Lichen is a symbiotic mutualism of mycobiont and photobiont that harbors diverse organisms including endolichenic fungi (ELF). Despite the taxonomic and ecological significance of ELF, no comparative investigation of an ELF community involving isolation of a pure culture and high-throughput sequencing has been conducted. Thus, we analyzed the ELF community in Parmotrema tinctorum by culture and metabarcoding. Alpha diversity of the ELF community was notably greater in metabarcoding than in culture-based analysis. Taxonomic proportions of the ELF community estimated by metabarcoding and by culture analyses showed remarkable differences: Sordariomycetes was the most dominant fungal class in culture-based analysis, while Dothideomycetes was the most abundant in metabarcoding analysis. Thirty-seven operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were commonly observed by cultureand metabarcoding-based analyses but relative abundances differed: most of common OTUs were underrepresented in metabarcoding. The ELF community differed in lichen segments and thalli in metabarcoding analysis. Dissimilarity of ELF community intra lichen thallus increased with thallus segment distance; inter-thallus ELF community dissimilarity was significantly greater than intra-thallus ELF community dissimilarity. Finally, we tested how many fungal sequence reads would be needed to ELF diversity with relationship assays between numbers of lichen segments and saturation patterns of OTU richness and sample coverage. At least 6000 sequence reads per lichen thallus were sufficient for prediction of overall ELF community diversity and 50,000 reads per thallus were enough to observe rare taxa of ELF.

No abstract available.
Adult* ; Cytarabine* ; Cytosine* ; Humans ; Leukemia* ; Mitoxantrone*

The filter elution technique was used to assay Co-60 g ray-induced DNA single-strand breaks (SSB) in EL 4 mouse leukemia cell and spleen lymphocyte. The lymphocytes were stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 20 mug/ml) to label [3H] thymidine. EL 4 cells and lymphocytes in suspension were exposed at 0degree C to gy, 1 gy, 5 gy, 10 gy of Co-60 radiation and elution procedure was performed at PH 12.1. The number of DNA single-strand breaks increased with increasing doses of g rays. The strand scission factor (SSF) was estimated in each experiment (eluted volume 21 ml. The slope for EL 4 cells was 0.01301+/-0.00096 gy-1(n=5) and the slope for lymphocytes was 0.01097+/-0.00091 gy-1(n=5). The slopes were significantly different (p<0.005). Thus EL 4 cells were more sensitive to induction of DNA SSB by ionizing radiation than lymphocytes.
Animals ; DNA* ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Leukemia ; Lymphocytes* ; Mice* ; Radiation, Ionizing ; Spleen* ; Thymidine

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to evaluate clinical features of 20 patients with rhupus syndrome and compare its characteristics with systemic lupus erythematosus(SLE) and rheumatoid artiritis(RA). METHODS: Patients considered to have rhupus who met the American College of Rheumatology(ACR) 1997 and 1987 revised criteria for SLE and RA, respectively and age, sex, and disease duration matched 64 patients with RA and 56 patients with SLE were selected for comparison. RESULTS: Twenty patients were all female and their mean age was 43.7+/-9.6 years(range 25~68). They had 5.5 ACR criteria for RA and 5 criteria for SLE. The mean age at onset of RA was 35.2+/-10.5 years(19~63) and that of SLE was 38.2+/-10.0 years(20~63), giving a mean interval between the diagnoses of the two diseases of 3.0+/-5.7 years (14~(-6)). There were 2 patients(10%) with rheumatoid nodule, and 18 patients(90%) with rheumatoid factor, and 16 patients(80%) with bone erosions on hand or wrist joints. The criterial for SLE included malar rash(20%), discoid rash(0%), photosensitivity(30%), oral ulcer(45%), arthritis(100%), serositis(35%), renal disorder(15%), neurologic disorder(0%), hematologic disorder(100%), immunologic disorder(90%), and positive antinuclear antibody(100%). Anti-dsDNA was more than 7.0U/ml in 15 patients(75%). The patients with rhupus syndrome showed lower amount of 24 hour urine protein, more severe radiologic involvement, younger age at onset of arthritis, higher titer of rheumatoid factor, lower frequency of low C3, and less complicated clinical course when compared with the patients with SLE(p<0.05). More frequent anemia, Rayanud's phenomenon, and more complicated clinical course in rhupus when compared with the patientw with RA(p<0.05), but the radiologic stage of hand and wrist was similar between rhupus and RA. CONCLUSION: Rupus syndrome showed somethisg different clinical characteristics and clinical course when compared with SLE and RA.
Anemia ; Arthritis ; Arthritis, Rheumatoid* ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Hand ; Humans ; Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic* ; Rheumatoid Factor ; Rheumatoid Nodule ; Wrist ; Wrist Joint