Objective To observe the positional relationship of lumbar nerve roots and its main adjacent structures with CT data, and to conduct 3D construction and measurement,so as to provide anatomical basis for percutaneous lumbar diskectomy(PLD).Methods CT serial tomography dataset of 30 healthy adults' lumbosacral portions were imported into Mimics 17.0 software to segment related structures and obtain the layers of different structures.The structures were 3D reconstructed and virtually demonstrated.The lumbar nerve roots and their main surrounding structures were observed and measured.Results The minimum distances between the lumbar nerve roots and the superior articular processes increased gradually from L3 to L4 intervertebral disc layer to L5 to S1 intervertebral disc layer.The 3D model clearly displayed the morphology and spatial relationship of the lumbar nerve roots and their adjacent structures in lumbosacral portion.The lower the lumbar intervertebral discs were,the thicker they were.The distances from the middle point of the back of lumbar intervertebral disc to the end of the superior spinous process of lumbar vertebra increased at first and decreased then,and the distance in L3 to L4 intervertebral disc layer was the farthest.Conclusion The relationship between lumbar nerve roots and superior articular processes,the intervertebral disc thickness variance and the change of the distances from lumbar intervertebral disc to the end of the superior spinous process have been analyzed in this study,and the clinic basis has been laid for percutaneous lumbar diskectomy.

Mitochondrial quality control is the important mecha-nism that regulates the morphology,quantity and quality of mito-chondrial in cell to maintain cellular homeostasis and thus,cell survival and health.It has been revealed that members of Bcl-2 family are linked to mitochondrial function and integrity.Bcl-2 family proteins are the key regulators of mitochondrial quality control,participating in the signaling pathways regulating the
crosstalk between mitophagy and apoptosis,as well as mitochon-drial fission and fusion.This paper mainly reviews their impact on mitochondrial quality and the major signaling pathways regula-ted by Bcl-2 family proteins.

This study was aimed to optimize the alcohol precipitation techniques for honeysuckle extract in order to standardize the production of honeysuckle extract of Qingkailing Injection and reduce the differences among batches. The orthogonal test was applied in this study. The content of chlorogenic acid and galuteolin were taken as compre-hensive indicators. Multi-index comprehensive scoring method was used in the data analysis. Three influencing fac-tors, which were the fluid temperature, the stirring speed and the speed of adding alcohol, were optimized in the al-cohol precipitation techniques. The results showed that the optimal alcohol precipitation techniques were when the fluid temperature was 20℃, the stirring speed was 240 rpm and the speed of adding alcohol was one time of the ma-terial per minute. It was concluded that the optimized alcohol precipitation process was stable and feasible.

This study was aimed to evaluate the application of64-slice spiral CT in imaging anatomy of the normal optic canal. The optic canals of 100 healthy subjects were examined by 64-slice spiral CT,and the imaging measurement of the anatomy structures were performed by the multi-planar reconstruction. The longest and the shorzest walls of the optic canal were the medial wall and the inferior wall, respectively.Results indicate that the imaging anatomic measurement of the optic canal can be accurately and easily performed by means of multi-planar reconstruction of 64-slice spiral CT.

Objective To construct a stable infectious clone of S191 virus strain used for the pro-duction of live attenuated measles vaccine. Methods Full length cDNA of S191 strain and gene fragments encoding nucleocapsid(N),phosphoprotein(P)and RNA polymerase(L)were synthesis and respectively cloned into the vector pVAX1. The 293T cells were respectively transfected with the recombinant expression plasmids and co-cultured with Vero cells. The supernatants of cell culture were collected for identifying res-cued viruses. The indirect immunofluorescence assay was performed for virus identification. The rescued viruses at different passages in Vero cells and the sequences of the rescued viruses were analyzed. Results Restriction enzyme digestion and sequence analysis showed that the recombinant expression plasmids contai-ning the full length cDNA with an artificially engineered mutation at nucleotide 2101(C-A)and gene frag-ments encoding N,P and L proteins of S191 strain were constructed successfully. The N and P proteins were detected in Vero cells with immunofluorescence assay. A cytopathogenic effect on Vero cells was induced by rescued viruses. Conclusion The stable infectious clones of S191 virus used for the production of live at-tenuated measles vaccine were rescued successfully. An approach by using reverse genetics technique for S191 strain study was established which could be used for the development of new chimeric vaccines against measles virus.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) assay for detection of neuraminidase (NA) H275Y mutations in influenza A H1N1 pdm09 virus. Methods: The primers and dual probes were designed based on the sequence of the H1N1 pdm09 NA gene fragment which contained 275 amino acid sites, and the annealing temperature of ddPCR assay was optimized to establish a method for detection of H275 drug-sensitive genes and H275Y drug-resistant genes in H1N1 pdm09 virus. The sensitivity of ddPCR assay and fluorescent quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay was compared using the detection limit, and the specificity of ddPCR and qPCR assays was compared for detection of 14 respiratory virus samples. In addition, 64 clinical samples and 5 influenza isolates were tested to calculate the abundance of H275Y mutations, and the mutation abundance of 5 influenza isolates was compared with next-generation sequencing results. Results: The optimal annealing temperature was 62.2 ℃. The detection limits of ddPCR assay were 5.28 (95%CI: 4.28-7.45) copies/reaction for H1N1 pdm09 H275 drug-sensitive plasmids and 6.51 (95%CI: 5.25-9.37) copies/reaction for H1N1 pdm09 H275Y drug-resistant plasmids, and the detection limits of qPCR assay were 5.70 (95%CI: 4.83-7.45) copies/reaction for H1N1 pdm09 H275Y drug-sensitive plasmids and 7.06 (95%CI: 5.92-9.40) copies/reaction for H1N1 pdm09 H275Y drug-resistant plasmids. Both ddPCR and qPCR assays detected H275 and H275Y drug-resistant plasmids in H1N1 pdm09 viral samples but did not detect H275 and H275Y drug-resistant plasmids in other 11 respiratory virus samples, and these two assays showed consistent results. Of the 64 clinical samples, ddPCR assay detected H275Y mutation in three pharyngeal swab specimens from a severe pneumonia patients infected with H1N1 pdm09 virus, and the greatest mutation abundance was detected in samples collected on day 4 post-treatment with oseltamivir phosphate (53.37%). ddPCR assay detected 0.63, 88.93%% and 1.27% H275Y mutation abundance in samples collected on days 2, 4 and 5 post-treatment with oseltamivir phosphate, and next-generation sequencing detected 89.46% H275Y mutation abundance in samples collected on day 4 post-treatment with oseltamivir phosphate; however, no H275Y mutation was detected in samples collected on days 2 or 5 post-treatment with oseltamivir phosphate. Conclusions ddPCR presents a higher sensitivity and specificity than qPCR assay for detection of H275Y mutations in H1N1 pdm09 virus, and presents a higher sensitivity than next-generation sequencing for detection of low-frequency mutations, which is effective for quantitative detection of H275Y mutations in the NA fragment of the H1N1 pdm09 virus.

BACKGROUND: We compared the performance of the modified Hodge test (MHT), Triton Hodge test (THT), Carba NP test (CNPt), simplified Carba NP test (CNPt-direct), blue-Carba NP test (BCT), and carbapenem inactivation method (CIM) for rapid and accurate carbapenemase detection. METHODS: The methods were evaluated by using 256 gram-negative isolates, including 197 Enterobacteriaceae (79 Enterobacter spp., 74 Klebsiella spp., 33 Escherichia coli, 10 Citrobacter spp., and 1 Serratia marcescens), 51 Acinetobacter baumannii, and 8 Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains. The collection included 117 non-carbapenemase, 18 Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemases (KPC) producers, 46 New Delhi metallo-β-lactamases (NDM) producers, 11 imipenemases (IMP) producers, and 51 oxacillinases (OXA) producers, and 13 strains harboring two different carbapenemase genes. RESULTS: The specificity of the THT (91.5%) was significantly lower than other methods, each of which had 100% specificity (P<0.003). This can be attributed to the false detection of Ampler class C β-lactamases (AmpC) carriers. The CNPt-direct and CIM yielded the highest sensitivities (P<0.003), which were comparable (92.8% vs 93.5%, P>0.999). Because of improved detection of NDM carriers, THT showed significantly higher sensitivity than the MHT (84.9% vs 75.5%, P<0.001). However, poor performances in detecting OXA still influenced the sensitivities of the CNPt (66.2%) and BCT (82.0%), as well as the MHT and THT. CONCLUSIONS: CNPt-direct and CIM demonstrated the best performance for the efficient detection of carbapenemase among the six evaluated methods. Except the MHT and THT, the detection of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae by all the other methods was acceptable, when the OXA-type carbapenemase was not prevalent.
Acinetobacter baumannii ; Citrobacter ; Enterobacter ; Enterobacteriaceae ; Escherichia coli ; Gram-Negative Bacteria* ; Klebsiella ; Klebsiella pneumoniae ; Methods* ; Neptune ; Pseudomonas aeruginosa ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Serratia

Objective To analyse the prognosis of 117 newly diagnosed nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients underwent intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Methods From Jan to Nov 2005, 117 NPC patients who were treated by IMRT were enrolled. There were 81 males and 36 females with a median age of 42 years (range 18-76 years). According to Chinese Fuzhou Staging system(1992), 11 cases were Stage I , 15 Stage Ⅱ, 54 Stage Ⅲ and 37 Stage ⅣA. IMRT was carried out with Peacock plan. The prescription dose to the gross target volume(GTVnx) of nasopharyngeal tumor was 68 Gy, that of positive neck lymph nodes (GTVnd) was 60-66 Gy, clinical target volume 1 (CTV1) was 60 Gy, and CTV2 was 54 Gy. Results After a median follow-up time of 48 months (range 10.5-59.5 months), the 3-and 5-year overall survival (OS) rates were 95.7 % and 89.7 %, the disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 91.5 % and 87.2%, and the local-regional control rates were 94.0 % and 91.5 %. Univariate analysis showed the KPS, stage, Fuzhou clinical stage, status of blood platelet before treatment and uric acid after treatment were correlated with OS rate. T stage was the only independent factor of prognosis in the COX stepwise regression model. Conclusion Radical IMRT significantly prolongs the survival of NPC patients. T stage is the only independent prognostic factor for NPC patients.

Objective: To identify the avian influenza virus subtype from the avian and environmental samples using the Ion Torrent new-generation semiconductor sequencing technology and to establish a high-throughput sequencing method to identify unclassified influenza A virus. Methods: Virus RNA was extracted from the nine avian swab and environmental samples and real-time RT-PCR was carried out to detect universal fluA, H5N1, H7N9 and H9N2. The whole genome of influenza A virus was amplified by PathAmpFluA kit. Sequencing library was prepared using Next Fast DNA Fragmentation & Library Prep Set for Ion Torrent kit and high-throughput sequencing was done by Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine(PGM). Data from the PGM was processed and quality evaluated using Ion TorrentSuite v3.0 software. Sequence assembly and influenza database blast were carried out by FluAtyping v4.0 and PathogenAnalyzer bioinformatics software to identify the influenza A virus subtype of these nine samples. Results: The results of real-time RT-PCR for universal fluA of these nine samples were positive but the results for H5N1, H7N9 and H9N2 were negative. Seven subtypes of influenza A virus were identified by high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analysis: six samples were H2N3, H5N6, H5N8, H7N1, H7N7, H11N3 subtype respectively and three samples were H6N6 subtype. Conclusions Avian influenza virus has many subtypes in the environment of Zhejiang province. Ion Torrent semiconductor sequencing technology is suitable for fast identification of unclassified influenza virus for avian influenza environment monitoring.

BACKGROUND: Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) is considered a serious global threat. However, little is known regarding the multidrug resistance (MDR) mechanisms of CRKP. This study investigated the phenotypes and MDR mechanisms of CRKP and identified their clonal characteristics. METHODS: PCR and sequencing were utilized to identify antibiotic resistance determinants. Integron gene cassette arrays were determined by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. Multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) were used for epidemiological analysis. Plasmids were typed by using a PCR-based replicon typing and analyzed by conjugation and transformation assays. RESULTS: Seventy-eight strains were identified as resistant to at least one carbapenem; these CRKP strains had a high prevalence rate (38.5%, 30/78) of carbapenemase producers. Additionally, most isolates harbored MDR genes, including Extended spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs), AmpC, and quinolone and aminoglycoside resistance genes. Loss of porin genes was observed, and Class 1 integron was detected in 66.7% of the investigated isolates. PFGE and MLST results excluded the occurrence of clonal dissemination among these isolates. CONCLUSIONS: A high prevalence of NDM-1 genes encoding carbapenem resistance determinants was demonstrated among the K. pneumoniae isolates. Importantly, this is the first report of bla(NDM-1) carriage in a K. pneumoniae ST1383 clone in China and of a MDR CRKP isolate co-harboring bla(NDM-1), bla(KPC-2), bla(CTX-M), bla(SHV), acc(6′)-Ib, rmtB, qnrB, and acc(6′)-Ib-cr.
China* ; Clone Cells ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial ; Drug Resistance, Microbial ; Drug Resistance, Multiple* ; Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field ; Genes, MDR ; Integrons ; Klebsiella pneumoniae* ; Klebsiella* ; Molecular Epidemiology ; Phenotype ; Plasmids ; Pneumonia ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length ; Prevalence ; Replicon