[Objective]The purpose of this study was to describe mid report the result of the ulnar nerve transfer to biceps muscle to restore elbow flexion after acute and delayed upper brachial plexus injuries.[Methods]Two patients with acute brachial plexus injury (the time between the injury and the operation were six and eight months) and three patients with delayed brachial plexus injury(the time between the injury and the operation were from twevle to eighteen months) underwent nerve transfer using fascicles of the ulnar nerve to the motor branch of the biceis muscle. The average age of the patients was twenty eight and the mean follow-up periods were nine months after the surgery. Patients were evaluated with regard to reinnervation of the biceps, ulnar nerve function, elbow flexion strength, and grip strength.[Results]For the two acute patients, the first sign of biceps muscle contraction were observed within 1 week, the average time required for reinnervation of the biceps after nerve fascicle transfer was within six months. For the three delayed patients, the first sign of bicep muscle contraction was observed in about three month, and the average time required for reinnervation of the biceps was ten months.Hypoesthesia of the ulnar nerve was clinically abserved in three patients, but this symptom disappeared within month with no treatment.Compared with those delayed cases, the acute patients had faster and better recovery of their olbow flexion function.However, all patients achieved grade-3 or better elbow flexion strength according to the grading system of the Medical Research Council.[Conclusion]The author recommend this safe, simple and effective Oberlin procedure for brachial plexus injuries involving the C5、6 or C5~7 nerve roots.

Through introducing mutations into ribosomes by obtaining spontaneous drug resistance of microorganisms, ribosome engineering technology is an effective approach to develop mutant strains that overproduce secondary metabolites. In this study, ribosome engineering was used to improve the yield of butenyl-spinosyns produced by Saccharopolyspora pogona by screening streptomycin resistant mutants. The yields of butenyl-spinosyns were then analyzed and compared with the parent strain. Among the mutants, S13 displayed the greatest increase in the yield of butenyl-spinosyns, which was 1.79 fold higher than that in the parent strain. Further analysis of the metabolite profile of S13 by mass spectrometry lead to the discovery of Spinosyn α1, which was absent from the parent strain. DNA sequencing showed that there existed two point mutations in the conserved regions of rpsL gene which encodes ribosomal protein S12 in S13. The mutations occurred a C to A and a C to T transversion mutations occurred at nucleotide pair 314 and 320 respectively, which resulted in the mutations of Proline (105) to Gultamine and Alanine (107) to Valine. It also demonstrated that S13 exhibited genetic stability even after five passages.
Genetic Engineering ; Macrolides ; metabolism ; Point Mutation ; Ribosomal Proteins ; genetics ; Ribosomes ; metabolism ; Saccharopolyspora ; metabolism

Objective To evaluate the value of dual-source CT angiography for evaluating the degree of coronary stenosis. Methods A total of 110 patients with a high likelihood of coronary stenosis identified by dual-source CT angiography or conventional coronary angiography were enrolled. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of dual-source CT angiography for diagnosis of coronary stenosis were evaluated with conventional coronary angiography as a gold standard. The agreement between dual-source CT angiography and conventional coronary angiography for evaluation of coronary stenosis was evaluated using Kappa statistic. Results A total of 1 401 coronary artery segments from 110 patients were displayed on conventional coronary angiography, while 1 382 segments were successfully visualized in dual-source CT angiography (98.64%). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of dual-source CT angiography were 97.9%, 97.3%, 90.4% and 99.4% for diagnosis of coronary stenosis, and there was high consistence between dual-source CT angiography and conventional coronary angiography for grading coronary stenosis (Kappa statistic = 0.87, U = 58.36, P < 0.01). In addition, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of dual-source CT angiography were 94.7%, 96.8%, 83.7%, 99.0% and 96.5% for grading stenosis of coronary artery segments. Conclusion Dual-source CT angiography is accurate and reliable for diagnosis of coronary stenosis, which may be a non-invasive tool for assessment of coronary stenosis.