Current Status of Alligator sinensis

1IntroductionAlligatorsinensisisakindofvaluablebutrareanimalwhichisdistributedonlyinChi-na.Chinesealligatorsliveinreservoirsandpondsinthehillsidesbetweenthemiddleandup-perreachesoftheYangtzeRiver.Historically,thedistributionareaoftheChinesealligatorsreached34.5millionhectaresandthenumberreachedthelevelofbeing"tooeasytogetanddisgust"duringtheWesternHanDynasty(206B.C.-24A.D.).Withtheinterruptionofhumanactivities,thedistributionareaofA.sinensisisdecreasingcontinuouslyandthenumberisreducinggr…     

6-Cyclopropylpurines as Novel Potent Analogs of Cytokinins

6-Alkynyl-, trans-6-alkenyl-, trans-6-cyclopropyl-and 6-alkylpurines structurally related to the cytokinin 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) have been synthesized and examined with a radish cotyledon assay as plant growth stimulators. The growth stimulation obtained with the 6-alkylpurines trans-cyclopropylpurines was very close to that obtained with BAP, and the trans-styrylpurines were somewhat less effective. The fact that the conformationally locked cyclopropanes exhibit growth-stimulating effects comparable to the flexible 6-alkylpurines and to BAP, supports the hypothesis that the orientation of the NH-CH₂ bond in “the active conformation” of BAP is close to anti, which means that the torsion angle C(6)-N(6)-CH₂-C is approximately 180 degrees.     

Survival times in people with dementia: analysis from population based cohort study with 14 year follow-up

Objectives To provide estimates of survival after onset of dementia by age, sex, self reported health, disability, and severity of cognitive impairment.Design Analysis of participants from prospective population based cohort study in 1991-2003, with follow-up of dementia status in all individuals after two and six years (in one centre) and 10 years and in subsamples additionally at six and eight years and mortality until 2005.Setting Multicentre population based study in England and Wales: two rural and three urban centres.Participants 438 participants who developed dementia from a population based study of 13 004 individuals aged 65 years and over drawn from primary care population registers.Main outcome measures Sociodemographic factors, cognitive function, specific health conditions, and self reported health collected at each interview. Cox’s proportional hazards regression models were used to identify predictors of mortality from the selected variables in people who received diagnosis of dementia according the study’s criteria.Results By December 2005, 356 of the 438 (81%) participants who developed dementia during the study had died. Estimated median survival time from onset of dementia to death was 4.1 years (interquartile range 2.5-7.6) for men and 4.6 years (2.9-7.0) for women. There was a difference of nearly seven years in survival between the younger old and the oldest people with dementia: 10.7 (25th centile 5.6) for ages 65-69; 5.4 (interquartile range 3.4-8.3) for ages 70-79; 4.3 (2.8-7.0) for ages 80-89, and 3.8 (2.3-5.2) years for ages ≥90. Significant factors that predicted mortality in the presence of dementia during the follow-up included sex, age of onset, and disability.Conclusion These analyses give a population based estimated median survival for incident dementia of 4.5 years. Such estimates can be used for prognosis and planning for patients, carers, service providers, and policy makers.     

A Longitudinal Study of Atrophy in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and Normal Aging Revealed by Cortical Thickness

In recent years, amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) has attracted significant attention as an indicator of high risk for Alzheimer''s disease. An understanding of the pathology of aMCI may benefit the development of effective clinical treatments for dementia. In this work, we measured the cortical thickness of 109 aMCI subjects and 99 normal controls (NC) twice over two years. The longitudinal changes and the cross-sectional differences between the two types of participants were explored using the vertex thickness values. The thickness of the cortex in aMCI was found significantly reduced in both longitudinal and between-group comparisons, mainly in the temporal lobe, superolateral parietal lobe and some regions of the frontal cortices. Compared to NC, the aMCI showed a significantly high atrophy rate in the left lateral temporal lobe and left parahippocampal gyrus over two years. Additionally, a significant positive correlation between brain atrophy and the decline of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores was also found in the left superior and left middle temporal gyrus in aMCI. These findings demonstrated specific longitudinal spatial patterns of cortical atrophy in aMCI and NC. The higher atrophy rate in aMCI might be responsible for the accelerated functional decline in the aMCI progression process.     

Organ-Specific Responses of Vacuolar H~+-ATPase in the Shoots and Roots of C_3 Halophyte Suaeda salsa to NaCl

Suaeda salsa L. is a halophytic species that is well adapted to high salinity. In order to understand its salt tolerance mechanism, we examined the growth and vacuolar H+-ATPase (V-ATPase) response to NaCl within the shoots and roots. The growth of shoots, but not roots, was dramatically stimulated by NaCl. Cl? and Na+ were mainly accumulated in shoots. V-ATPase activity was significantly increased by NaCl in roots and especially in shoots. Interestingly, antisera ATP95 and ATP88b detected three V1 subunits...     

Effects of Time-of-Day of Hypertension Treatment on Ambulatory Blood Pressure and Clinical Characteristics of Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

Generally, hypertensive patients ingest all their blood pressure (BP)-lowering agents in the morning. However, many published prospective trials have reported clinically meaningful morning-evening, treatment-time differences in BP-lowering efficacy, duration of action, and safety of most classes of hypertension medications, and it was recently documented that routine ingestion of ≥1 hypertension medications at bedtime, compared with ingestion of all of them upon awakening, significantly reduces cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. Non-dipping (<10% decline in asleep relative to awake BP mean), as determined by ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM), is frequent in diabetes and is associated with increased CVD risk. Here, we investigated the influence of hypertension treatment-time regimen on the circadian BP pattern, degree of BP control, and relevant clinical and analytical parameters of hypertensive patients with type 2 diabetes evaluated by 48-h ABPM. This cross-sectional study involved 2429 such patients (1465 men/964 women), 65.9?±?10.6 (mean?±?SD) yrs of age, enrolled in the Hygia Project, involving primary care centers of northwest Spain and designed to evaluate prospectively CVD risk by ABPM. Among the participants, 1176 were ingesting all BP-lowering medications upon awakening, whereas 1253 patients were ingesting ≥1 medications at bedtime. Among the latter, 336 patients were ingesting all BP-lowering medications at bedtime, whereas 917 were ingesting the full daily dose of some hypertension medications upon awakening and the full dose of others at bedtime. Those ingesting ≥1 medications at bedtime versus those ingesting all medications upon awakening had lower likelihood of metabolic syndrome and chronic kidney disease (CKD); had significantly lower albumin/creatinine ratio, glucose, total cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol; and had higher estimated glomerular filtration rate and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. Moreover, patients ingesting all medications at bedtime had lowest fasting glucose, serum creatinine, uric acid, and prevalence of proteinuria and CKD. Ingestion of ≥1 medications at bedtime was also significantly associated with lower asleep systolic (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) means than treatment with all medications upon awakening. Sleep-time relative SBP and DBP decline was significantly attenuated in patients ingesting all medications upon awakening (p?<?.001). Thus, the prevalence of non-dipping was significantly higher when all hypertension medications were ingested upon awakening (68.6%) than when ≥1 of them was ingested at bedtime (55.8%; p?<?.001 between groups), and even further attenuated (49.7%) when all of them were ingested at bedtime (p?<?.001). Additionally, prevalence of the riser BP pattern, associated with highest CVD risk, was much greater (23.6%) among patients ingesting all medications upon awakening, compared with those ingesting some (20.0%) or all medications at bedtime (12.2%; p?<?.001 between groups). The latter group also showed significantly higher prevalence of properly controlled ambulatory BP (p <?.001) that was achieved by a significantly lower number of hypertension medications (p?<?.001) compared with patients treated upon awakening. Our findings demonstrate significantly lower asleep SBP mean and attenuated prevalence of a blunted nighttime BP decline, i.e., lower prevalence of markers of CVD risk, and improved metabolic profile in patients with type 2 diabetes ingesting hypertension medications at bedtime than in those ingesting all of them upon awakening. These collective findings indicate that bedtime hypertension treatment, in conjunction with proper patient evaluation by ABPM to corroborate the diagnosis of hypertension and avoid treatment-induced nocturnal hypotension, should be the preferred therapeutic scheme for type 2 diabetes. (Author correspondence: rhermida@uvigo.es)