Measurement for natural dental neck data of normal adults and its clinical significance on guiding implant restoration.

OBJECTIVE: Provide reference basis for the clinical implant restoration to select implant diameter through measuring each data of 7 teeth in the dental neck of bilateral upper and lower jaws of the young volunteers with normal dentition. METHODS: Select 30 healthy young volunteers with complete dentition but no malocclusion, take cone beam CT (CBCT), measure the mesiodistal and buccolingual distance of the tooth root at 1.5 mm from 14 teeth (bilateral upper and lower jaws) to alveolar crest, trace out the outline of each tooth neck in this layer, calculate the cross sectional area and roundness of each tooth neck according to pixel value calibration, and then carry out statistical processing. RESULTS: Complete the data collection and processing of mesiodistal length, buccolingual width, cross sectional area, and cross sectional roundness of the dental neck at 1.5 mm from these seven teeth of the bilateral upper and lower jaws to the alveolar crest of 30 volunteers, and calculate the mean value, variance, and reference value range of medical science of each index. CONCLUSION: CBCT can effectively obtain the image information of the dental neck. Through mimics 10.0 and Photoshop CS3, it is possible to accurately calculate the dental neck length and width, and cross sectional area of each tooth according to CBCT image information. This result can provide reference basis for the implant restoration of the clinical teeth.

Mechanical analysis on individualized finite element of temporal-mandibular joint under overlarge jaw opening status.

BACKGROUND: Analyze the stress status of temporal-mandibular joint (TMJ) of a healthy volunteer under the overlarge jaw opening status through the finite element method, with the purpose of clarifying the loading features of each structure in the joint area, and achieving further understanding of the pathogenesis of the temporomandibular disorders (TMD). METHODS: Collect the CBCT and MRI data of a volunteer respectively under the maximum jaw opening, establish the finite element model (FEM) of TMJ under the maximum jaw opening status through a series of software, image segmentation, rectification, meshing, material evaluation and other related processing, simulate the mechanical environment of this joint area under this status, and analyze the stress status of the articular disc, condyle cartilage, and condyle process. RESULTS: Based on CT and MRI image data, build 3D model and FEM of TMJ, fully simulate the mechanical environment under the large jaw opening status, and calculate the stress value of the articular disc, condyle process and condylar cartilage. CONCLUSIONS: This research result reminds us that the normal people's articular disc are easy to generate stress concentration under large jaw opening, but its stress is far less than the one under the tight biting status. Perhaps the TMJ symptom induced under the large jaw opening status is mainly caused by the displacement of the articular disc. Under the large jaw opening status, the condylar cartilage plays a vital role in dispersing the stress. This method can be applied for carrying out individualized mechanical analysis on the patients with TMD.

Relative rates of synonymous substitutions in the mitochondrial, chloroplast and nuclear genomes of seed plants.

Previous studies have estimated that, in angiosperms, the synonymous substitution rate of chloroplast genes is three times higher than that of mitochondrial genes and that of nuclear genes is twelve times higher than that of mitochondrial genes. Here we used 12 genes in 27 seed plant species to investigate whether these relative rates of substitutions are common to diverse seed plant groups. We find that the overall relative rate of synonymous substitutions of mitochondrial, chloroplast and nuclear genes of all seed plants is 1:3:10, that these ratios are 1:2:4 in gymnosperms but 1:3:16 in angiosperms and that they go up to 1:3:20 in basal angiosperms. Our results show that the mitochondrial, chloroplast and nuclear genomes of seed plant groups have different synonymous substitutions rates, that these rates are different in different seed plant groups and that gymnosperms have smaller ratios than angiosperms.

Seed plant phylogeny: gnetophytes are derived conifers and a sister group to Pinaceae.

The phylogenetic position of gnetophytes has long been controversial. We sequenced parts of the genes coding for the largest subunit of nuclear RNA polymerase I, II, and III and combined these sequences with those of four chloroplast genes, two mitochondrial genes, and 18S rRNA genes to address this issue. Both maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony analyses of the sites not affected by high substitution levels strongly support a phylogeny where gymnosperms and angiosperms are monophyletic, where cycads are at the base of gymnosperm tree and are followed by ginkgos, and where gnetophytes are grouped within conifers as the sister group of pines. The evolution of several morphological and molecular characters of gnetophytes and conifers will therefore need to be reinterpreted.