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Commercial trade of wild birds may devastate wild bird populations. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) controls the trade of wild species listed in its appendices to avoid these species being threatened by international trade. China used to be one of the major trading countries with significant bird trade with foreign countries; on the other hand, China is a country with unique avian fauna, many Important Bird Areas and critically endangered bird species. What is the role of the country in world wild bird trade? What kind of insights can we extract from trade records for improving future management of wild bird trade in the country? We retrieved and analyzed international trade records of the CITES listed bird species of China from 1981 to 2010 from the CITES Trade Database maintained by United Nations Environment Program and World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). We found that: (1) International trade of live birds in China peaked during the late 1990s, then decreased to the level before the surge of trade in a few years, the trade dynamics of wild birds may be affected by governmental policy and the outbreak of avian influenza during the period. (2) Most frequently traded CITES Appendix listed birds in China were parrots, most of which were exotic species to the country. (3) Birds were mainly traded for commercial purpose. Exotic birds in trade were mainly captive-bred while the most Chinese birds traded internationally were captured from the wild. Since many bird species in international trade are threatened to extinction, China should take stricter measures on importing of wild-captured birds and should collaborate with the countries of original in the international bird trade to avoid unsustainable harvesting of wild birds. It is urgent for China to carry out population surveys on those domestic bird species once in significant international trade and to make better conservation decisions based on population status of those birds. In addition, more scientific researchers should be encouraged to participate in the wildlife trade management to avoid misreporting trade data or biased analyses of the trade records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apocynin, a potent inhibitor of NADPH-oxidase, was widely studied for activities in diseases such as inflammation-mediated disorders, asthma and cardiovascular diseases. In our recent study, a novel nitrone derivative of apocynin, AN-1, demonstrated potent inhibition to oxidative injury and to high expression of gp91phox subunit of NADPH-oxidase induced by tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BHP) in RAW 264.7 macrophage cells, and displayed promising preclinical protective effect against lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced acute lung injury in rats. In this work, the pharmacokinetic behaviors of AN-1 in Sprague-Dawley rats with single intravenous and intragastric doses were investigated for further development. Furthermore, apocynin’s pharmacokinetics remain lacking, even though its pharmacological action has been extensively evaluated. The pharmacokinetics of parent apocynin were also comparatively characterized. A simple HPLC method was developed and validated to determine both AN-1 and apocynin in rat plasma. The chromatographic separation was achieved on an Agilent HC-C18 column (250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 µm) at an isocratic flow rate of 1.0 mL/min, with the mobile phase of methanol and water (53∶47, v/v) and the UV detection set at 279 nm. Good linearity was established over the concentration range of 0.1–500 µg/mL for AN-1 and 0.2–100 µg/mL for apocynin. The absolute recovery, precision and accuracy were satisfactory. Compared with the parent compound apocynin, AN-1 yielded a much longer T1/2 (AN-1 179.8 min, apocynin 6.1 min) and higher AUC0–t (AN-1 61.89 mmol/L·min, apocynin 2.49 mmol/L·min) after equimolar intravenous dosing (0.302 mmol/kg). The absolute bioavailability of oral AN-1 was 78%, but that of apocynin was only 2.8%. The significant improvement of pharmacokinetic behavior might be accounted for the effective pharmacodynamic results we documented for the novel nitrone derivative AN-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: We aimed to replicate the association of the rs290487 (IVS3C/T) and rs7903146 (IVS3C/T) polymorphisms of transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in Han Chinese people in Henan province, China. Methods: In all, 1,842 patients with T2DM and 7,777 normal glucose-tolerant controls underwent genotyping for the T2DM-associated variants rs7903146 (IVS3C/T) and rs290487 (IVS3C/T). W performed a meta-analysis of the association of the risk alleles of rs7903146 (IVS3C/T) and rs290487 (IVS3C/T) in TCF7L2 and T2DM in Han Chinese by combining previous studies with the present study. Results: We found that T2DM was associated with the CC genotype (1.364, 1.137–1.636, p  = 0.001), the recessive model (1.457, 1.156–1.838, p  = 0.001) of rs290487 (IVS3C/T) and haplotype CC (1.116, 1.034–1.204, p  = 0.004) in Han Chinese. Moreover, our meta-analyses supported the association of the T allele (IVS3C/T) of rs7903146 (1.36, 1.24–1.48; p  = 6.404×10−12) and T2DM but not the C allele of rs290487 (IVS3C/T) (0.99, 0.85–1.15, p  = 0.890) in Han Chinese. We found no interactions between behavioral risk factors (smoking, alcohol drinking, and physical activity) and rs7903146 (IVS3C/T) and rs290487 (IVS3C/T) polymorphisms. Conclusions: The CC genotype and the recessive model of the variant rs290487 (IVS3C/T) and CC haplotype of rs7903146 (IVS3C/T) and rs290487 (IVS3C/T) in TCF7L2 may be associated with T2DM in Han Chinese people in Henan province, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) affects infant and young children. A viral metagenomic approach was used to identify the eukaryotic viruses in fecal samples from 29 Thai children with clinical diagnosis of HFMD collected during the 2012 outbreak. These children had previously tested negative by PCR for enterovirus 71 and coxsackievirus A16 and A6. Deep sequencing revealed nine virus families: Picornaviridae, Astroviridae, Parvoviridae, Caliciviridae, Paramyxoviridae, Adenoviridae, Reoviridae, Picobirnaviridae, and Polyomaviridae. The highest number of viral sequences belonged to human rhinovirus C, astrovirus-MLB2, and coxsackievirus A21. Our study provides an overview of virus community and highlights a broad diversity of viruses found in feces from children with HFMD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To collectively evaluate the association of glucose-6-phosphatase catalytic unit 2 (G6PC2) allele variants with elevated fasting glucose (FG) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Design: Meta-analysis Data sources: PubMed, Web of Knowledge and Embase databases. Study selection: Full text articles of studies that identified an association of G6PC2 with T2D and elevated FG. Patient involvement: There was no T2D patient involvement in the analyses on the association of FG with G6PC2, there were T2D patients and non-diabetes patient involvement in the analyses on the association of T2D with G6PC2. Statistical analysis: Random-effects meta-analyses were used to calculate the pool effect sizes. I2 metric and H2 tests were used to calculate the heterogeneity. Begg's funnel plot and Egger’s linear regression test were done to assess publication bias. Results: Of the 423 studies identified, 21 were eligible and included. Data on three loci (rs560887, rs16856187 and rs573225) were available. The G allele at rs560887 in three ethnicities, the C allele at rs16856187 and the A allele at rs573225 all had a positive association with elevated FG. Per increment of G allele at rs560887 and A allele at rs573225 resulted in a FG 0.070 mmol/l and 0.075 mmol/l higher (ß (95% CI) = 0.070 (0.060, 0.079), p = 4.635e-50 and 0.075 (0.065, 0.085), p = 5.856e-48, respectively). With regard to the relationship of rs16856187 and FG, an increase of 0.152 (95% CI: 0.034–0.270; p = 0.011) and 0.317 (95% CI: 0.193–0.442, p = 6.046e-07) was found in the standardized mean difference (SMD) of FG for the AC and CC genotypes, respectively, when compared with the AA reference genotype. However, the G-allele of rs560887 in Caucasians under the additive model and the C-allele of rs16856187 under the allele and dominant models were associated with a decreased risk of T2D (OR (95% CI) = 0.964 (0.947, 0.981), p = 0.570e-4; OR (95% CI) = 0.892 (0.832, 0.956), p = 0.001; and OR (95% CI) = 0.923(0.892, 0.955), p = 5.301e-6, respectively). Conclusions: Our meta-analyses demonstrate that all three allele variants of G6PC2 (rs560887, rs16856187 and rs573225) are associated with elevated FG, with two variants (rs560887 in the Caucasians subgroup and rs16856187 under the allele and dominant model) being associated with T2D as well. Further studies utilizing larger sample sizes and different ethnic populations are needed to extend and confirm these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gut microbiome may have an important influence on the development of diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2). To better understand the DM2 pandemic in ethnic minority groups in China, we investigated and compared the composition and richness of the gut microbiota of healthy, normal glucose tolerant (NGT) individuals and DM2 patients from two ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang, northwest China, the Uygurs and Kazaks. The conserved V6 region of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified by PCR from the isolated DNA. The amplified DNA was sequenced and analyzed. An average of 4047 high quality reads of unique tag sequences were obtained from the 40 Uygurs and Kazaks. The 3 most dominant bacterial families among all participants, both healthy and DM2 patients, were the Ruminococcaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Enterobacteriaceae. Significant differences in intestinal microbiota were found between the NGT individuals and DM2 patients, as well as between the two ethnic groups. Our findings shed new light on the gut microbiome in relation to DM2. The differentiated microbiota data may be used for potential biomarkers for DM2 diagnosis and prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Data Availability statement is as follows: The sequence and assembly data for each of the 40 gut microbiota samples is deposited at the CNGB Sequence Archive (https://db.cngb.org/cnsa/) under project accession number CNP0001174. Following publication of this article [[1]], concerns were raised about the availability of the underlying data. [Extracted from the article]

RUNX3 (runt-related transcription factor-3) is a known tumor suppressor gene which exhibits potent antitumor activity in several carcinomas. However, little is known about the role of RUNX3 in human renal cell carcinoma (RCC). To investigate the clinical relevance of RUNX3 in RCC patients, immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the clinical relevance of RUNX3 in 75 RCC tissues and paired non-cancerous tissues by using tissue microarray (TMA). We also investigated the role of RUNX3 in RCC cell migration, invasion and angiogenesis. The RUNX3 expression was decreased dramatically in human RCC tissue. The RUNX3 expression was significantly correlated with tumor size (P<0.001), depth of invasion (P<0.001), and of TNM stage (P<0.001). Restoration of RUNX3 significantly decreased renal carcinoma cell migration and invasion capacity compared with controls. In addition, we found that overexpression of RUNX3 reduced the proliferation and tube formation of human umbilical vascular endothelial cells (HUVECs). Gelatin zymography and Western blot showed that RUNX3 expression suppressed matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) protein level and enzyme activity. Western blot and ELISA showed that RUNX3 restoration inhibited the expression and secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Taken together, our studies indicate that decreased expression of RUNX3 in human RCC tissue is significantly correlated with RCC progression. Restoration of RUNX3 expression significantly inhibits RCC cells migration, invasion and angiogenesis. These findings provide new insights into the significance of RUNX3 in migration, invasion and angiogenesis of RCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]