Metagenomic Sequencing to Analyze Composition and Function of Top-Gray Chalky Grain Microorganisms from Hybrid Rice Seeds.

The top-gray chalkiness of hybrid rice (Oryza sativa L.) seeds is a typical phenomenon in hybrid rice seeds. The chalky part of the grain is infected and is the inoculum to infect the normal seeds during storage and soaking. These seed-associated microorganisms were cultivated and sequenced using metagenomics shotgun sequencing to obtain more comprehensive information on the seed-associated microorganisms in this experiment. The results showed that fungi could grow well on the rice flour medium, similar to the ingredients of rice seed endosperms. After the assembly of metagenomic data, a gene catalog was established, comprising 250,918 genes. Function analysis showed that glycoside hydrolases were the dominant enzymes, and the genus Rhizopus accounted for the dominant microorganisms. The fungal species R. microspores, R. delemar, and R. oryzae were likely to be the candidate pathogens in the top-gray chalky grains of hybrid rice seeds. These results will provide a reference for improving hybrid rice processing after harvest.

A new development of non-local image denoising using fixed-point iteration for non-convex ℓp sparse optimization.

We proposed a new efficient image denoising scheme, which mainly leads to four important contributions whose approaches are different from existing ones. The first is to show the equivalence between the group-based sparse representation and the Schatten-p norm minimization problem, so that the sparsity of the coefficients for each group can be measured by estimating the underlying singular values. The second is that we construct the proximal operator for sparse optimization in ℓp space with p ∈ (0, 1] by using fixed-point iteration and obtained a new solution of Schatten-p norm minimization problem, which is more rigorous and accurate than current available results. The third is that we analyze the suitable setting of power p for each noise level σ = 20, 30, 50, 60, 75, 100, respectively. We find that the optimal value of p is inversely proportional to the noise level except for high level of noise, where the best values of p are 1 and 0.95, when the noise levels are respectively 75 and 100. Last we measure the structural similarity between two image patches and extends previous deterministic annealing-based solution to sparsity optimization problem through incorporating the idea of dictionary learning. Experimental results demonstrate that for every given noise level, the proposed Spatially Adaptive Fixed Point Iteration (SAFPI) algorithm attains the best denoising performance on the value of Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) and structure similarity (SSIM), being able to retain the image structure information, which outperforms many state-of-the-art denoising methods such as Block-matching and 3D filtering (BM3D), Weighted Nuclear Norm Minimization (WNNM) and Weighted Schatten p-Norm Minimization (WSNM).

NMDA receptors inhibit axonal outgrowth by inactivating Akt and activating GSK-3ß via calcineurin in cultured immature hippocampal neurons.

Neurons are highly polarized cells with an axon and dendritic arbors. It is still not well studied that how formation and elaboration of axon and dendrites is controlled by diffusible signaling factors such as glutamate via specific receptors. We found that N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors were enriched (stage 2-3) but decreased expression (stage 4-5) at tip of axon of cultured hippocampal neurons during distinct development stages. Inhibition of NMDA receptor activity by competitive antagonist DL-2-amino-5-phosphonovalerate (APV) or channel blocker MK801 promoted axonal outgrowth at the early stages, whereas inhibited dendritic development in later stages. Meanwhile, knockdown of NMDA receptors also promoted axonal outgrowth and branch in immature neurons. Furthermore, GluN2B but not GluN2A subunit inhibited axonal outgrowth in immature hippocampal neurons. Finally, we found that NMDA receptors inhibited axonal outgrowth by inactivating Akt and activating GSK-3ß signaling in a calcineurin-dependent manner. Taken together, our results demonstrate that stabilization GSK-3ß activation in the axon growth cone by Ca2+ influx through NMDA receptors may be involved in regulation of axon formation in immature neurons at early stages.

FcGBP was upregulated by HPV infection and correlated to longer survival time of HNSCC patients.

FcGBP was normally found in intestinal and colonic epithelia, gallbladder, cystic duct, bronchus, submandibular gland, cervix uteri and in fluids secreted by these cells in humans, and was down-regulated during colon carcinogenesis. We found FcGBP gene expression was decreased in HNSCC tissues compared to surgical safety border tissues while TGF-ß expression level increased in HNSCC tissues, and higher FcGBP expression level was correlated to longer OS time of HNSCC patients. FcGBP expression level was higher in HPV-positive HNSCC tissues compared to HPV-negative HNSCC tissues, while TGF-ß expression level was lower in HPV-positive HNSCC tissues. Gene expression level of FcGBP and TGF-ß was negatively correlated in HNSCC tissues. FcGBP expression level increased after HPV E6 overexpression in HPV-negative HNSCC cells, and TGF-ß could inhibit the up-regulation of FcGBP after HPV E6 or FcGBP overexpression in HPV-negative HNSCC cells. The migration capability was inhibited after FcGBP overexpression, and TGF-ß could counteract the inhibition of migration caused by FcGBP overexpression. FcGBP gene expression level was correlated to the expression levels of EMT markers. In conclusion, FCGBP expression was upregulated by HPV infection while inhibited by TGF-ß, and was correlated to the prognosis of HNSCC patients.

[Forensic psychiatric cases of 534 mental disorders caused by traumatic brain injury].

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the types of mental disorders caused by traumatic brain injury and the optimal time for forensic psychiatric appraisal. To explore the relationship between the degree of traumatic brain injury, the time of appraisal and the grade of intellectual deficiency. METHODS: Five hundred and thirty-four forensic psychiatric cases of mental disorders caused by traumatic brain injury were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: In the types of mental disorders caused by traumatic brain injury, the most cases were diagnosed as organic mood disorders (51.1%), following organic neurosis-like syndrome (24.0%) and organic intellectual deficiency (18.0%). For the disability grades, the most cases were the level VIII and IX disability grades, 219 cases (41.0%) and 177 cases (33.1%), respectively. The degree of brain injury and the degree of intelligence defection according to WAIS-RC were higher in intellectual deficiency group compared with non-intellectual deficiency group (P < 0.05). The grade of disability correlated with the degree of brain injury, the result of WAIS-RC, the result of cerebral CT scanning, and the grade of brain electrical activity mapping (BEAM) abnormality (P < 0.05). Nevertheless, the degree of intellectual deficiency did not correlate with appraisal time and the degree of brain injury (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The factors influencing intellectual deficiency are complex. The findings of objective examination including cerebral CT scanning, BEAM, WAIS-RC and others should be considered as important indexes for disability evaluation.

A randomized, 12-week study of the effects of extended-release paliperidone (paliperidone ER) and olanzapine on metabolic profile, weight, insulin resistance, and ß-cell function in schizophrenic patients.

OBJECTIVE: To compare matched paliperidone-ER- and olanzapine-treated schizophrenic patients on measures of glucose and lipid metabolism. METHODS: Eighty hospitalized patients with schizophrenia (DSM-IV) were randomly assigned to treatment with paliperidone ER or olanzapine for a period of 12 weeks. At baseline and every 4 weeks, we assessed weight, subcutaneous fat, waist and hip circumferences, fasting glucose, insulin, glycohemoglobin A1, cholesterol, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and prolactin. We also assessed at every time point body mass index (BMI), homeostasis insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), and homeostasis ß-cell function (HOMA-B). RESULTS: Thirty-three patients randomly assigned to paliperidone ER and 23 patients randomly assigned to olanzapine groups completed the entire 12-week treatment. Within-group analyses showed that fasting measures in both groups increased for weight, BMI, waist circumferences, hip circumference, subcutaneous fat, cholesterol, triglycerides, and prolactin. In contrast, fasting glucose, LDL, and HOMA-B increased during treatment only in the olanzapine group. We also detected significantly different serum prolactin levels at all time point between the paliperidone ER- and olanzapine-treated groups, as well as a statistical trend for HOMA-B to increase more in the olanzapine compared to paliperidone-ER group over the 12 weeks of the trial. We did not detect, however, differential drug effects over the 12 weeks of the trial on fasting measures of BMI, glucose, glycohemoglobin A1, insulin, HDL, LDL, cholesterol, triglyceride, or HOMA-IR. CONCLUSION: This study reinforces the necessity of regularly monitoring metabolic parameters in patients with schizophrenia taking atypical antipsychotics, including paliperidone ER.