Peanut, a major economic and oil crop known for the high protein and oil content, is extensively cultivated in China. Peanut plants have the ability to form nodules with rhizobia, where the nitrogenase converts atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia nitrogen that can be utilized by the plants. Analysis of nodule fixation is of positive significance for avoiding overapplication of chemical fertilizer and developing sustainable agriculture. In this study, AhNIGT1.2, a member of the NIGT family predominantly expressed in peanut nodules, was identified by bioinformatics analysis. Subsequent spatiotemporal expression analysis revealed that AhNIGT1.2 was highly expressed in nodules and showed significant responses to high nitrogen, low nitrogen, high phosphorus, low phosphorus, and rhizobia treatments. Histochemical staining indicated that the gene was primarily expressed in developing nodules and at the connection region between mature nodules and peanut roots. The fusion protein AhNIGT1.2-GFP was located in the nucleus of tobacco epidermal cells. The AhNIGT1.2-OE significantly increased the number of peanut nodules, while AhNIGT1.2-RNAi reduced the number of nodules, which suggested a positive regulatory role of AhNIGT1.2 in peanut nodulation. The AhNIGT1.2-OE in roots down-regulated the expression levels of NRT1.2, NRT2.4, NLP1, and NLP7, which indicated that AhNIGT1.2 influenced peanut nodulation by modulating nitrate transport and the expression of NLP genes. The transcriptome analysis of AhNIGT1.2-OE and control roots revealed that overexpressing AhNIGT1.2 significantly enriched the differentially expressed genes associated with nitrate response, nodulation factor pathway, enzymes for triterpene biosynthesis, and carotenoid biosynthesis. These findings suggest that AhNIGT1.2 play a key role in peanut nodulation by regulating nitrate transport and response and other related pathways. This study gives insights into the molecular mechanisms of nitrogen and phosphorus in regulating legume nodulation and nitrogen fixation, and sheds light on the development of legume crops that can efficiently fix nitrogen in high nitrogen environments.
Arachis/physiology* ; Nitrates/metabolism* ; Plant Proteins/physiology* ; Transcription Factors/metabolism* ; Plant Root Nodulation/physiology* ; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant ; Root Nodules, Plant/metabolism* ; Nitrogen Fixation

ObjectiveTo investigate the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine syndrome and the evolution of pathogenesis in different stages of atherosclerotic thrombotic cerebral infarction （ATCI）. MethodsClinical data of 3088 ATCI patients from 8 hospitals in 6 provinces and cities were collected from the hospital information system during January 1， 2015 to December 31， 2019. After staging and counting clinical symptoms， common factors were extracted using the principal component analysis method in factor analysis. Cluster analysis was then carried out on the basis of the factor analysis. The results of the combination of the evidence element identification， cluster analysis and expert discussion were used to discuss the evidence of the different disease stages of atherosclerotic cerebral infarction. ResultsOf the 3088 ATCI patients included， 2290 cases were in the acute phase and 798 in the non-acute phase. Excluding the main symptoms of ischaemic stroke， such as numbness and weakness of limbs， unfavourable movement， unfavourable speech and dizziness， we identified 84 indicators with a frequency ≥5% of the four diagnostic information variables. Of these， 36 indicators were observed in the acute phase and 35 in the non-acute phase. Factor analysis extracted 14 common factors from each phase. We selected factors with a loading coefficient ＞0.3 for evidence determination. These 14 groups of common factors were used as variables for clustering. After clustering， the acute， non-acute phase were each divided into 5 categories. Based on a combination of clinical practice and expert opinion， the symptoms identified in the acute period were syndrome of deficiency of both qi and yin， syndrome of blockade of wind-phlegm-static blood （36.07%）， syndrome of qi deficiency and blood stasis （20.74%）， syndrome of upward disturbance of wind-fire （15.15%）， syndrome of stirring wind due to yin deficiency （9.43%）， and syndrome of spleen deficiency and liver hyperactivity （3.80%）. In the non-acute phase， the symptoms were qi and yin deficiency with syndrome of qi stagnation and blood stasis （45.49%）， syndrome of deficiency of both qi and yin （20.05%）， syndrome of qi stagnation and blood stasis （16.42%）， spleen-kidney deficiency syndrome （8.52%）， and syndrome of hyperactivity of liver yang （4.89%）. ConclusionThe acute phase of AICI is mainly characterized by blood stasis， fire， internal wind， hyperactivity of yang， qi deficiency and yin deficiency， while the non-acute phase is characterized by yin deficiency， qi deficiency， blood stasis and qi stagnation. The main pathomechanism of ATCI involves deficiency of qi and yin， as well as obstruction of the channels by phlegm and blood stasis， and the fundamental pathomechanism is deficiency of qi and yin.

Ischemic stroke(IS)is a multifactorial and heterogeneous disease.Despite years of studies,effective strategies for the diagnosis,management and treatment of stroke are still lacking in clinical practice.Metabolomics is a growing field in systems biology.It is starting to show promise in the identification of biomarkers and in the use of pharmacometabolomics to help patients with certain disorders choose their course of treatment.The development of metabolomics has enabled further and more biological appli-cations.Particularly,metabolomics is increasingly being used to diagnose diseases,discover new drug targets,elucidate mechanisms,and monitor therapeutic outcomes and its potential effect on precision medicine.In this review,we reviewed some recent advances in the study of metabolomics as well as how metabolomics might be used to identify novel biomarkers and understand the mechanisms of IS.Then,the use of metabolomics approaches to investigate the molecular processes and active ingredients of Chinese herbal formulations with anti-IS capabilities is summarized.We finally summarized recent developments in single cell metabolomics for exploring the metabolic profiles of single cells.Although the field is relatively young,the development of single cell metabolomics promises to provide a powerful tool for unraveling the pathogenesis of IS.

Cardio-cerebrovascular disease (CCVD) is a major comorbidity of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the clinical characteristics and outcomes remain unclear. In this study, 102 cases of COVID-19 from January 22, 2020 to March 26, 2020 in Xixi Hospital of Hangzhou were included. Twenty cases had pre-existing CCVD. Results showed that compared with non-CCVD patients, those with CCVD are more likely to develop severe disease (15% versus 1%), and the proportion of pneumonia severity index grade IV was significantly higher (25% versus 3.6%). Computed tomography images demonstrated that the proportion of multiple lobe lesion involvement was significantly higher in the CCVD group than in the non-CCVD group (90% versus 63.4%). Compared with non-CCVD group, the levels of C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, D-dimer, and serum amyloid-A were higher, whereas the total protein and arterial partial PaO
COVID-19 ; Cerebrovascular Disorders/epidemiology* ; Comorbidity ; Humans ; SARS-CoV-2 ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Modern vehicle safety design and safety regulations are mostly based on 50th percentile populations. However, with the increase of obese populations, it is very important to investigate the injury mechanism and protection of obese occupant. Methods such as traffic accidents statistics, cadaver experiments, multi-body modeling and finite element modeling, are currently used to study the injury mechanism of obese occupants. Different hypotheses including cushion effect, body geometrical effect and mass increasing effect have been put forward to explain the effect of obesity on occupant injury mechanism, which means that its mechanism is still uncertain. The impact injury mechanisms of obese occupant were comprehensively summarized. Furthermore, the problems confronted by the research of current obese occupant impact injury and future investigations were proposed in this study.

Objective To investigate the influence of Guhong injection (GHI) on ATPase activity and inflammatory response after cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in rats, and evaluate its protective effects on cerebral I/R injury. Methods Seventy-two male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were divided into sham group, I/R group, nimodipine group, and the low-dose (2.5 mL/kg, GHI-L), medium-dose (5.0 mL/kg, GHI-M), and high-dose (10.0 mL/kg, GHI-H) of GHI groups according to the random number table method, with 12 rats in each group. The middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model was established by the intraluminal suture method to prepare the model of focal cerebral ischemia, and reperfusion was performed after 1.5 hours of occluding the middle cerebral artery; the sham group had the same operation process except inserting the nylon thread. The injection of drug in various drug-treated groups was carried out via a tail vein at 0, 12, 24 hours after the onset of reperfusion, while the sham group and I/R group received the same amount of normal saline. At 12 hours after last drug administration, the scores of neurological deficit symptoms were evaluated; the cerebral infarction was observed by triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining; the Na+-K+-ATPase and Ca2+-ATPase activities in the brain tissue were measured by phosphorus determination; the contents of interleukin-6 (IL-6), monocyte chemotactic factor-1 (MCP-1), nitric oxide (NO) in serum were detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results Compared with the sham group, the neurological function score was significantly decreased, the cerebral infarction was serious, the activities of ATPase was obviously decreased, and the levels of serum inflammatory factors were significantly increased in I/R group. Compared with the I/R group, the neurological function scores were significantly increased in GHI-L group, GHI-M group, GHI-H group and nimodipine group (9.03±0.63, 10.54±2.55, 12.33±1.87, 12.06±1.89 vs. 8.17±1.05, all P < 0.05), the volumes of cerebral infarction were obviously reduced [(18.51±1.80)%, (15.98±1.34)%, (8.61±1.16)%, (8.09±0.96)% vs. (26.52±2.07)%, all P < 0.01], the activities of ATPase were significantly increased [Na+-K+-ATPase (μmol·mg-1·h-1):5.10±0.30, 5.34±0.26, 6.19±0.17, 5.86±0.31 vs. 3.98±0.35, Ca2+-ATPase (μmol·mg-1·h-1): 3.68±0.44, 4.43±0.29, 5.03±0.27, 4.17±0.30 vs. 1.87±0.46, all P < 0.01], and the levels of serum inflammatory factors were decreased obviously [IL-6 (ng/L): 51.61±5.55, 43.88±4.05, 39.71±2.22, 41.28±2.66 vs. 60.11±6.61, MCP-1 (ng/L): 227.82±7.07, 201.58±13.10, 177.23±10.46, 126.80±8.49 vs. 296.01±12.85, NO (μmol/L): 54.48±3.23, 46.84±2.69, 41.15±2.80, 48.62±2.34 vs. 65.25±3.88, all P < 0.05]. Conclusions GHI not only can improve the energy metabolism of brain tissue in a dose-dependent manner, but also inhibit the inflammatory cascade of damage after cerebral I/R in rats, which might be its protective mechanism on cerebral ischemia injury.

Objective To evaluate the safety and efficacy of Yinhua Pinggan granule of Qingjie Xuantou lung defense prescription in the treatment of patients with upper respiratory tract infection accompanied by traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome of pathogen stagnated in lung-defense phase and to explore the best effective dose.Methods A randomized double blinded, positive drug parallel controlled and multicentric clinical trial was conducted, 270 patients with upper respiratory infection were collected from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Affiliated Hospital of Jiangxi Medical University, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Tianjin University of TCM, Tongde Hospital of Zhejiang Province, and Fujian Province Institute of TCM, after screening only 242 cases were consistent with the criteria of enrollment into the Per-Protocol Set (PPS) population, and they were divided into three groups: high dose observation group (82 cases), low dose observation group (79 cases) and control group (81 cases). The high and low dose observation groups were treated with Yinhua Pinggan granule (5 g per bag), high dose means once 1 bag orally taken 3 times a day, low dose indicates once 1 bag taken twice a day; the control group was treated with Yinqiao Jiedu granule (5 g per bag) once 1 bag, 3 times a day; the curative effects of the above groups were all evaluated after consecutive oral administration of the drug respectively for 1 therapeutic course (3 days). The main efficacy evaluation indexes included the TCM syndrome total score and the total score of main symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection; the secondary efficacy evaluation indexes included the situations of patients with different scores of main symptoms of fever and chills, and of disappearance of TCM symptoms; the clinical comprehensive therapeutic effect and the changes of proportion of neutrophils were observed and the safety of drugs was evaluated.Results In PPS population, after treatment the TCM syndrome total score and the total score of main symptoms in the control group and the high and low dose observation groups were all significantly lower than those before treatment, on the 3rd day statistical significant differences were shown (4.4±3.9 vs. 15.5±4.6, 3.7±3.2 vs. 15.0±4.3, 3.0±2.7 vs. 15.2±3.9, 2.8±2.6 vs. 9.7±2.7, 2.3±2.1 vs. 9.5±2.5, 2.0±1.9 vs. 9.6±2.4, respectively, all P < 0.01). After treatment for 1 day, the numbers of patients with 6 score in the control group and the high and low dose observation groups were reduced significantly compared with those before treatment in main symptoms of fever with chills (7 vs. 32 cases, 6 vs. 31 cases, 4 vs. 28 cases, respectively); 3 days after treatment, compared with those before treatment, the numbers of patients with main symptoms of fever with chills score being 0 were significantly increased in the above three groups (65, 73, 77 cases vs. 0 cases, respectively), the numbers of patients with the score being 3 were significantly decreased (16 vs. 47 cases, 5 vs. 46 cases, 5 vs. 52 cases, respectively); the control and high dose observation group had no patients with the score being 6, there was only 1 case with the score being 6 in the low dose observation group. The results showed that the treatments of high and low dose observation groups and the control group all could alleviate the clinical symptoms, and the changes of numbers of patients with the scoresbeing 0 and 3 in high and low dose groups were more significant than those in the control group (respectively 73, 77 vs. 65 cases, 5, 5 vs. 16 cases, allP < 0.05), showing that the antipyretic effect of Yinhua Pinggan granule was superior to that of the Yinqiao Jiedu granule. The disappearance rates of fever with chills symptoms in high and low dose observation groups were significantly higher than that in the control group [respectively 93.9% (77/82), 92.4% (73/79) vs. 80.2% (65/81), allP < 0.05]. The TCM syndrome cure and obvious effect rate and effective rate in high and low dose observation groups were higher than those in the control group [respectively 87.80% (72/82), 79.75% (63/79) vs. 74.07% (60/81) and 98.78% (81/82), 96.20% (76/79) vs. 96.30% (78/81)]; the cure and marked effective rate and effective rate of controlling symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection in high and low dose observation groups were higher than those in the control group [respectively 78.05% (64/82), 74.68% (59/79) vs. 65.43% (78/81) and 98.78% (81/82), 96.20% (76/79) vs. 96.30% (78/81)], comparisons of efficacy among the three groups possessed clinical practical significance, but the differences were not statistically significant (allP > 0.05). The percentages of neutrophils in high and low dose observation groups and control group were significantly lower than those before treatment (respectively 0.61±0.08 vs. 0.63±0.08, 0.62±0.08 vs. 0.64±0.08, 0.61±0.09 vs. 0.64±0.09, allP < 0.05). Yinhua Pinggan granule was safe in the prescribed course of treatment and range of therapeutic dose.Conclusions Yinhua Pinggan granule is a safe and effective drug in the treatment of patients with upper respiratory tract infection accompanied by syndrome of pathogen stagnated in lung-defense phase.

BACKGROUND:A novel biodegradable Mg-Zn alloy has been designed,in which the density and the Young's modulus are proximal to human bone,at the same time,it depletes the toxicity of aluminium and rare earth element in commercial magnesium alloys.OBJECTIVE:To evaluate the cytocompatibility of biodegradable Mg-Zn alloy.DESIGN,TIME AND SETTING:Contrast study was performed in the central laboratory of the Sixth People's Hospital of Shanghai Jiao Tong University between November 2007 and March 2008.MATERIALS:The Mg-6wt%Zn was prepared by School of Materials Science and Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University,with the density was 1.82 g/cm3 and the Young's modulus was 44 GPa.L-929 cells for cytocompatibility test were provided by Chinese Academy of Science Type Culture Collection.Ten male New Zealand rabbits were employed in the hemolysis test.METHODS:The Mg-Zn alloy extraction medium was prepared by serial dilutions with fresh medium to 10%,50% and 100%.The experiments were carried out in a 96-well tissue-culture plate.Simple DMEM culture solution was taken as negative controls,while DMEM culture solution supplemented with 0.64% phenol served as positive controls.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Relative proliferation rate of L-929 cells was determined at 2,4 and 7 days with MTT assay.The cytotoxicity of Mg-Zn alloy was evaluated according to ISO 10993-5:1999.The L-929 cell morphology and growth at 2,4 and 7 days were determined under inverted microscope.Based on ISO 10993-4:2002,hemolysis in vitro was evaluated through measuring erythrocyte lysis and ferrohemoglobin freeing degree with indirect contact method.RESULTS:The number of L-929 cells increased significantly and the morphology was not changed.The growth and morphology of cells in different Mg-Zn extraction medium had no difference from negative control group.Cytotoxicity test showed that biodegradable Mg-Zn alloy did not have obvious toxicity on L-929 cells,and the cytotoxicity of these extracts was in grade 0-1.Hemolysis test suggested that the Mg-Zn alloys did not have obvious hemolysis reaction,and the hemolysis index was 3.4%,which was less than the national standard (5%).CONCLUSION:The Mg-Zn alloys do not have obvious cytotoxicity and hemolysis reaction,which demonstrate that Mg-Zn alloys have good cytocompatibility.