Objective To identify the threshold of percentage of body fat (BF％) associated with diabetes mellitus,hypertension and dyslipidemia in an elderly Chinese population.Methods An individual was considered as a subject if they exhibited any one of the three cardiovascular disease risk factors:diabetes mellitus,hypertension or dyslipidemia.A total of 1 140 subjects were recruited from the Physical Examination Center of Tianjin Hospital,China (male 511,female 629,aged ≥60 years).Questionnaire interview,physical examination,body composition measurement,blood biochemistry measurement,muscle strength measurement and other measurements were performed for each subject.Receiver operating curves (ROC) were created to determine the optimal percentage of body fat cutoff points,with the presence of diabetes mellitus,hypertension or dyslipidemia as outcome variable.Results The percentage of subjects with at least one of the following conditions (diabetes mellitus,hypertension or dyslipidemia) was 62.8％ for men and 73.9％ for women.Increased percentage of body fat was associated with an increased occurrence of diabetes mellitus,hypertension or dyslipidemia in the elderly,particularly among women.The ROC curve shows that the threshold of fat percentage in men and women was 28.2％ and 36.6％,respectively.Conclusion The risks of diabetes,hypertension and dyslipidemia is closely related to elevated body fat mass in the elderly.The percentage of body fat mass is an important indicator of obesity,threshold of BF ％ can provide reference for clinical obesity intervention in elderly patients.It also can provide reference for the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease.

The pretreatment of raw materials is necessary for ethanol production from lignocellulose, however, a variety of compounds which inhibit the fermenting microorganism such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae are inevitably formed in this bioprocess. Based on their chemical properties, the inhibitors are usually divided into three major groups: weak acids, furaldehydes and phenolic compounds. These compounds negatively affect the growth of S. cerevisiae, ethanol yield and productivity, which is one of the significant hurdles for the development of large-scale ethanol production from lignocellulose. We address here the origins of the three kinds of inhibitors and their mechanisms to S. cerevisiae. We also discuss the strategies of improving the fermentation performance of yeast, including detoxification of the pretreated substrates, enhancement of yeast tolerance and also fermentation control to reduce the effects of the inhibitors. The methods used in enhancing the yeast tolerance are traditional mutagenic breeding integrated with strains evolution under the suitable selective pressure, and metabolic engineering by introducing and/or overexpressing genes encoding enzymes such as furfural reductase, laccase and phenylacrylic acid decarboxylase, that confer the S. cerevisiae strains resistance towards specific inhibitors.
Acids ; pharmacology ; Drug Resistance, Microbial ; Ethanol ; analysis ; metabolism ; Fermentation ; drug effects ; Furaldehyde ; pharmacology ; Lignin ; metabolism ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae ; drug effects ; growth & development ; metabolism

Objective To investigate the risk factors of lymph node metastasis (LNM) in patients with superficial esophageal cancer (SEC) and to evaluate its clinical application.Methods From January 2010 to December 2016,769 SEC patients,who received surgery in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University,were enrolled,and their clinical data were retrospectively analyzed.Chisquare test and logistic regression analysis were performed for statistical analysis.The sensitivity,specificity,and overall positive accuracy of pathological type and depth of invasion before operation were evaluated.Results The rate of LNM in patients with SEC was 15.34％ (118/769).There were significant differences in alcohol consumption,maximum tumor diameter,histological type,differentiation degree,depth of invasion and vascular invasion between patients with LNM (118 cases) and patients withoutLNM (651 cases) (x2=5.66,13.71,40.65,20.04,36.70 and 61.51;all P＜0.05).The results of multivariate analysis showed that maximum tumor diameter＞2 cm(odd ratio (OR) 1.76,95％ confidence interval (CI) 1.12 to 2.77),poor differentiation(OR 1.92,95％CI 1.23 to 3.01),submucosal invasion(OR 2.67,95％CI 1.28 to 5.56) and vascular invasion (OR 5.28,95％CI 2.75 to 10.13) were independent risk factors of LNM in patients with SEC.The tumor location was significantly correlated with the site of LNM (x2=107.05,P＜0.01).The sensitivity and specificity of preoperative assessment of LNM were 58 ％ (51/88) and 59 ％ (301/510),respectively.The overall positive accuracy of histological type before operation was 66.7％ (440/660).The overall positive accuracy of depth of invasion evaluated by endoscopic ultrasound before operation was 27.9％ (19/68).Conclusion Endoscopic treatment is recommended for SEC patients with maximum tumor diameter ≤ 2 cm,high ormoderate degree of differentiation,tumor confined to the mucosal layer and without vascular metastasis for the relatively low risk of LNM.

Objective To investigate the influence factors of serum Angptl 2 levels is to explore the relationship between serum Angptl 2 and carotid atherosclerosis (CAS) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods 114 cases of T2DM in clinic were selected.According to the results of color doppler ultrasonography,the patients were divided into T2DM with CAS group(T2DM + CAS,n=58)and simple T2DM group(n= 56).56 healthy subjects were selected as normal control (NC)group during the same period.ELISA method was used to detect the level of serum Angptl 2. Results Serum Angptl 2 levels were significantly higher in T2DM + CAS group and T2DM group than in NC group [(69.83 ± 12.07) vs (42.93 ± 10.44)vs (24.26 ± 8.78)ng/ml,P< 0.01].Correlation analysis showed that serum Angptl 2 was positively correlated with age,BMI,SBP,DBP,TC,TG,LDL-C,FPG and HbA1c in T2DM patients (r=0.574,0.325,0.528,0.308,0.396,0.387,0.295,0.536 and 0.601,respectively,P<0.01),and negatively correlated with HDL-C and FIns in T2DM patients (r= -0.248,-0.352,P<0.01).Similarly,multiple regression analysis showed that FIns,and HbA1c were the independent factors of serum Angptl 2 (β= -2.186,2.680,P<0.01). Conclusion Serum Angptl 2 level is closely related to obesity,blood pressure,blood glucose,blood lipid and insulin.Serum Angptl 2 may play an important role in the development of T2DM and carotid atherosclerosis.

Objective: To investigate the effect of gross motor skills on physical activity of children aged 3-6 years, and to provide basis for children’s health behavior intervention. Methods: A total of 332 young children in Shanghai Xiangyin kindergarten were selected as survey objects. The development of gross movements of young children was measured by TGMD-2. Caregivers reported children’s physical activity using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ-SF). Results: The development level of gross movements of children aged 3-6 in Shanghai was relatively low(54.76±13.86). The physical activity of children was mainly light-intensity physical activity, and the daily moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity time was (58.62±52.73) minutes every day. Locomotor skills had the greatest effect on children’s VPA (β=0.19) and TPA(β=0.12), with a contribution rate of 3.3% and 1.1%, respectively; Object control skills has the greatest effect on children’s MVPA (β=0.17) and MPA (β=0.12) had the largest effect(P<0.05), with contribution rates of 2.5% and 1.2%, respectively. The relationship between gross motor skills and physical activity had nothing to do with gender and age. Conclusion Children’s gross motor skills in the 3-6 year-old population should be improved and may be an effective way to promote physical activity.

The international genetically engineered machine (iGEM) competition is a global top college academic competition in synthetic biology. The iGEM competition has exhibited extensive international influence and attracted teams from more than 40 countries and regions around the world to participate in. The annual iGEM outputs have attracted the attention of top academic journals or international media such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, The Economist, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), etc. High school teams participated in iGEM since 2011, and the number of high school teams has increased year by year. High school participants are increasingly becoming one of the most important forces to promote the development of iGEM and synthetic biology. IGEM competition has also become an important platform to foster the core literacy of high school students. This paper summarized the track rules, topic selection tendency and awards of high school teams based on data of 2017 to 2021 iGEM competition. In addition, we analyzed the significance of iGEM competition on fostering of high school students' core literacy and discussed the development trend of global high school teams, with the aim to provide a reference for high school team building in the future.
Humans ; Genetic Engineering ; Students ; Universities ; Synthetic Biology

The important role of intestinal microorganisms in human health has been widely confirmed. At present, most of the studies on intestinal microorganisms are based on amplification of the V3-V4 region of bacterial 16S rRNA gene, and little attention has been paid to archaea. In this study, a primer set which can amplify 16S rRNA gene of both bacteria and archaea at the same time was used. By comparing the community changes before and after probiotics intake, it showed that this primer set is suitable for analyzing the changes of human intestinal bacteria and archaea communities. The fecal samples of volunteers were collected, and the amplification and high-throughput sequencing were carried out by using bacterial primer set (B primer) and bacterial and archaeal universal primer (AB primer); several commonly used rRNA databases were used to determine the amplification ability of the primer set to bacteria and archaea. The results showed that AB primer could display the bacterial community amplified by B primer, and could obtain the sequence of common methanogenic archaea in intestinal tract. AB primer set can analyze the bacteria and archaea in the intestinal tract at the same time by only one amplification and sequencing, which can show the structure of intestinal microbial community more comprehensively, which is suitable for the research of intestinal microorganisms.
Archaea/genetics* ; Bacteria/genetics* ; DNA Primers ; DNA, Bacterial ; Humans ; Microbiota/genetics* ; Phylogeny ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics*