaling. Here we consider three complementary approaches to help direct the exploration to distinguish epileptic from healthy networks. [1] First, we perform a gross mapping of the space of five-unit continuous recurrent networks using randomized weights and initial activations. The majority of weight patterns (>70%) were found to result in neural assemblies exhibiting periodic limit-cycle oscillatory behavior. [2] Next we examine the activation space of non-periodic networks demonstrating that the emergence of paroxysmal activity does not require changes in connectivity. [3] The next challenge is to focus the search of network space to identify networks with more complex dynamics. Here we rely on a major available indicator critical to clinical assessment but largely ignored by epilepsy modelers, namely: behavioral states. To this end, we connected the above network layout to an external robot in which interactive states were evolved. The first random generation showed a distribution in line with approach [1]. That is, the predominate phenotypes were fixed-point or oscillatory with seizure-like motor output. As evolution progressed the profile changed markedly. Within 20 generations the entire population was able to navigate a simple environment with all individuals exhibiting multiply-stable behaviors with no cases of default locked limit-cycle oscillatory motor behavior. The resultant population may thus afford us a view of the architectural principles demarcating healthy biological networks from the pathological. The approach has an advantage over other epilepsy modeling techniques in providing a way to clarify whether observed dynamics or suggested therapies are pointing to computational viability or dead space.     

Structural studies of RFCCtf18 reveal a novel chromatin recruitment role for Dcc1

Replication factor C complexes load and unload processivity clamps from DNA and are involved in multiple DNA replication and repair pathways. The RFC^Ctf18 variant complex is required for activation of the intra‐S‐phase checkpoint at stalled replication forks and aids the establishment of sister chromatid cohesion. Unlike other RFC complexes, RFC^Ctf18 contains two non‐Rfc subunits, Dcc1 and Ctf8. Here, we present the crystal structure of the Dcc1‐Ctf8 heterodimer bound to the C‐terminus of Ctf18. We find that the C‐terminus of Dcc1 contains three‐winged helix domains, which bind to both ssDNA and dsDNA. We further show that these domains are required for full recruitment of the complex to chromatin, and correct activation of the replication checkpoint. These findings provide the first structural data on a eukaryotic seven‐subunit clamp loader and define a new biochemical activity for Dcc1.