Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) refers to the single base sequence variation in specific location of the human genome. Phenotype informative SNP has gradually become one of the research hot spots in forensic science. In this paper, the forensic research situation and application prospect of phenotype informative SNP in the characteristics of hair, eye and skin color, height, and facial feature are reviewed.
Eye Color/genetics* ; Forensic Genetics/trends* ; Forensic Sciences ; Genome, Human ; Hair ; Humans ; Phenotype ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide/genetics*

OBJECTIVETo find out the vector ability and function of Nosopsyllus wualis leizhouensis in the transmitting plague.

METHODSIn T: 19 degrees C +/- 1 degrees C, RH: 85% +/- 5%, data regarding the vector ability as cluster spreading, single flea spreading, single flea transmitting plague to single animal, formative bacterial embolus and infection fleas life-span through experiments was gathered.

RESULTSThe rate of infection on fleas was 94.64%, with 100% transmission rate of colony to spread, and 30% from single flea spreading to single animal. In the experiment of single flea transmission, all of the 388 rattus loseas were bitten by the fleas with bacterial, but only 9 animals were characteristically infected with the transmission potential, vector efficiency, survival potential of embolus, vector index as 0.360, 0.257, 0.868 and 0.223 respectively. The mean survive days of infected flea feed with blood were 17.58 (1 - 58), and the mean survive days of hunger infected flea were 7.25 (1 - 16). Formative bacterial embolus days were 8.80 (2 - 16) and the rate of embolus flea was 78.12%.

CONCLUSIONNosopsyllus wualis leizhouensis could serve as vector and important in the mode of plague transmittion.

Animals ; Female ; Insect Vectors ; microbiology ; Male ; Plague ; transmission ; Rats ; Siphonaptera ; microbiology

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the performance of visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) in preliminary screening of cervical cancer and its precancerous lesions among Chinese women by meta-analysis of diagnosis.

METHODSPubmed, Cochrane, Wanfang, CNKI and Weipu databases were employed to search for citations using the MeSH terms as "acetic acid", "cervical intraepithelial neoplasia", and "cervical cancer" both in Chinese and English. Additional relevant references cited in retrieval articles were also searched.40 pieces of research paper related with screening of cervical cancer and precancerous lesions of cervical cancer in Chinese women by VIA were collected. Bivariate random effects model was adopted using SAS 8.02.

RESULTSTwenty-two studies including 23 330 cases were finally selected in the analysis, among which 19 studies were reported in Chinese and the other 3 in English. These studies were reported from 2004 to 2010 and the age-range of subjects was between 15 and 81 years old. Stratified analysis of diagnosis threshold showed that the pooled diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of VIA for CIN1+ (4.11, 95%CI: 3.20 - 5.04) was similar to that for CIN2+ (4.45, 95%CI: 3.73 - 5.15). Either CIN1+ or CIN2+, the DOR in younger women (≤ 40 year) (4.22, 95%CI: 3.29 - 5.16; 4.53, 95%CI: 3.46 - 5.47) was also similar to it in older women (> 40 year) (3.66, 95%CI: 2.27 - 5.37; 4.26, 95%CI: 3.32 - 5.26). There was no difference in the screening performance between county-level doctors (DOR = 4.62, 95%CI: 3.13 - 5.93) and municipal-level doctors (DOR = 4.48, 95%CI: 3.71 - 5.16).

CONCLUSIONThe screening performances of VIA were relatively consistent among different lesion grades and aging groups of Chinese women. After professional training, there was no difference in performance between county-level hospitals and municipal-level hospitals.

Acetic Acid ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia ; diagnosis ; prevention & control ; Female ; Humans ; Mass Screening ; methods ; Middle Aged ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms ; diagnosis ; prevention & control ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo explore the changes in plasma angiotensin II (Ang II) and circadian rhythm of blood pressure among hypertensive patients with sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) before and after continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or surgical treatment.

METHODSA total of 180 essential hypertension patients were enrolled in our study. The determination of plasma Ang II concentration, ambulatory blood pressure (ABP), and polysomnography (PSG) monitoring were performed before and 3 months after CPAP or surgical treatment.

RESULTSPatients were classified into three groups by their apnea-hypopnea index (AHI): essential hypertension group (EH group, n = 72; AHI< 5), essential hypertension with mild SAS group (EH+mild SAS group, n = 60, 5 ≤ AHI < 20), and essential hypertension with moderate and severe SAS group (EH + moderate-severe SAS group, n = 48, AHI ≥ 20). The concentrations of plasma Ang2 in the above three groups were 13.42 ± 3.27, 16.17 ± 3.82, and 18.73 ± 4.05 ng/mL respectively before treatment, and Ang2 concentration in EH patients combined with SAS was significantly higher than that in EH group (all P < 0.05). After treatment the values in the latter two groups significantly decreased to 14.67 ± 2.56 and 15.03 ± 3.41 ng/mL respectively (P < 0.05). The incidence of non-dipper blood pressure curve in EH patients was 31.9%, and those in hypertensive patients with mild SAS and moderate-severe SAS were 51.7% and 58.3%, respectively before treatment. The incidence of non-dipper blood pressure curve in the EH patients with mild SAS was significantly higher than that of patients with EH alone (P < 0.05). After CPAP treatment or surgery, the incidence of non-dipper blood pressure curve in the two SAS groups was significantly decreased to 38.3% and 39.6%, respectively (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSAng II might play a role in blood pressure variability in patients with obstructive SAS. CPAP or surgical treatment can improve blood pressure disorder and decrease plasma Ang II level in patients with obstructive SAS.

Adult ; Aged ; Angiotensin II ; blood ; Blood Pressure ; physiology ; Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory ; Circadian Rhythm ; physiology ; Continuous Positive Airway Pressure ; Female ; Humans ; Hypertension ; physiopathology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pharynx ; surgery ; Polysomnography ; Sleep Apnea Syndromes ; blood ; physiopathology ; surgery ; therapy

OBJECTIVENeonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain damage (HIBD) causes acute death and chronic nervous system sequelae in newborn infants and children. Whereas there have been no specific treatment towards it up to now. Studies have shown that bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the therapeutic potential in many nervous system diseases and the authors previously found that retinoid acid (RA), which plays an important role in brain development, could enhance the neural differentiation of rat MSCs (rMSCs) in vitro. This study aimed to examine effects of rMSCs and RA-preinduced rMSC on learning and memory functional recovery after HIBD in neonatal rats in order to explore a new treatment strategy for clinical application, and explore the mechanism of action of rMSCs.

METHODSRat MSCs were isolated and purified from the whole bone marrow of juvenile Wistar rats by removing the non-adherent cells in primary and passage cultures. Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain damage rat models were built according to the methods described by Rice: the right carotid artery of 7-day-postnatal Wistar rats was ligated under anesthesia, and then the rats were exposed to 8% - 9% O2 in a container. At 5 days after hypoxia-ischemia, the HIBD neonatal rats were randomly divided into 3 groups and respectively transplanted with saline, BrdU marked rMSCs (1 - 2 x 10(5)) or RA-preinduced rMSCs (1 - 2 x 10(5)) into their lateral cerebral ventricle. Immunohistochemistry for nestin, neuron-specific enolase (NSE), neurofilament protein-heavy chain (NF-H) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) were used to identify cells derived from rMSCs at 14 days and 42 days after transplantation. Shuttle box test was performed to evaluate the condition of learning and memory functional recovery when animals were 7 weeks old. Neurotrophin and receptors cDNA microarray were also employed at 14 days after transplantation to investigate the underlying action mechanisms of rMSCs treatment. Real-time PCR was used to confirm some of the remarkably changed genes.

RESULTS(1) The neonatal rat model of HIBD was successfully established. (2) Immunohistochemistry showed rMSCs-derived cells survived, migrated into the hypoxic-ischemic brain tissue and a few of them expressed protein characteristic of neurons and astrocytes (NF-H and GFAP) in RA-preinduced group 14 days and 42 days after transplantation, while no positive expression of nestin and NSE were detected. (3) The shuttle box test showed that the average learning times in rats transplanted with saline, rMSC and RA-preinduced rMSCs were (94.10 +/- 38.18), (74.60 +/- 29.21) and (47.90 +/- 21.13), respectively. The difference between the former two was not significant (P > 0.05), while the latter one exhibited significant improvement (P < 0.05). (4) The cDNA microarray analysis showed that compared with normal control group, IL-6, Fas and BDNF genes of the saline control group significantly up-regulated (the ratios of the three genes were 11.4, 2.4 and 6.6 respectively). Compared with saline group, the three genes in rMSC group were down-regulated (the ratios were all 0.1), while the levels of IL-6 and Fas genes (the ratios were 0.3 and 0.4 respectively) in RA-preinduced rMSCs group were higher than rMSCs group after down-regulating, but the level of BDNF remained at the saline group level. Real-time PCR analysis suggested that the results of IL-6 and Fas genes were at equal level with microarray results on the whole, while the level of BDNF gene in RA-preinduced rMSC group was significantly down-regulated (with ratio of 0.34), but higher than rMSCs group (the ratio was 0.25) as well.

CONCLUSIONTransplantation of rMSC and RA-preinduced rMSCs into lateral cerebral ventricle can improve learning and memory functional recovery after HIBD in neonatal rats, especially RA-preinduced rMSCs. Regulating the levels of IL-6, Fas and BDNF in the brain to maintain at reasonable levels may be the mechanism.

Animals ; Animals, Newborn ; Cell Differentiation ; Cells, Cultured ; Hypoxia-Ischemia, Brain ; psychology ; therapy ; Memory ; Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation ; Mesenchymal Stromal Cells ; cytology ; Neurons ; cytology ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar

BACKGROUNDThe Fc receptor associated pathway might improve the immune responses against hepatitis B virus (HBV) as previously described by us. In addition, the Flt3 ligand (FL) has been reported to potentiate antigen presenting cells in vivo and may act as a potential adjuvant to boost antigen-specific immune responses. In this study, the immune efficacies of a set of fusion proteins of HBsAg and Fc and/or FL were evaluated in HBsAg transgenic mice.

METHODSThe fusion proteins composed of HBsAg and the Fc domain of murine IgG1 (HBsAg-Fc) and/or the Flt3 ligand, and yeast-derived recombinant HBsAg were used as immunogen to immunize HBsAg transgenic mice, respectively. Serum and liver HBsAg levels, serum anti-HBsAg and cytokine profile, and the activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALT)/AST were investigated after immunization.

RESULTSAfter six injections, the most pronounced decrease in serum and liver HBsAg levels was observed in the HBsAg-Fc immunized group. In addition, serum Th1 cytokines and ALT/AST activities were highest in this group, indicating an effective induction of a favorable cellular immune response. Interestingly, the fusion protein containing HBsAg-Fc and the Flt3 ligand stimulated an alternative Th1-type immune response featured with high level productions of tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and monocyte chemoabstractant protein 1 (MCP-1), causing a more severe cytotoxicity in hepatocytes while showed less effective in reducing serum HBsAg level.

CONCLUSIONHBsAg-Fc is effective in eliciting both the humoral and cellular immune responses against HBsAg in HBsAg transgenic mice, which makes it a potential immunogen for the immunotherapy of chronic hepatitis B.

Animals ; Chemokine CCL2 ; metabolism ; Cytokines ; metabolism ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Female ; Hepatitis B Surface Antigens ; genetics ; immunology ; metabolism ; Immunity, Cellular ; immunology ; Immunity, Humoral ; immunology ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Mice, Transgenic ; Receptors, Fc ; genetics ; immunology ; metabolism ; Recombinant Fusion Proteins ; genetics ; immunology ; metabolism ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha ; metabolism

X-chromosome short tandem repeats (X-STR) analysis has been confirmed to be effective for kinship testing such as in deficiency paternity cases. The aim of this study was to develop a new multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system that can simultaneously amplify 9 X-STR loci (GATA172D05, DXS10159, DXS6797, HPRTB, DXS10079, DXS6789, DXS9895, DXS10146 and GATA31E08) in the same PCR reaction, and to obtain the database of the 9 X-STR loci in three ethnic populations in China. The genetic data of 815 (404 females and 411 males) unrelated Han Chinese from Hubei province, and Yi and Zhuang Chinese from Yunnan province were analyzed by using this multiplex system. The results showed that a total of 93 alleles for all these loci were found, and 7 to 20 alleles for each locus were observed. All of the analyzed loci were in agreement with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium after Bonferroni correction in the three studied populations. The polymorphism information content (PIC) and power of discrimination (PD) in females were 0.6566-0.8531 and 0.8639-0.9684, respectively. Pairwise comparisons of allele frequency distribution showed significant differences in the most of these loci between different populations. The results indicate that this multiplex system is very useful for forensic analysis of different ethnic populations in China.
Base Sequence ; China ; Chromosomes, Human, X ; DNA Primers ; Ethnic Groups ; genetics ; Humans ; Microsatellite Repeats ; genetics ; Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction ; methods

OBJECTIVETo assess the application value in prenatal diagnosis using karyotype analysis combined with BACs-on-Beads (BoBs) assay.

METHODSNine hundred sixty five pregnant women were subjected to amniocentesis, chromosomal karyotype analysis and detection of BoBs were employed simultaneously for abnormal number of chromosomes and 9 chromosome microdeletion syndrome in prenatal diagnosis.

RESULTSFifty cases common chromosome aneupoidies were successfully detected by both karyotype analysis and BoBs which included 31 cases of trisomy 21,10 cases of trisomy 18 and 9 cases with sex chromosome abnormality. BoBs in addition detected 1 case of DiGeorge-1 microdeletion syndrome and 1 case of 7q11.23 microduplication syndrome. All 9 fetuses with chromosome abnormalities detected by karyotyping were missed by BoBs, including 2 cases of marker chromosomes,4 cases of chromosomal translocation,1 case of chromosomal inversion, 2 cases of Sex chromosome mosaicism; 2 cases of fetal inherited from the parents,7 cases for novel mutations.

CONCLUSIONKaryotype analysis combined with BoBs dedtection is a rapid, effective and highly accurate prenatal diagnosis model that may should be widely used in clinical diagnosis.

OBJECTIVETo cultivate adventitious roots of Hypericum perforatum in bioreactors, in order to seek for suitable conditions for adventitious growth.

METHODThe effect of IBA concentration, sugar type and concentration, inoculum volume and air volume of adventitious roots on the cultivation of adventitious roots of H. perforatum was observed in a 5 L air-lift bioreactor.

RESULTAdventitious roots of H. perforatum were cultivated in a MS culture dish. With the increase of IBA concentration, the propagation coefficient of adventitious roots of H. perforatum was on the rise. The IBA concentration ranging between 1.25-1.75 mg x L(-1) was suitable for the growth of adventitious roots. Adventitious roots grew best with sucrose in MS medium, with the propagation coefficient up to 22.15. When sucrose concentration was 30 g x L(-1), fresh weight, dry weight and propagation coefficient reached the maximum value. An adventitious root reactor with an inoculum volume of 20 g was favorable for the growth of adventitious roots. The air volume of reactors of 0.075 vvm (air volume/culture volume per minute) was favorable for the growth of adventitious roots, with the significant increase in the propagation coefficient of adventitious roots. In the amplification experiment, we found that the cultivation conditions of adventitious roots in a 5 L bioreactor was completely applicable to that in 10 and 20 L bioreactors, and adventitious roots grew well in a large bioreactor.

CONCLUSIONIBA concentration, sugar type and concentration, inoculum volume and air volume had a significant effect on the growth of adventitious roots.

Air ; Biomass ; Bioreactors ; Carbohydrates ; pharmacology ; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug ; Hypericum ; drug effects ; growth & development ; Indoles ; pharmacology ; Plant Roots ; drug effects ; growth & development ; Sucrose ; pharmacology ; Tissue Culture Techniques ; instrumentation ; methods

OBJECTIVETo investigate the change of circadian blood pressure variability (BPV) and plasma neopterin before and after surgery (uvulopalatopharyngoplasty) for patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS).

METHODSA total of 382 OSAS patients underwent uvulopalatopharyngoplasty were divided into three groups based on polysomnography (PSG) results: mild OSAS (n = 206), moderate OSAS (n = 108) and severe OSAS (n = 68). Plasma neopterin, 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM), PSG were measured before and 3 months after surgery.

RESULTSPlasma neopterin increased in proportion to severity of OSAS before surgery (15.08 nmol/L, 27.68 nmol/L and 37.32 nmol/L in patients with mild to severe OSAS) which were significantly reduced post surgery (9.92 ng/ml, 15.07 ng/ml and 18.54 ng/ml, all P < 0.05 vs. pre-surgery). The incidence of non-dipper curve in three OSAS groups were 50.2%, 72.7% and 86.5%, respectively before surgery and the values decreased to 34.8%, 48.2% and 49.2% after surgery (all P < 0.05 vs. pre-surgery). Relevance analysis indicates that D-value of nocturnal and diurnal blood pressure was negatively correlated with plasma neopterin.

CONCLUSIONOur findings indicated that plasma neopterin and the incidence of non-dipper could reliably reflect OSAS severity and could thus be used to evaluate the surgery efficacy. Plasma neopterin might be an important player in the pathophysiology of OSAS via modulating blood pressure variability.

Adult ; Blood Pressure ; Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory ; Circadian Rhythm ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neopterin ; blood ; Otorhinolaryngologic Surgical Procedures ; Sleep Apnea, Obstructive ; blood ; physiopathology ; surgery