Brain mappings in non-fluent late Chinese-English bilinguals / 中华外科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To discuss the distribution characteristics of language areas in Chinese-English non-fluent late bilinguals.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Six Chinese-English bilinguals with eloquent tumors underwent awake-surgeries. The activated areas of BOLD-fMRI were obtained as the patients performed pure naming, verb generation, and abstract/concrete judgment tasks. Direct cortical stimulation(DCS) as the golden standard of language mapping were performed during awake-surgeries on the exposed cortical areas. BOLD-fMRI results of 3 language tasks were compared with DCS results. The statistical method was McNemer.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Sixteen positive sites(22.5%) were comfirmed out of 71 stimulations. There were 3 specific language sites, in which 2 sites were specific English sites and 1 site was specific Chinese site. When activated areas of BOLD-fMRI were compared with the DCS results, verb generation task had the highest concordance rate 40.9% (95%CI:30.2%-52.5%) . There were significant differences between the results of BOLD-fMRI and DCS of all 3 bilingual tasks(P < 0.017).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>There are specific language areas in Chinese-English non-fluent late bilinguals. The BOLD-fMRI language mapping could not substitute DCS in the context of mapping language areas in bilinguals.</p>

Surgical strategy of a Chinese-English-French multilingual patient with tumor in eloquent area / 中华神经医学杂志

Objective To explore the localization of brain functional area in a Chinese-English-French multilingual patient with low-grade glioma and study the surgical method of low-grade glioma in the eloquent area using awake craniotomy and direct cortical electrical stimulation. Methods A cerebral operation was performed in a Chinese multilingual patient with low-grade glioma in the eloquent region, who spoke Mandarin, English and French. Based on semantic, speech and reading test of Chinese, English and French, functional MRI (fMRI) was conducted to map the Chinese-English-French eloquent cerebral cortex before operation. The patient received microsurgery for tumor resection with monitoring of Chinese, English and French multilingual eloquent areas under awake anesthesia, and the surgical program was guided by cortical-subcortical direct electrical stimulation, with tumor locating by B-mode ultrasound in the operation. Results Chinese, English and French eloquent cerebral cortexes were found by fMRI. All eloquent areas were located in the inferior-anterior region near the tumor, namely the posterior part of left middle-inferior frontal gyrus and superior temperal gyrus. But cortical direct electrical stimulation identified that Chinese eloquent cerebral cortex was not totally coincided with English and French eloquent cerebral cortexes, which were in the unique cortical area in the posterior part of the upper temporal gyrus; these results were different from those of fMRI. Transient supplementary motor area syndrome in the left middle-frontal gyrus was observed by subcortical direct stimulation; subtotal resection of the tumor was achieved. The patient suffered from multilingual motor aphasia of all 3 languages for 3 months. Then his Chinese recovered first, followed by English and French. After 1 year follow-up, the patient went back to his work free of aphasia of all 3 languages and had normal life with free of epilepsy. Conclusion Mapping eloquent areas using fMRI based on multilingual mission and multilingual monitoring under a waking state of the patient makes it possibe to remove the tumor in the multilingual eloquent area. Protection of mother tongue is the precondition of this kind of surgery. Linguistic function may be recovered after the maximal resection of the tumor.

Research on the mechanism of fluoroquinolone resistance in clinical isolates of Enterococcus faecium / 中国感染与化疗杂志

Objective To investigate the mechanism of fluoroquinolone resistance in clinical isolates of Enterococcus faecium. Methods The MICs of six fluoroquinolones(norfloxacin,ciprofloxacin,ofloxacin,levofloxacin,gatifloxacin and moxifloxacin) against 35 clinical isolates of E.faecium from eight hospitals in Tianjin were determined by agar dilution method in the absence or presence of multidrug resistance efflux pump inhibitor reserpine.The quinolone-resistance determining region(QRDR)of parC and gyrA were amplified and sequenced.Results No less than twofold decrease in MIC values of the six fluoroquinolones in the presence of reserpine was observed in 35,29,1,0,6 and 2 of the 35 strains of E.faecium respectively.One fluoro- quinolone-susceptible isolate and five fluoroquinolone-resistant isolates were selected randomly to analyze the QRDR of parC and gyrA.All five fluoroquinolone-resistant isolates had single amino acid alteration in both GyrA and ParC.Ser-80 in ParC was substituted by lie(4 isolates)or Arg(1 isolates).Glu-87 in GyrA was replaced by Lys(2 isolates)or Gly(2 isolates). The other one had an Ser-83-to-Ile substitution.The one fluoroquinolone-suseeptible isolate had no alteration in the QRDR of either ParC or GyrA.Conclusions Both target alteration and active efflux are responsible for the resistance to fluoroquinolone in clinical isolates of E.faecium.

Advances in molecular mechanisms of human sperm-egg interaction and infertility / 中华男科学杂志

Human sperm-egg recognition, adhesion and fusion are key steps in the whole reproductive process. Some abnormalities in human gamete interaction have been shown to be due to defects in the sperm, others attributed to defects in the zona pellucida (ZP) and the egg plasma membrane. This paper reviews the molecular basis and molecular mechanisms of human sperm-egg interaction. More and more advances in the studies of these aspects are shown to be of significant value to the diagnosis and treatment of infertility as well as to the development of assisted reproductive techniques.

Immunogenicity of recombinant human zona pellucida-3 peptides expressed in E. coli and efficacy of their antisera to inhibit in vitro human sperm-egg binding / 生理学报

The present study was aimed to analyze the immunogenicity of recombinant human zona pellucida-3 peptides (r-huZP3a(22 approximately 176) and r-huZP3b(177 approximately 348)) expressed in E. coli through immunizing rabbits, and to evaluate the efficacy of their polyclonal antisera against r-huZP3a(22 approximately 176) and r-huZP3b(177 approximately 348) to inhibit in vitro human sperm-egg binding respectively. Male New Zealand rabbits were immunized using r-huZP3a(22 approximately 176) or r-huZP3b(177 approximately 348) as antigen respectively, which was purified through an improved method of preparative gel polyacryulamide gel electrophoresis. The antibody response level of r-huZP3a(22 approximately 176) or r-huZP3b(177 approximately 348) immunogen in rabbits was determined by ELISA using mouse ZP3-5 (amino acid sequence(137 approximately 150) being completely conserved with huZP3(138 approximately 151) sequence) and specific huZP3-14 (amino acid sequence(327 approximately 340)) synthetic peptides as coating antigens respectively. The immunoreactivity and specificity of the anti-r-huZP3a(22 approximately 176) and anti-r-huZP3b(177 approximately 348) antisera with each r-huZP3 peptides, were tested by immunoblot and immunohistochemistry (using native huZP and human ovary section) respectively. A competitive hemizona assay (HZA) was used to evaluate the efficacy of the antisera against r-huZP3a(22 approximately 176) and r-huZP3b(177 approximately 348) to inhibit in vitro human sperm-egg binding. Both r-huZP3 peptides were able to induce higher antibody titers in rabbits. Each antiserum could specifically recognize or bind to each target r-huZP3 peptide expressed in E. coli and native human ZP in vitro. The antisera also inhibited sperm-egg binding in the HZA. These results show that r-huZP3a(22 approximately 176) and r-huZP3b(177 approximately 348) are of strong immunogenicity. They can be used to develop a kit for detecting whether there are autoantibodies to zona pellucida in unexplained infertile women, and their antisera might be useful tools for determining minimal B-cell epitope sequences of several known huZP3 epitope peptides.