Objective The complex evolutionary history of the origin of medicinal blue herbs might result in the presence of adulterants, affecting the accuracy and safety of clinical medication. To provide a reference basis for the identification of medicinal blue herbs with leaves as the medicinal part, based on the leaf epidermis microstructure. Methods The species belonging to medicinal blue herbs and their close relatives (10 species from 4 genera) were systematically investigated. The leaf epidermis microstructure of these species was observed and analyzed by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. A species retrieval table was established based on the microstructure characteristics. Results By combining the distribution of stomata, types of subsidiary cells, stomatal index, stomatal density, characteristics of the periclinal walls of epidermal cells, and epidermal appendages, the species Clerodendrum cyrtophyllum, Polygonum tinctorium, Isatis indigotica, I. violascens, I. costata, I. minima, Strobilanthes wallichii, S. dalzielii, S. pentstemonoides, and S. cusia can be accurately distinguished. Conclusion Microscopic characteristics of leaf epidermis can provide reference data for accurately differentiating the botanical origins of medicinal blue herbs.

The adhesive protein secreted by marine sessile animals can resist the resistance of water and exert stickiness under the humid environment. It has become a candidate for the development of high-performance materials in the field of biomedicine and bionics. Barnacles are as one of the marine macrofoulers that can be firmly attached to the underwater substrate materials with different surface characteristics through its cement proteins. To date, the adhesion process of barnacle has been understood in-depth, but the specific underwater adhesion mechanism has not been elucidated and needs further exploration. This review first presented an overview of barnacle and its adhesion process, followed by summarizing the advances of barnacle adhesive protein, its production methods, and applications. Moreover, challenges and future perspectives were prospected.
Animals ; Thoracica/metabolism* ; Proteins/metabolism* ; Adhesives/metabolism*

Microbial induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) refers to the natural biological process of calcium carbonate precipitation induced by microbial metabolism in its surrounding environment. Based on the principles of MICP, microbial cement has been developed and has received widespread attention in the field of biology, civil engineering, and environment owing to the merits of environmental friendliness and economic competence. Urease and carbonic anhydrase are the key enzymes closely related to microbial cement. This review summarizes the genes, protein structures, regulatory mechanisms, engineering strains and mutual synergistic relationship of these two enzymes. The application of bioinformatics and synthetic biology is expected to develop biocement with a wide range of environmental adaptability and high performance, and will bring the MICP research to a new height.
Calcium Carbonate/metabolism* ; Chemical Precipitation ; Urease/metabolism*

Objective:To investigate the diagnostic performance of MRI Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System version 2018 in high-risk hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with intrahepatic parenchymal substantial lesions ≤3.0 cm.Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted in hospitals between September 2014 to April 2020. 131 pathologically confirmed non-HCC cases with lesions ≤3.0 cm in diameter were randomly matched with 131 cases with lesions ≤3.0 cm in diameter and divided into benign (56 cases), other hepatic malignant tumor (OM, 75 cases), and HCC group (131 cases) in a 1:1 ratio. MRI features of the lesions were analyzed and classified according to LI-RADS v2018 criteria (tie-break rule was applied to lesions with both HCC and LR-M features). Taking the pathological results as the gold standard, the sensitivity and specificity of the LI-RADS v2018 classification criteria and the more stringent LR-5 criteria (with three main signs of HCC at the same time) were calculated for HCC, OM or benign lesions diagnosis. Mann -Whitney U test was used to compare the classification results. Results:The number of cases classified as LR-M, LR-1, LR-2, LR-3, LR-4, and LR-5 in HCC group after applying the tie-break rule were 14, 0, 0, 12, 28, and 77, respectively. There were 40, 0, 0, 4, 17, 14 and 8, 5, 1, 26, 13, 3 cases in benign and OM group, respectively. There were 41 (41/77), 4 (4/14) and 1 (1/3) lesion case in the HCC, OM and benign group, respectively, that met the more stringent LR-5 criteria. The sensitivity of LR-4 combined with LR-5 (LR-4/5) criteria, LR-5 criteria and more stringent LR-5 criteria for HCC diagnosis were 80.2% (105/131), 58.8% (77/131) and 31.3% (41/131), respectively, and the specificity were 64.1% (84/131), 87.0% (114/131) and 96.2% (126/131), respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of LR-M were 53.3% (40/75) and 88.2% (165/187), respectively. The sensitivity and specificity using LR-1 combined with LR-2 (LR-1/2) criteria for the diagnosis of benign liver lesions were 10.7% (6/56) and 100% (206/206), respectively.Conclusions:LR-1/2, LR-5, and LR-M criteria have high diagnostic specificity for intrahepatic lesions with a diameter of ≤3.0 cm. Lesions classified as LR-3 are more likely to be benign. The specificity of LR-4/5 criteria is low, while the more stringent LR-5 criteria has a high specificity for HCC diagnosis.

Enzyme is an efficient and green biocatalyst, and widely used in many areas. Immobilized enzyme is superior to its free form in a variety of properties. Enzyme immobilization studies started in the 1970s in China. Till now, immobilized enzymes are widely applied in the fields of food, medical, energy, environmental management, among others. However, there are still some defects such as no universal method and the high cost. Therefore, based on the relatively mature traditional immobilization technologies, efforts have been made to innovate immobilization technologies. As a result, many new immobilization technologies focusing on new carriers and methods are continuously generated. Coupling with more than ten years' study on enzyme immobilization, we present here recent development and application of new immobilization technologies, as well as suggestions to future development of immobilization technology.

Vegetable oil is one of the most potential alternatives of petroleum and has become a hot issue in recent years. This review focuses on the influence of vegetable oil structure on platform compounds and polymers properties, and further systematically introduces their developments and the latest progress. Meanwhile, we also summarized the main confronting problems and the future development directions in the research of oil-based platform compounds and polymers. The review provides useful information for readers to fully understand biochemical engineering of vegetable oils and their prospects.

Objective To explore the anatomic positional relationship of bronchial artery(BA)with esophagus and main bronchus on 320-detector CTA.Methods Original and post-processed images of 142 patients were observed.Type,origin,opening direction of BA as well as its concomitant relationship with esophagus were recorded.The positional relationship of BA with main bronchus was also recorded by fusing the images of BA and bronchial tree together.Results In 122 patients,273 BA were identified (146 on the right and 127 on the left).Right BA mainly ran simultaneously along the right and posterior edge of the esophagus (49.3%),while left BA mainly ran far gradually on the left side of the esophagus (82.7%).The left and right BA mainly ran along the middle thoracic esophagus, accounting for 58.3% and 42.5% respectively.45.2% of the right BA ran across the posterior edge of the right main bronchus and 60.6% of left BA ran simultaneously on the posterior and up edge of the esophagus.The most dividing direction of BA from the tho-racic aorta was 9 to 12 o’clock with a frequency of 74.2%.Conclusion The concomitant relationship with esophagus of the BA and the positional relationship with main bronchus of the BA could clearly be demonstrated on 320-detector CTA,thus providing availa-ble information and help for pulmonary and mediastinal sugery.

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 investigate the relationship between CYP2J2*7 mutation(G-76T) and coronary heart disease (CHD) in Chinese Hanpopulation and to study the effects of CYP2J2 geneover-expressionon the proliferation and migrationof aortic smooth muscle cells of ApoE-/- mice. Methods CYP2J2*7 genotype was detectedin 500 patients with CHD and 478 controlsubjects by the Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Frag-ment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Culturedaortic smooth muscle cells of ApoE-/- mice were divided into control group, sham transfectiongroup and CYP2J2 over-expression group. Cell proliferation and migration were investigated after CYP2J2 over-expressionby MTS and Transwell assay. Results The frequency of CYP2J2*7 in CHD group was significantly higher than that incontrol group (10.00% vs. 6.49%, P = 0.046). Same is the case in female cases(P = 0.026). Compared with these of aortic smooth muscle cells incontrol group and sham trans-fectiongroup, the cell proliferation in 24, 48, 72 h, and the cell migration in 48 h after CYP2J2 over-expression in CYP2J2 group were significantly suppressed. Conclusions CYP2J2*7 mutation might increase the risk of CHD in Chinese Han population. CYP2J2 over-expression can suppress the proliferation and migration of aortic smooth muscle cells and CYP2J2 might have the effect of anti-atherosclerosis.

To enhance biohydrogen production of Klebsiella sp. HQ-3, the global transcriptional factor (Fnr), formate dehydrogenase H (FDH1) and the pncB gene encoding the nicotinic acid phosphoribosyltransferase (NAPRTase) were for the first time over-expressed in Klebsiella sp. HQ-3. The fnr, fdhF, pncB genes were cloned from the genomic DNA of Klebsiella sp. HQ-3 by 3 pairs of universal primers, and introduced into the corresponding sites of the modified pET28a-Pkan, resulting in the plasmids pET28a-Pkan-fnr, pET28a-Pkan-fdhF and pET28a-Pkan-pncB. The 4 plasmids were then electroported into wild Klebsiella sp. HQ-3 to create HQ-3-fnr, HQ-3-fdhF, HQ-3-pncB and HQ-3-C, respectively. Hydrogen production was measured using a gas chromatograph and the metabolites were analyzed with a high-performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC). The results indicate that over-expression of fnr, fdhF and pncB significantly enhanced hydrogen production in the three recombinant strains. Hydrogen production per mol glucose for HQ-3 fnr, HQ-3 pncB, HQ-3 fdhF was 1.113, 1.106 and 1.063 mol of hydrogen/mol glucose, which was respectively increased by 12.26%, 11.62% and 7.28% compared with that of the control strain HQ-3-C (0.991 mol of hydrogen/mol glucose). Moreover, the analysis of HPLC showed that the concentrations of formate and lactate were markedly decreased, but succinate remained unchanged in culture media compared with those of the control strain HQ-3-C.
Fermentation ; Formate Dehydrogenases ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Hydrogen ; metabolism ; Iron-Sulfur Proteins ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Klebsiella ; genetics ; metabolism ; Metabolic Engineering ; methods ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Pentosyltransferases ; biosynthesis ; genetics