Astragalus-cultivated soil was a suitable bed soil for nurturing Angelica sinensis seedlings from the rhizosphere microbiome perspective.

Angelica sinensis (Oliv.) Diels is an important Chinese medicinal plant. A. sinensis seedlings are grown on an undisturbed alpine meadow soil to ensure the high-quality seedlings, but these soils are disappearing year after year. Thus, selecting a suitable bed soil for A. sinensis seedlings could ensure their long-term sustainability. Using HiSeq sequencing of 16S and 18S marker genes, we investigated the rhizosphere bacterial and fungal microbiotas of the seedlings grown in wheat, astragalus, potato, and angelica-cultivated soils at a geo-authentic habitat. Co-occurrence network analysis, canonical correspondence analysis, Mantel test, and Envfit test were used to examine the relationship between the microbiotas and the surrounding factors. Astragalus-cultivated soils exhibited the following properties: the highest plant weight, the highest neighborhood connectivity in the bacterial network, the highest ratio of positive/negative relationship in both bacterial and fungal networks, the highest relative abundance of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the ectomycorrhizal fungi, the lowest relative abundance of Rhizoctonia solani, the suitable soil pH, and the close relationship between the rhizosphere microbiotas and the ecological factors. Moreover, each growth stage has its own major drivers in all crop-cultivated soils. Climate temperature and soil pH at 56 days after planting, precipitation at 98 days, and plant weight as well as microbial biomass C and N at 129 days were the major drivers of the bacterial and fungal microbiotas. Overall, the astragalus-cultivated soil was a suitable bed soil for nurturing A. sinensis seedlings to replace the undisturbed alpine meadow soils.

The evaluation of the treatment for old osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture pain by percutaneous vertebroplasty.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical effect of percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) in the treatment of old osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture (OVCF) pain.A retrospective study was conducted on the clinical and imaging data of 31 patients with old OVCF treated by PVP from June 2010 to September 2011. Clinical efficacy was evaluated by the visual analog scale (VAS) scores, the oswestry disability index (ODI), the Cobb angle, and vertebral kyphotic angle at pre-operation and post-operation 3 days, 3 months, and 12 months.The VAS scores and ODI scores of 3 day, 3 month, and 12 month after PVP were significantly improved compared with those before operation (P < .05), but the Cobb angle and vertebral kyphosis angle were not significantly improved compared with those before operation (P > .05).PVP can effectively relieve the pain caused by old OVCF, and the motor ability of the patients is improved obviously. However, the recovery of Cobb angle and vertebral kyphosis angle was not obvious.

Preparation of a novel carboxylate-rich palygorskite as an adsorbent for Ce3+ from aqueous solution.

A novel nanoscale adsorbing material, palygorskite (PGS) grafted polymethacrylic acid (PMAA) (PGS-g-PMAA), was successfully synthesized via atom-transfer radical-polymerization (ATRP). The grafting reaction was completed through a heterogeneous reaction in aqueous phase at normal temperature. Ce3+ was employed as a model to systematically investigate its adsorption performance. Meanwhile, the palygorskite was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results show that PGS-g-PMAA with abundant and highly accessible carboxyl groups demonstrated exceptional adsorption capacity to Ce3+. When pH is 7, temperature is 298.15 K, and the concentration of Ce3+ is 300 mg/g, the adsorption capacity reached the maximum (160.2 mg/g). PGS-g-PMAA shows a high adsorption rate, it reached adsorption equilibrium only after 40 min. In the premise of keeping the original structure of PGS, PMAA was bonded to its surface through the covalent bond, and the grafting ratio was only 15.4%. The adsorbability of PGS-g-PMAA indicated that the carboxylate-rich palygorskite composite is a promising adsorbent for removing the rare earth ions in aqueous solution. And this conclusion shows that ATRP method is an effective method for grafting functional polymer onto the surface of mineral in the aqueous phase.

Interaction of nitric oxide and reactive oxygen species and associated regulation of root growth in wheat seedlings under zinc stress.

The inhibition of root growth was investigated in wheat seedlings exposed to 3mM zinc (Zn). Zn treatment with or without 250 µM 2-phenyl-4,4,5,5,-tetrame-thylimidazoline-3-oxide-1-oxyl (PTIO) or 10 µM diphenylene iodonium (DPI) significantly inhibited growth, increased malondialdehyde content and lowered cell viability in roots. The most prominent changes of these three parameters at Zn+DPI treatment could be partly blocked by high PTIO concentration (1mM). The production of nitric oxide (NO) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) influenced each other under different treatments, with the highest NO level and the highest H2O2 accumulation in Zn+DPI-treated roots. Compared with Zn-stressed roots, catalase, soluble peroxidase (POD), ascorbate peroxidase and superoxide dismutase decreased in Zn+DPI-treated roots, suggesting that ROS generation from plasma membrane (PM) NADPH oxidase was associated with the regulation of antioxidant enzyme activities. Additionally, Zn-treated roots exhibited significant decreases in cell wall-bound POD, diamine oxidase and polyamine oxidase activities. Our results suggested that Zn-induced effects on root growth resulted from NO interaction with H2O2 and that Zn+DPI-induced strongest inhibition could be explained by the highest increase in the endogenous NO content and the reduction of extracellular ROS production.