Root Rot Disease of Torreya grandis Caused by Fusarium fujikuroi in China.

Torreya grandis is an evergreen plant endemic of China and widely grown in Southern China. Its fruit is a precious nut in China, rich in vitamins and minerals, can be directly eaten, can also be used as medicinal plants with functions of lowering blood lipids and softening blood vessels (Wang 2022). From 2018 to 2020, typical root rot symptoms of Torreya grandis was found in plantations in Huangshan and surrounding areas of Huangshan, Anhui province, China. About 15 to 32% of root rot disease incidence was recorded at the plantation. Diseased plants were observed with symptoms such as yellow to brownish leaves without lesions and later drying, and rotten roots looked dark brown while the roots of heathy plants showed white, and eventually leading to the death of the diseased plant. The root rot symptomatic plants were collected in June of 2020. Tissues were cut to the length of 0.3 to 0.5 cm, then surface sterilized by 2% sodium hypochlorite for 2 min and 75% alcohol for 1 min, rinsed three times in sterile distilled water, and placed on potato dextrose agar (PDA) and incubated at 25℃ for 5 to 9 days. Eight isolates with similar morphology were isolated from single spores. On PDA, the isolates produced abundant aerial white mycelia with septation and turned violet to dark pink on the reverse side of the culture. Morphological characteristic was determined using a pure culture grown on synthetic low nutrient agar (SNA). Two types of conidia, microconidia and macroconidia, were observed on SNA. Macroconidia were long and slender, usually 3 to 5 septate, measuring 2.7 to 4.3 × 22.3 to 49.6 µm (n=30), and narrowed at the both ends. Microconidia were abundant, oval, clavate or ovate, zero to one septate and measured 1.6 to 3.9 × 4.4 to 13.0 µm (n=50). According to the culture and conidial characteristics, the isolates were tentatively identified as Fusarium species (Leslie and Summerell 2006). Four isolates were random selected for molecular identification. The general primers ITS1/ITS4 for internal transcribed spacer (ITS) (White et al. 1990), EF1/EF2 for translation elongation factor (TEF1) (O'Donnell et al. 1998), 5F2/7cR for the second largest subunit of RNA polymerase Ⅱ(RPB2) (O'Donnell et al., 2007), H3-1a/H3-1b for Histone H3 (Jacobs et al., 2010), F5/R8 for subunits 1 of DNA-directed RNA polymerase Ⅱ (RPB1) (O'Donnell et al. 2010) and MS3F/MS3R for mitochondrial small subunit (mtSSU) (Stenglein et al. 2010) were amplified, respectively. The products were sequenced and deposited in GenBank with accession numbers of MW350689, MW029444, ON077156, ON077158, ON077157, ON054432, respectively. Blast analysis showed 99.40 to 100% sequence homology with known F. fujikuroi isolates. A phylogenetic analysis based on the concatenated sequences clustered from the combined datasets (TEF1, RPB2, Histone H3, RPB1 and mtSSU) revealed the isolate most closely related to the F. fujikuroi (100% bootstrap). Fifteen 2-year-old healthy plants of Torreya grandis were selected for the pathogenicity test. A conidial suspension (1×106 conidia/ml) was prepared by collecting spores from 10-day-old cultures on PDA. The root of each plants inoculated with 200 ml of a 106 conidia/ml suspension, and the five control plants inoculated with sterilized water. The plants were incubated in green house with 25℃ (14 h light)/22℃ (10 h dark) at 85% humidity. Two weeks later, 100% of artificially inoculated plants showed the same symptoms similar to those observed in the plantation, like yellow leaves, dark brown and rotten roots, meanwhile, the roots of control plants displayed healthy. From symptomatic roots, the pathogen was reisolated which satisfying Koch's postulates. F. fujikuroi causes root rot of soybean and Reineckia carnea (Detranaltes et al. 2021, Sun et al. 2018).To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of F. fujikuroi causing root rot of Torreya grandis in China.

Comparisons between perioperative continuous femoral nerve block and patient controlled analgesia for analgesia in primary total knee arthroplasty: a Meta-analysis / 中华创伤杂志

Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of continuous femoral nerve block (CFNB) versus patient controlled analgesia (PCA) for analgesia in primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) through a Meta-analysis.Methods All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which compared about the efficacy and safety of CFNB versus PCA for analgesia in primary TKA,were searched from Cochrane Library,Embase,PubMed,CBM,VIP,Wang Fang database and CNKI.At the same time,conference papers were identified manually.A quality assessment of the included literature was evaluated by Cochrane system evaluation manually.Revman 5.3 software was used for the Meta-analysis to compare visual analogue scale (VAS),hospital for special surgery knee score (HSS),western Ontario and McMaster university of orthopedic index (WOMAC),patient satisfactory degree,and incidences of complications (nausea,vomit,dizziness,somnolence,itch of skin,etc).Results Twenty-four RCTs involving 1896 patients were identified including CFNB (946 cases) and PCA (950 cases) application of TKA.The pooled results illustrated that CFNB could reduce VAS in rest (MD =-1.28,95％ CI-1.56,-1.00,P ＜ 0.05) and VAS in movement (MD =-0.98,95％ CI-1.38,-0.58,P ＜ 0.05),increase HSS (MD =2.13,95％ CI 0.12,4.14,P ＜0.05),reduce WOMAC(MD =-0.97,95％ CI-1.83,-0.11,P ＜ 0.05),increase patient satisfactory degree (RR =1.27,95 ％ CI 1.10,1.46,P ＜ 0.05) and at the same time reduce the incidences of nausea,vomit,dizziness,somnolence and itch of skin (RR =0.32,95％CI0.24,0.43,P＜0.05).Conclusion Compared with PCA,CFNB analgesia can reduce VAS,WOMAC score,improve the postoperative HSS and patient satisfaction degree,and decrease the risk of complications.

Comparisons between perioperative continuous femoral nerve block and patient controlled analgesia for analgesia in primary total knee arthroplasty: a Meta-analysis / 中华创伤杂志

Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of continuous femoral nerve block (CFNB) versus patient controlled analgesia (PCA) for analgesia in primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) through a Meta-analysis.Methods All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which compared about the efficacy and safety of CFNB versus PCA for analgesia in primary TKA,were searched from Cochrane Library,Embase,PubMed,CBM,VIP,Wang Fang database and CNKI.At the same time,conference papers were identified manually.A quality assessment of the included literature was evaluated by Cochrane system evaluation manually.Revman 5.3 software was used for the Meta-analysis to compare visual analogue scale (VAS),hospital for special surgery knee score (HSS),western Ontario and McMaster university of orthopedic index (WOMAC),patient satisfactory degree,and incidences of complications (nausea,vomit,dizziness,somnolence,itch of skin,etc).Results Twenty-four RCTs involving 1896 patients were identified including CFNB (946 cases) and PCA (950 cases) application of TKA.The pooled results illustrated that CFNB could reduce VAS in rest (MD =-1.28,95％ CI-1.56,-1.00,P ＜ 0.05) and VAS in movement (MD =-0.98,95％ CI-1.38,-0.58,P ＜ 0.05),increase HSS (MD =2.13,95％ CI 0.12,4.14,P ＜0.05),reduce WOMAC(MD =-0.97,95％ CI-1.83,-0.11,P ＜ 0.05),increase patient satisfactory degree (RR =1.27,95 ％ CI 1.10,1.46,P ＜ 0.05) and at the same time reduce the incidences of nausea,vomit,dizziness,somnolence and itch of skin (RR =0.32,95％CI0.24,0.43,P＜0.05).Conclusion Compared with PCA,CFNB analgesia can reduce VAS,WOMAC score,improve the postoperative HSS and patient satisfaction degree,and decrease the risk of complications.

The effect and mechanism of naringin on callus angiogenesis of ovariectomized rats' fractures / 中华骨科杂志

Objective To explore the angiogenesis&neovascularization effects of naringin treatment in ovariectomized rats’fracture healing. Methods Upper 1/3 transverse tibial fracture model 4 weeks later after ovariectomized were estimated and randomly divided into the naringin group and control group. Microfil perfusion technique was used to analysis the angiogene?sis situation at two weeks after bone fracture. HE staining was used to evaluate the level of angiogenesis&neovascularization of tis?sue from histological point of view. The relative expression of VEGF in the callus was identified by real?time polymerase chain re?action. Immunohistochemical technique was used to observe the vessel endothelial growth factor?2 in the callus of the two groups. Maximum fracture load was tested by three?point bend test. Results The vascular volume and vascular density were more in nar?ingin group than control group. The HE staining of the 2 week group slices shows that the VA, VN2 of the unit of high magnifica?tion vision of the naringin group was significantly larger compared to the control group. Real?time PCR revealed that the compara?tive expression of VEGF is more in naringin group than in control group; the positive number of VEGFR?2 is more in naringin group than in control group. Naringin can promote the maximum load of the callus. Conclusion Naringin can promote ovariecto?mized rats’angiogenesis&neovascularization in the early process of fracture healing. It may be act on the signaling pathway of VEGF/VEGFR?2.

Simplification of Protein Sequence and Alignment?-free Sequence Analysis / 生物化学与生物物理进展

Alignment-free comparison is a recently developed method for sequence alignment, which has high computational efficiency and suitable to the low identical sequences. Alignment-free comparison was successfully applied in the DNA analysis. However, the accuracy of analysis is not high when it was applied in protein analysis because the complexity of protein is larger than DNA by consisting of 20 types of residues. Thus, residues are clustered into a few groups based on their similarity of physicochemical features. Using such simplified alphabets, the complexity of protein sequences is reduced and at the same time the key information encoded in the sequences remains. Therefore, the accuracy of alignment-free comparison is improved.