Objective To explore the relationship between ULI43 sequence variability and clini-cal disease. Methods UL143 from samples obtained from suspected congenitally human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infected symptomatic infants were PCR amplified and sequenced. Results There were not too much sequence variability of UL143 compared with Toledo. But no one was completely identical to Toledo, and all UL143 ORFs were shorter than Toledo for frame-shift. Conclusion HCMV-UL143 existed in moat of low passage isolates and sequences were variable. No obvious linkage was observed between UL143 poly-morphisms and outcome of suspected congenital HCMV infection.

Objective To identify the peptide that have strong ability binding to HCMV-UL149 encoded protein,and to analyze the characteristics of the amino acid sequence of UL149-binding peptides.Methods Expressed UL149 proteins of three genotypes were used to screen the binding peptide in the random peptide display library,then the encoding sequence of binding peptides in the selected clones were sequenced.The amino acid sequences of the binding peptides were analyzed for their homology,and were com pared with those of the known protein in protein banks.Results The homologous amino acid sequence W/A/F/V-D/E-D/E-G-W/F/I/L were found within the binding peptides selected by proteins of all the three UL149 genotypes proteins,and no difference between three groups was found.The alignment with amino acid sequences of the known proteins in protein banks showed that the binding peptides of UL149 putative protein have homologous amino acid sequences with immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region(IgHV),the serine/threonine protein kinases,compliment factor H,zinc finger protein,MHC Ⅰ molecule,eukaryotic translation initiation factor,nuclear factor and so on.Conclusion The UL149 encoding proteins have binding ability to proteins mentioned above,and might interfere with the immunity responds to HCMV infection through multiple mechanisms.

Objective To investigate the polymorphism of human cytomegalovirus（HCMV）UL146 gene in clinical strains,and to evaluate its clinical diagnostic and therapeutic value of gene.Methods The UL146 gene of clinical strains was examined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction（Q-PCR）or general polymerase chain reaction（PCR）.Positive samples of PCR amplification were sequenced and analyzed.Results High variability of UL146 gene was found among 28 HCMV strains.According to phylogenetic analysis,all sequences of UL146 in clinical strains could be divided into three types and four subtypes.Chemokine ELRCXC region was highly conserved in all sequences.Conclusion HCMV-UL146 genes showed a high degree of polymorphism,and its encoded chemokine ELRCXC region was highly con-served.The relationship between HCMV-UL146 gene′s polymorphism and different clinical symptoms of HCMV infection was unclear.

This investigation was to assess the prevalence and risk factors of hypertension in 35 to 70 years old adults living in Xicheng District of Beijing. Cluster sampling was conducted in 2230 adults, and only 1958 individuals agreed to enter into the study. Written informed consents were obtained before questionnaire and physical examination. A total of 1889 data were used for analysis. The prevalence rate of hypertension was 47.8% (n=902). The age-standardized prevalence rate was 40. 1%. Hypertension was seen in 368 men (53.0%) and 534 women (44.7%) (P=0.0005). The rates of disease awareness, treatment, and control were 47.5%, 38.5%, and 24.1%, respectively. The prevalence of hypertension increased with age (P<0.0001). Linear trend was found between body mass index (BMI) and systolic blood pressure (P<0.0001). In multiple logistic model analysis, the hypertension risk for men was 1.33 times that of women (95% CI, 1.08-1.64), for participants with obesity was 2.81 times that of those with normal weight (95%CI, 2.00-3.97). Hypertension has become one of the most concerned public health problems in the district. Middle-aged people should pay attention to changed blood pressure, especial for overweight men. Health promotion should be needed for hypertension prevention. More attention should be paid to substantial increase in hypertension.

Objective To investigate the risk factors for osteoporosis (OP) in aged people at Beicai Town in Shanghai, to provide proofs for preventing OP. Methods Questionnaire survey was carried out on bone density in 608 aged people (aged from 60 to 79 years) who were randomly chosen from 4 resident committees of Beicai Town in Shanghai. Everyone underwent bone mineral density (BMD) assay of lumbar spine and total hip by DEXA machine. Results The rate of OP was 23 % in male group, and 61% in female group. It was 40% in 60-64 years old group, 44% in 65-69 years old group, 53% in 70-74 years old group and 66% in 75-79 years old group. The rate of OP was 52% in manual work group, and 42 % in non-manual work group. In males, it was 54 % in current weight less than 60 kg group, 19% in 60-70 kg group, 15% in 70-80 kg group and 23% in over 80 kg group. In females, it was 76% in current weight less than 50 kg group, 67% in 50-60 kg group, 63% in 60-70kg group, 30% in over 70 kg group. It was 56% in low body weight group, 41% in normal weight group and 58% in over weight group in their 25-year-old. It was 61% in normal body weight group, 43% in overweight group. It was 41% in non-fracture history group, 67% in once fracture group,74% in fracture history more than twice group. It was 60% in mother humpback history group, and 47% in no history of mother humpback group. Logistic regression analysis showed that gender, age,history of fracture, mother's humpbacked history, disease of internal secretion and metabolism system were the risk factors for OP. Conclusions The occurrence of OP is related with many factors in aged people at Beicai Town in Shanghai, especially for the aged women, who suffer from diseases of internal secretion and metabolism, and has the history of fracture and mother's humpbacked, the attention should be payed to the prevention and treatment of OP.

Rapid development of high-throughput technologies has permitted the identification of an increasing number of disease-associated genes (DAGs), which are important for understanding disease initiation and developing precision therapeutics. However, DAGs often contain large amounts of redundant or false positive information, leading to difficulties in quantifying and prioritizing potential relationships between these DAGs and human diseases. In this study, a network-oriented gene entropy approach (NOGEA) is proposed for accurately inferring master genes that contribute to specific diseases by quantitatively calculating their perturbation abilities on directed disease-specific gene networks. In addition, we confirmed that the master genes identified by NOGEA have a high reliability for predicting disease-specific initiation events and progression risk. Master genes may also be used to extract the underlying information of different diseases, thus revealing mechanisms of disease comorbidity. More importantly, approved therapeutic targets are topologically localized in a small neighborhood of master genes in the interactome network, which provides a new way for predicting drug-disease associations. Through this method, 11 old drugs were newly identified and predicted to be effective for treating pancreatic cancer and then validated by in vitro experiments. Collectively, the NOGEA was useful for identifying master genes that control disease initiation and co-occurrence, thus providing a valuable strategy for drug efficacy screening and re-positioning. NOGEA codes are publicly available at https://github.com/guozihuaa/NOGEA.

The choice of females to accept or reject male courtship is a critical decision for animal reproduction. Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) has been found to regulate sexual behavior in many species, but it is unclear how 5-HT and its receptors function to regulate different aspects of sexual behavior. Here we used Drosophila melanogaster as the model animal to investigate how 5-HT and its receptors modulate female sexual receptivity. We found that knockout of tryptophan hydroxylase (Trh), which is involved in the biosynthesis of 5-HT, severely reduced virgin female receptivity without affecting post-mating behaviors. We identified a subset of sexually dimorphic Trh neurons that co-expressed fruitless (fru), in which the activity was correlated with sexual receptivity in females. We also found that 5-HT_1A and 5-HT₇ receptors regulate virgin female receptivity. Our findings demonstrate how 5-HT functions in sexually dimorphic neurons to promote virgin female receptivity through two of its receptors.
Animals ; Male ; Female ; Drosophila/physiology* ; Drosophila melanogaster/physiology* ; Serotonin ; Drosophila Proteins/physiology* ; Sexual Behavior, Animal/physiology* ; Transcription Factors ; Nerve Tissue Proteins