Aidi injection,a traditional Chinese biomedical preparation for gynecologic tumors: a systematic review and PRISMA-compliant meta-analysis

Aidi injection (ADI), a traditional Chinese biomedical preparation, is a promising adjuvant therapy for gynecologic tumors (GTs), including cervical cancer (CC), endometrial cancer (EC), and ovarian cancer (OC). Although studies have reported positively on ADI therapy, its exact effects and safety in GT patients remain controversial. Therefore, a wide-ranging systematic search of electronic databases was performed for this meta-analysis. Data from 38 trials including 3309 GT patients were analyzed. The results indicated that the combination of conventional treatment and ADI markedly improved the patients’ overall response rate (P<0.00001), disease control rate (P<0.00001), and quality of life (P<0.05) compared with conventional treatment alone. Furthermore, patient immunity was enhanced with combined treatment, as indicated by significantly increased percentages of CD3⁺ (P=0.005) and CD4⁺ (P<0.00001) and increased CD4⁺/CD8⁺ ratio (P=0.001). Most of the adverse events caused by radiochemotherapy such as gastrointestinal issues, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, and hepatotoxicity, (P<0.05 for all) were significantly alleviated when ADI was used in the GT patients. However, other adverse events such as nephrotoxicity, diarrhea, alopecia, and neurotoxicity did not significantly differ between the two groups. Overall, these results suggest that the combination of conventional and ADI treatment is more effective than conventional treatment alone.     

Correlations between glycolysis with clinical traits and immune function in bladder urothelial carcinoma

Background: Glycolysis was a representative hallmark in the tumor microenvironment (TME), and we aimed to explore the correlations between glycolysis with immune activity and clinical traits in bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA).Methods: Our study obtained glycolysis scores for each BLCA samples from TCGA by a single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) algorithm, based on a glycolytic gene set. The relationship between glycolysis with prognosis, clinical characteristics, and immune function were investigated subsequently.Results: We found that enhanced glycolysis was associated with poor prognosis and metastasis in BLCA. Moreover, glycolysis had a close correlation with immune function, and enhanced glycolysis increased immune activities. In other words, glycolysis had a positive correlation with immune activities. Immune checkpoints such as IDO1, CD274, were up-regulated in high-glycolysis group as well.Conclusion: We speculated that in BLCA, elevated glycolysis enhanced immune function, which caused tumor cells to overexpress immune checkpoints to evade immune surveillance. Inhibition of glycolysis might be a promising assistant for immunotherapy in bladder cancer.     

Length–weight relationships of seven fish species in the Yangtze River Estuary and its adjacent waters,Eastern China

The length–weight relationships (LWRs) for seven fish species belonging to five families in the Yangtze River Estuary and its adjacent waters are presented. Cynoglossus gracilis, Cynoglossus macrolepidotus, Ctenotrypauchen chinensis, Collichthys niveatus, Ophichthus apicalis and Erisphex potti were collected monthly in 2009 using trammel nets (the size of smaller mesh net was 1.5 m × 15 m × 4 panels with mesh sizes of 2.5, 3.4, 4.3 and 5.8 cm; the size of larger-mesh net was 2.4 m × 30 m × 4 panels with mesh sizes of 5.0, 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0 cm; soaking overnight). Lophiogobius ocellicauda were collected December in 2020 using shrimp trawl nets (mesh size 2.0 cm). The precision of measurement for the fish specimens is 0.1 cm total length and 0.1 g total weight. The estimated ranges of the parameters a and b for the seven fish species were from 0.0001 to 0.0289 and 2.718 to 3.541, respectively. Two new maximum total length were recorded for Ctenotrypauchen chinensis and Ophichthus apicalis.     

Effects of corallivory and coral colony density on coral growth and survival

A suite of processes drive variation in coral populations in space and time, yet our understanding of how variation in coral density affects coral performance is limited. Theory predicts that reductions in density can send coral populations into a predator pit, where concentrated corallivory maintains corals at low densities. In reality, how variation in coral density alters corallivory rates is poorly resolved. Here, we experimentally quantified the effects of corallivory and coral density on growth and survival of small colonies of the staghorn coral Acropora pulchra. Our findings suggest that coral density and corallivory have strong but independent effects on coral performance. In the presence of corallivores, corals suffered high but density-independent mortality. When corallivores were excluded, however, vertical extension rates of colonies increased with increasing densities. While we found no evidence for a predator pit, our results suggest that spatio-temporal variation in corallivore and coral densities can fundamentally alter population dynamics via strong effects on juvenile corals.

     

Mycobiont diversity and first evidence of mixotrophy associated with Psathyrellaceae fungi in the chlorophyllous orchid Cremastra variabilis

Mixotrophy (MX, also called partial mycoheterotrophy) in plants is characterized by isotopic abundances that differ from those of autotrophs. Previous studies have evaluated mycoheterotrophy in MX plants associated with fungi of similar ecological characteristics, but little is known about the differences in the relative abundances of ¹³C and ¹⁵N in an orchid species that associates with several different mycobionts species. Since the chlorophyllous orchid Cremastra variabilis Nakai associates with various fungi with different ecologies, we hypothesized that it may change its relative abundances of ¹³C and ¹⁵N depending on the associated mycobionts. We investigated mycobiont diversity in the chlorophyllous orchid C. variabilis together with the relative abundance of ¹³C and ¹⁵N and morphological underground differentiation (presence or absence of a mycorhizome with fungal colonization). Rhizoctonias (Tulasnellaceae, Ceratobasidiaceae, Sebacinales) were detected as the main mycobionts. High differences in δ¹³C values (– 34.7? to?– 27.4 ‰) among individuals were found, in which the individuals associated with specific Psathyrellaceae showed significantly high relative abundance of ¹³C. In addition, Psathyrellaceae fungi were always detected on individuals with mycorhizomes. In the present study, MX orchid association with non-rhizoctonia saprobic fungi was confirmed, and the influence of mycobionts on morphological development and on relative abundance of ¹³C and ¹⁵N was discovered. Cremastra variabilis may increase opportunities to gain nutrients from diverse partners, in a bet-hedging plasticity that allows colonization of various environmental conditions.

     

Association of myostatin deficiency with collagen related disease-umbilical hernia and tippy toe standing in pigs

Transgenic Research - Herein, we investigate the high incidence of umbilical hernia and tippy-toe standing and their underlying changes in gene expression and proliferation in myostatin knockout...     

中国兽类分类与系统演化研究进展

中国兽类（即哺乳动物）种类繁多,对维持生态平衡发挥着重要的作用。自John R.Reeves于1829—1834年在我国广东开展兽类调查以来,近200年我国兽类分类及系统学研究取得了令世人瞩目的进步和发展。目前中国已知的兽类物种数已达686种,约占全世界兽类种数的10%,是世界上兽类物种多样性最丰富的国家之一。随着我国对生态环境保护的重视,生态环境日益改善,但全球气候变化、生境破碎化、人类活动增加及人兽共患重大疫情涌现等问题仍十分突出,兽类多样性调查及分类学研究的必要性越发明显。同时,兽类分类学这门古老而传统的学科也在不断引入各种新方法与技术,如整合分类学、标本数字化、模式标本测序、便携式测序技术及基于深度学习技术的物种识别鉴定等,分类学研究的成果及应用在近年得到了飞速发展。动物分类学作为传统的基础学科,是遗传学、生理学、生态学、医学、药学等现代生物学的基石。然而,由于学科特征和差异等原因,该学科近年来没有得到足够的重视,导致出现了学科萎缩和分类学人才后继无人的危机。因此,从国家层面对分类学、形态学等基础学科的人才培养、课题设置和资金投入等,予以特殊的政策支持,十分必要,也亟待解决。     

Streptomyces luteolifulvus sp. nov., a novel actinomycete isolated from soil in Nanjing,China

During the investigation of exploring potential sources of novel species and natural bioactives, a novel actinomycete, designated strain HIT-DPA4^T, was isolated from a soil sample, which was collected from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, PR China and characterized using a polyphasic approach. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities and the result of phylogenetic analysis, strain HIT-DPA4^T was most closely related to Streptomyces cyaneus CGMCC 4.1671 ^T, and shared the highest sequence similarity of 98.76%. In addition, the cell walls of the species HIT-DPA4^T contained LL-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid and the whole-cell hydrolysates were identified as glucose and ribose, and the principal phospholipids were found to be diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol mannoside and phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine. MK-9(H₆) and MK-9(H₄) were predominant menaquinones; and C_16:0, anteiso-C_15:0 and C_15:0 as major cellular fatty acids of the organism HIT-DPA4^T. Gene Ontology database analysis and antiSMASH server predicted results displayed that strain HIT-DPA4^T was a promising classification units, which has various types of functions and contains multiple biosynthetic gene clusters with the similarity more than 80%. Multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) of five housekeeping genes (atpD, gyrB, recA, rpoB and trpB) illustrated that Streptomyces luteolifulvus formed a separate branch in the genus Streptomyces. However, a combination of low level of DNA-DNA relatedness and physiological properties indicated that strain HIT-DPA4^T can be distinguished from its phylogenetically related species Streptomyces cyaneus CGMCC 4.1671 ^T. Moreover, gene synteny research could be further differed organism HIT-DPA4^T from similarity species. Therefore, the strain is concluded to represent a novel species of the genus Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces luteolifulvus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HIT-DPA4^T (=?CGMCC 4.7558 ^T?=?TISTR 2751 ^T).