AIM: To longitudinally investigate cytokine gene expression and protein levels in Th17 and Treg cells, to observe T-cell phenotypes during hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACHBLF) and to...AIM: To longitudinally investigate cytokine gene expression and protein levels in Th17 and Treg cells, to observe T-cell phenotypes during hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACHBLF) and to analyze changes in Th17 and Treg phenotypes during disease progression.展开更多
Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) is an increasing health problem, representing the second cause of cancerrelated mortality worldwide. The major risk factorfor HCC is cirrhosis. In developing countries, viral hepatitis re...Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) is an increasing health problem, representing the second cause of cancerrelated mortality worldwide. The major risk factorfor HCC is cirrhosis. In developing countries, viral hepatitis represent the major risk factor, whereas in developed countries, the epidemic of obesity, diabetes and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis contribute to the observed increase in HCC incidence. Cirrhotic patients are recommended to undergo HCC surveillance by abdominal ultrasounds at 6-mo intervals. The current diagnostic algorithms for HCC rely on typical radiological hallmarks in dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging, while the use of α-fetoprotein as an independent tool for HCC surveillance is not recommended by current guidelines due to its low sensitivity and specificity. Early diagnosis is crucial for curative treatments. Surgical resection, radiofrequency ablation and liver transplantation are considered the cornerstones of curative therapy, while for patients with more advanced HCC recommended options include sorafenib and trans-arterial chemoembolization. A multidisciplinary team, consisting of hepatologists, surgeons, radiologists, oncologists and pathologists, is fundamental for a correct management. In this paper, we review the diagnostic and therapeutic management of HCC, with a focus on the most recent evidences and recommendations from guidelines.展开更多
Two kinds of signal factors capable of inducing Agrobaorerium vir gene expression were purified and identified from leaf extracts of panicle-differentiating to flowering stage of rice (Oryza saliva L. cv. IR 72) detec...Two kinds of signal factors capable of inducing Agrobaorerium vir gene expression were purified and identified from leaf extracts of panicle-differentiating to flowering stage of rice (Oryza saliva L. cv. IR 72) detected by Agrobacterium vir(?) lacZ. fusion genes. The induction was similar to that observed with 5 μm actosyringone (AS). Based on the comprehensive analysis of the data by UV, IR, NMR, MS, HMQC and HMBC, the structures of these two signal factors are identified as 5, 7, 4'-trihydroxy-3', 5'-dimethoxy-flavone (named tricin) and 5, 4' -dihydroxy-3', 5' -dimethoxy-7- (β-D-glucosyloxy) -flavone, respectively. These results demonstrate that monocotyledonous plants do contain highly efficient vir gene inducing factors of Agrobacterium, and the reason why monocotyledonous plants are difficult to transform by Ayrobacterium is not due to absence of vir gene inducing factors, but due to the signal factors only produced in specific stage and tissue of monocotyledonous plants展开更多
Hepatitis B virus(HBV)infection is the leading cause of severe chronic liver disease.This article provides a critical view of the importance of genomic medicine for the study of HBV infection and its clinical outcomes...Hepatitis B virus(HBV)infection is the leading cause of severe chronic liver disease.This article provides a critical view of the importance of genomic medicine for the study of HBV infection and its clinical outcomes in Latin America.Three levels of evolutionary adaptation may correlate with the clinical outcomes of HBV infection.Infections in Latin America are predominantly of genotype H in Mexico and genotype F in Central and South America;these strains have historically circulated among the indigenous population.Both genotypes appear to be linked to a benign course of disease among the native and mestizo Mexicans and native South Americans.In contrast,genotypes F,A and D are common in acute and chronic infections among mestizos with Caucasian ancestry.Hepatocellular carcinoma is rare in Mexicans,but it has been associated with genotype F1b among Argentineans.This observation illustrates the significance of ascertaining the genetic and environmental factors involved in the development of HBV-related liver disease in Latin America,which contrast with those reported in other regions of the world.展开更多
Hepatitis B virus(HBV) is classically considered to be hepatotropic, but accumulating evidences strongly support its extra-hepatotropic nature too. HBV nucleicacids and proteins have long been reported in a variety of...Hepatitis B virus(HBV) is classically considered to be hepatotropic, but accumulating evidences strongly support its extra-hepatotropic nature too. HBV nucleicacids and proteins have long been reported in a variety of extra-hepatic tissues. Of these, HBV has been studied in details in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells(PBMCs), due to its accessibility. From these studies, it is now well established that PBMCs are permissive to HBV infection, replication, transcription and production of infective virions. Furthermore, molecular evolutionary studies have provided definite evidences towards evolution of HBV genome in PBMCs, which is independent of evolution occurring in the liver, leading to the emergence and selection of compartment specific escape variants or drug resistant strains. These variants/resistant strains of HBV remain restricted within the PBMCs and are rarely detected in the serum/plasma. In addition, HBV infected PBMCs have been reported to be directly transmitted through intrauterine modes, and this infection does not correlate significantly with serum HBV surface antigen or HBV DNA markers. This editorial briefly reviews the current knowledge on this topic, emphasizes and delineates the gaps that are required to be filled to properly understand the biological and clinical relevance of extrahepatic tropism of HBV.展开更多
Some properties of mass transfer within a semi-detached binary system are discussed based on an example of VV Vir. The observations and analysis of VV Vir show that it is a semi-detached binary system with the less ma...Some properties of mass transfer within a semi-detached binary system are discussed based on an example of VV Vir. The observations and analysis of VV Vir show that it is a semi-detached binary system with the less massive cooler component filling its Roche lobe, which is also called an Algol-type binary system. Based on the parameters of this semi-detached binary, a theoretical study on the mass flow is carded out, including the trajectory of the mass flow, the position, radius and temperature of the impact spot caused by the mass flow, the inconsistent form of the mass flow and the possibly huge rate of energy transfer carried by the mass flow. Humps and distortions in light curves of VV Vir are deemed to be weak evidence for the theoretical results.展开更多
The three-dimensional structure of a biomolecule rather than its one-dimensionM sequence determines its biological function. At present, the most accurate structures are derived from experimental data measured mainly ...The three-dimensional structure of a biomolecule rather than its one-dimensionM sequence determines its biological function. At present, the most accurate structures are derived from experimental data measured mainly by two techniques： X-ray crystallog- raphy and nuclear magnetic resonance （NMR） spec- troscopy. Because neither X-ray crystallography nor NMR spectroscopy could directly measure the positions of atoms in a biomolecule, algorithms must be designed to compute atom coordinates from the data. One salient feature of most NMR structure computation algorithms is their reliance on stochastic search to find the lowest energy conformations that satisfy the experimentally- derived geometric restraints. However, neither the cor- rectness of the stochastic search has been established nor the errors in the output structures could be quantified. Though there exist exact algorithms to compute struc- tures from angular restraints, similar algorithms that use distance restraints remain to be developed. An important application of structures is rational drug design where protein-ligand docking plays a crit- ical role. In fact, various docking programs that place a compound into the binding site of a target protein have been used routinely by medicinal chemists for both lead identification and optimization. Unfortunately, de- spite ongoing methodological advances and some success stories, the performance of current docking algorithms is still data-dependent. These algorithms formulate the docking problem as a match of two sets of feature points. Both the selection of feature points and the search for the best poses with the minimum scores are accomplished through some stochastic search methods. Both the un- certainty in the scoring function and the limited sam- pling space attained by the stochastic search contribute to their failures. Recently, we have developed two novel docking algorithms： a data-driven docking algorithm and a general docking algorithm that does not rely on experimental data. Our algorithms 展开更多
The interdependences of preparation conditions, magnetic and crystal structures, and magnetocaloric effects （MCE） of the MnFePGe-based compounds are reviewed. Based upon those findings, a new method for the evaluati...The interdependences of preparation conditions, magnetic and crystal structures, and magnetocaloric effects （MCE） of the MnFePGe-based compounds are reviewed. Based upon those findings, a new method for the evaluation of the MCE in these compounds, based on differential scanning calorimetry （DSC）, is proposed. The MnFePGe-based compounds are a group of magnetic refrigerants with giant magnetocaloric effect （GMCE）, and as such, have drawn tremendous attention, especially due to their many advantages for practical applications. Structural evolution and phase transformation in the compounds as functions of temperature, pressure, and magnetic field are reported. Influences of preparation conditions upon the homogeneity of the compounds＇ chemical composition and microstructure, both of which play a key role in the MCE and thermal hysteresis of the compounds, are introduced. Lastly, the origin of the ＂virgin effect＂ in the MnFePGe- based compounds is discussed.展开更多
Photometric results of three δ Scuti stars, AD Ari, IP Vir and YZ Boo from new observations obtained at the:Xinglong Station of the Beijing Astronom- ical Observatory (BAO) during 2000 aELd 2001 are reported. We pres...Photometric results of three δ Scuti stars, AD Ari, IP Vir and YZ Boo from new observations obtained at the:Xinglong Station of the Beijing Astronom- ical Observatory (BAO) during 2000 aELd 2001 are reported. We present here the preliminary analyses. Detailed studies of these stars based on additional data will be published separately.展开更多
We investigate orbital period changes of two deep, low mass ratio（DLMR） overcontact W UMa-type binaries, FG Hya and GR Vir. It is found that the orbital period of FG Hya shows a cyclic change with a period of Pmod= ...We investigate orbital period changes of two deep, low mass ratio（DLMR） overcontact W UMa-type binaries, FG Hya and GR Vir. It is found that the orbital period of FG Hya shows a cyclic change with a period of Pmod= 54.44 yr. The cyclic oscillation may be due to a third body in an eccentric orbit, while the orbital period of GR Vir shows a periodic variation with a period of Pmod= 28.56 yr and an amplitude of A = 0.0352 d. The periodic variation of GR Vir can be interpreted as a result of either the light-time effect of an unseen third body or the magnetic activity cycle.展开更多
Either bacterial attachment or cellulose fibrillar elaboration was hardly observedduring the cocultivation of the cultured suspension cells of Oryza sativa Indica with thestrain C58C1 Rif^r of Agrobacterium tumefacien...Either bacterial attachment or cellulose fibrillar elaboration was hardly observedduring the cocultivation of the cultured suspension cells of Oryza sativa Indica with thestrain C58C1 Rif^r of Agrobacterium tumefaciens that was not specially pretreated. Onthe other hand, quite a lot of Agrobacterium cells were found to adhere to the surface ofcultured rice cells and a number of cellulose fibrils were produced around the specifiedbacteria when phenolics-pretreated bacteria were cocultivated with rice suspension cellsin common culture media, especially in complex culture solutions. The complex culturesolution was the bacterium-free filtrate of hormone-containing MS medium which hadbeen utilized to incubate carrot cells and the newly wounded hypocotyl segments fromtomato and Agrobacterium cells. Detecting experiments demonstrated that both NPT Ⅱ andNOS genes, located on the T-DNA segment of chimaeric plasmid pGV3850 :: 1103neo, weretransferred and expressed in the cultured cells of O. sativa Indica in the optimum trans-formation condition of the present experiment. Integration of the foreign genes into riceDNA was confirmed by Southern blot hybridization.展开更多
基金Supported by Grants from Shanghai Natural Science Fund,No.09ZR1400500National Natural Science Foundation of China No.30972600Shanghai Health Bureau Fund,No.2012092
文摘AIM: To longitudinally investigate cytokine gene expression and protein levels in Th17 and Treg cells, to observe T-cell phenotypes during hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACHBLF) and to analyze changes in Th17 and Treg phenotypes during disease progression.
文摘Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) is an increasing health problem, representing the second cause of cancerrelated mortality worldwide. The major risk factorfor HCC is cirrhosis. In developing countries, viral hepatitis represent the major risk factor, whereas in developed countries, the epidemic of obesity, diabetes and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis contribute to the observed increase in HCC incidence. Cirrhotic patients are recommended to undergo HCC surveillance by abdominal ultrasounds at 6-mo intervals. The current diagnostic algorithms for HCC rely on typical radiological hallmarks in dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging, while the use of α-fetoprotein as an independent tool for HCC surveillance is not recommended by current guidelines due to its low sensitivity and specificity. Early diagnosis is crucial for curative treatments. Surgical resection, radiofrequency ablation and liver transplantation are considered the cornerstones of curative therapy, while for patients with more advanced HCC recommended options include sorafenib and trans-arterial chemoembolization. A multidisciplinary team, consisting of hepatologists, surgeons, radiologists, oncologists and pathologists, is fundamental for a correct management. In this paper, we review the diagnostic and therapeutic management of HCC, with a focus on the most recent evidences and recommendations from guidelines.
基金Project supported by the Reckefeller Foundation's International Program on Rice Biotechnology.
文摘Two kinds of signal factors capable of inducing Agrobaorerium vir gene expression were purified and identified from leaf extracts of panicle-differentiating to flowering stage of rice (Oryza saliva L. cv. IR 72) detected by Agrobacterium vir(?) lacZ. fusion genes. The induction was similar to that observed with 5 μm actosyringone (AS). Based on the comprehensive analysis of the data by UV, IR, NMR, MS, HMQC and HMBC, the structures of these two signal factors are identified as 5, 7, 4'-trihydroxy-3', 5'-dimethoxy-flavone (named tricin) and 5, 4' -dihydroxy-3', 5' -dimethoxy-7- (β-D-glucosyloxy) -flavone, respectively. These results demonstrate that monocotyledonous plants do contain highly efficient vir gene inducing factors of Agrobacterium, and the reason why monocotyledonous plants are difficult to transform by Ayrobacterium is not due to absence of vir gene inducing factors, but due to the signal factors only produced in specific stage and tissue of monocotyledonous plants
基金Supported by The National Council of Science and Technology,Fondo Sectorial Salud-2010-1-139085the Jalisco State Council of Science and Technology,COECYTJAL-Universidad de Guadalajara 5-2010-1-1041 to Roman S,Guadalajara,Jalisco,Mexico
文摘Hepatitis B virus(HBV)infection is the leading cause of severe chronic liver disease.This article provides a critical view of the importance of genomic medicine for the study of HBV infection and its clinical outcomes in Latin America.Three levels of evolutionary adaptation may correlate with the clinical outcomes of HBV infection.Infections in Latin America are predominantly of genotype H in Mexico and genotype F in Central and South America;these strains have historically circulated among the indigenous population.Both genotypes appear to be linked to a benign course of disease among the native and mestizo Mexicans and native South Americans.In contrast,genotypes F,A and D are common in acute and chronic infections among mestizos with Caucasian ancestry.Hepatocellular carcinoma is rare in Mexicans,but it has been associated with genotype F1b among Argentineans.This observation illustrates the significance of ascertaining the genetic and environmental factors involved in the development of HBV-related liver disease in Latin America,which contrast with those reported in other regions of the world.
基金Supported by The Defence Research and Development Organi-zation(DRDO),Ministry of Defence,Government of India
文摘Hepatitis B virus(HBV) is classically considered to be hepatotropic, but accumulating evidences strongly support its extra-hepatotropic nature too. HBV nucleicacids and proteins have long been reported in a variety of extra-hepatic tissues. Of these, HBV has been studied in details in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells(PBMCs), due to its accessibility. From these studies, it is now well established that PBMCs are permissive to HBV infection, replication, transcription and production of infective virions. Furthermore, molecular evolutionary studies have provided definite evidences towards evolution of HBV genome in PBMCs, which is independent of evolution occurring in the liver, leading to the emergence and selection of compartment specific escape variants or drug resistant strains. These variants/resistant strains of HBV remain restricted within the PBMCs and are rarely detected in the serum/plasma. In addition, HBV infected PBMCs have been reported to be directly transmitted through intrauterine modes, and this infection does not correlate significantly with serum HBV surface antigen or HBV DNA markers. This editorial briefly reviews the current knowledge on this topic, emphasizes and delineates the gaps that are required to be filled to properly understand the biological and clinical relevance of extrahepatic tropism of HBV.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
文摘Some properties of mass transfer within a semi-detached binary system are discussed based on an example of VV Vir. The observations and analysis of VV Vir show that it is a semi-detached binary system with the less massive cooler component filling its Roche lobe, which is also called an Algol-type binary system. Based on the parameters of this semi-detached binary, a theoretical study on the mass flow is carded out, including the trajectory of the mass flow, the position, radius and temperature of the impact spot caused by the mass flow, the inconsistent form of the mass flow and the possibly huge rate of energy transfer carried by the mass flow. Humps and distortions in light curves of VV Vir are deemed to be weak evidence for the theoretical results.
文摘The three-dimensional structure of a biomolecule rather than its one-dimensionM sequence determines its biological function. At present, the most accurate structures are derived from experimental data measured mainly by two techniques： X-ray crystallog- raphy and nuclear magnetic resonance （NMR） spec- troscopy. Because neither X-ray crystallography nor NMR spectroscopy could directly measure the positions of atoms in a biomolecule, algorithms must be designed to compute atom coordinates from the data. One salient feature of most NMR structure computation algorithms is their reliance on stochastic search to find the lowest energy conformations that satisfy the experimentally- derived geometric restraints. However, neither the cor- rectness of the stochastic search has been established nor the errors in the output structures could be quantified. Though there exist exact algorithms to compute struc- tures from angular restraints, similar algorithms that use distance restraints remain to be developed. An important application of structures is rational drug design where protein-ligand docking plays a crit- ical role. In fact, various docking programs that place a compound into the binding site of a target protein have been used routinely by medicinal chemists for both lead identification and optimization. Unfortunately, de- spite ongoing methodological advances and some success stories, the performance of current docking algorithms is still data-dependent. These algorithms formulate the docking problem as a match of two sets of feature points. Both the selection of feature points and the search for the best poses with the minimum scores are accomplished through some stochastic search methods. Both the un- certainty in the scoring function and the limited sam- pling space attained by the stochastic search contribute to their failures. Recently, we have developed two novel docking algorithms： a data-driven docking algorithm and a general docking algorithm that does not rely on experimental data. Our algorithms
基金Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.51171003,51071007,and 51401002)
文摘The interdependences of preparation conditions, magnetic and crystal structures, and magnetocaloric effects （MCE） of the MnFePGe-based compounds are reviewed. Based upon those findings, a new method for the evaluation of the MCE in these compounds, based on differential scanning calorimetry （DSC）, is proposed. The MnFePGe-based compounds are a group of magnetic refrigerants with giant magnetocaloric effect （GMCE）, and as such, have drawn tremendous attention, especially due to their many advantages for practical applications. Structural evolution and phase transformation in the compounds as functions of temperature, pressure, and magnetic field are reported. Influences of preparation conditions upon the homogeneity of the compounds＇ chemical composition and microstructure, both of which play a key role in the MCE and thermal hysteresis of the compounds, are introduced. Lastly, the origin of the ＂virgin effect＂ in the MnFePGe- based compounds is discussed.
文摘Photometric results of three δ Scuti stars, AD Ari, IP Vir and YZ Boo from new observations obtained at the:Xinglong Station of the Beijing Astronom- ical Observatory (BAO) during 2000 aELd 2001 are reported. We present here the preliminary analyses. Detailed studies of these stars based on additional data will be published separately.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.11703020)Joint Research Funds in Astronomy(U1531108,U1731106 and U1731110)under cooperative agreement between the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chinese Academy of Sciences
文摘We investigate orbital period changes of two deep, low mass ratio（DLMR） overcontact W UMa-type binaries, FG Hya and GR Vir. It is found that the orbital period of FG Hya shows a cyclic change with a period of Pmod= 54.44 yr. The cyclic oscillation may be due to a third body in an eccentric orbit, while the orbital period of GR Vir shows a periodic variation with a period of Pmod= 28.56 yr and an amplitude of A = 0.0352 d. The periodic variation of GR Vir can be interpreted as a result of either the light-time effect of an unseen third body or the magnetic activity cycle.
文摘Either bacterial attachment or cellulose fibrillar elaboration was hardly observedduring the cocultivation of the cultured suspension cells of Oryza sativa Indica with thestrain C58C1 Rif^r of Agrobacterium tumefaciens that was not specially pretreated. Onthe other hand, quite a lot of Agrobacterium cells were found to adhere to the surface ofcultured rice cells and a number of cellulose fibrils were produced around the specifiedbacteria when phenolics-pretreated bacteria were cocultivated with rice suspension cellsin common culture media, especially in complex culture solutions. The complex culturesolution was the bacterium-free filtrate of hormone-containing MS medium which hadbeen utilized to incubate carrot cells and the newly wounded hypocotyl segments fromtomato and Agrobacterium cells. Detecting experiments demonstrated that both NPT Ⅱ andNOS genes, located on the T-DNA segment of chimaeric plasmid pGV3850 :: 1103neo, weretransferred and expressed in the cultured cells of O. sativa Indica in the optimum trans-formation condition of the present experiment. Integration of the foreign genes into riceDNA was confirmed by Southern blot hybridization.
