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Severe skin wound healing is mainly hindered by bacterial infection and uncontrolled inflammatory reaction. As a wound dressing, multifunctional hydrogel is expected to offer the potential possibility for overcoming current barriers in wound therapeutics. Herein, a natural drug molecule (glycyrrhizic acid, GA) and metal ion (Fe

Russian wildrye, Psathyrostachys junceus (Fisch.) Nevski, is widely distributed in the high latitude areas of Eurasia. It plays an important role in grassland ecosystem maintenance, as well as being a valuable palatable forage species for livestock and wildlife. Russian wildrye germplasm has rich phenotypic and genetic diversity and has potential for improvement through crossbreeding. In this study, fifteen Russian wildrye hybrid combinations were produced and one F1 population with 123 putative hybrids was obtained by crossing two individual plants with significant differences in nutritional characteristics and reproductive tiller number. Twelve phenotypic traits of the F1 population were measured for three consecutive years, and ten of the twelve traits were in line with the genetic characteristics of quantitative traits. Hybrid superiority was revealed among F1 hybrids in both nutritional and reproductive traits. One non-recurrent parent plant with the highest PCA-synthesis score was selected and used to make a backcross with the ‘BOZOISKY SELECT’ male parent, and 143 putative BC1 hybrids were obtained. Sixteen pairs of EST-SSR primers were randomly selected from polymorphic primers derived from different expressed tiller trait related genes. Three primer pairs that amplified both the paternal and maternal characteristic band were used to assess the purity of the F1 population, and three primer pairs (with one shared primer pair) were used to identify the BC1 population. The hybrid purity was 96.75% for the F1 population and 95.80% for the BC1 population, and the results were confirmed by self-fertility test through bagging isolation. The genetic similarity coefficients between the F1 progeny and the male parent ranged from 0.500 to 0.895, and those between the BC1 progeny and the male parent ranged from 0.667 to 0.939. A subset of individuals in the BC1 population had closer genetic distance to the recurrent parent, and genetic variation within the BC1 population decreased compared to the F1 population.

A standardized reference method is needed to accurately and precisely measure urine-formed elements (UFEs; red blood cells [RBCs], white blood cells [WBCs], and squamous epithelial cells [sECs]). We compared the results from a standard method with those from an automated analyzer. Trained technicians used standardized bright-field microscopy of fresh non-centrifuged urine samples, and disposable 1 µl chambers. Fifteen experienced technicians from 5 hospitals (3 per hospital) each performed 6 manual counts of 10 different native urine samples using a manual chamber and standard methods. The sEC counts were at least 50/µL, and the coefficient of variation (CV) was less than 14%; the RBC and WBC counts were at least 200/µL and the CVs were less than 7%. The same samples were also analyzed 6 times using automated analyzers. The means, CVs, and biases were determined. The median CVs for the manual measurements were 6.4% (WBCs), 6.6% (RBCs), and 12.7% (sECs). The CVs of the automated analyzer were 4.7% (WBCs), 5.6% (RBCs), and 9.2% (sECs). Biases between the automated and manual methods were -2.9% to 5.0%(WBCs), -0.8% to 8.8% (RBCs) and -2.8% to 9.4% (sECs). The count mean values and expanded uncertainties of these counts were (224.5 ± 15.0) cells/µL, (234.2 ± 16.2) cells/µL, and (61.5 ± 7.9) cells/µL, respectively. The standardized manual method for measuring UFEs had high precision and accuracy, making it a suitable reference method. Use of this reference method to calibrate an automated analyzer improved the accuracy of automated analysis.

The purpose was to evaluate the correlation of the pre-treatment hematological parameters with metabolic parameters of primary tumor in baseline 18F-FDG PET/CT in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) and estimate the prognostic value of both. We retrospectively investigated 231 patients with CRC who underwent baseline 18F-FDG PET/CT. Routine blood sampling was tested in the same term. PET parameters in term of hematological parameters and pathological characteristics of primary tumor were compared. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis was performed in the patients without distant metastasis. The differences of disease-free survival between groups were compared by log-rank tests. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) were significantly correlated with all the metabolic parameters including maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), metabolic tumor volume (MTV) and tumor lesion glycolysis (TLG). The patients with NLR > 3 had higher MTV (24.82 ± 18.16 vs 19.06 ± 13.30, P = 0.039) and TLG (219.04 ± 186.94 vs 166.45 ± 146.39, P = 0.047) than those whose NLR ≤ 3. NLR in those patients with distant metastasis was significantly higher than those without distant metastasis (P = 0.018) while LMR in those patients with distant metastasis was significantly lower than those without distant metastasis (P = 0.032). Survival analysis showed that those patients with low MTV (P = 0.015), low NLR (P = 0.008) and high LMR (P = 0.027) revealed significant survival benefit. There was a significant association between the pre-treatment hematological parameters and metabolic parameters of baseline 18F-FDG PET/CT in the patients with CRC. It might be helpful in those patients with high NLR and low LMR to undergo 18F-FDG PET/CT to detect distant metastasis and predict prognosis.

A hypoxic microenvironment effects various signaling pathways in the human body, including those that are critical for normal physiology and those that support tumorigenesis or cancer progression. A hypoxic tumor microenvironment, in particular, modulates cell migration, invasion and resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Development of the mass spectrometry (MS) technique has allowed for expansion of proteomic study to a wide variety of fields, with the study of tumor hypoxia being among the latest to enjoy its benefits. In such studies, changes in the proteome of tumor tissue or cells induced by the hypoxic conditions are analyzed. A multitude of hypoxic regulatory proteins have already been identified, increasing our understanding of the mechanisms underlying tumor occurrence and development and representing candidate reference markers for tumor diagnosis and therapy. The present review provides the first summary of the collective studies on tumor microenvironment hypoxia that have been completed using MS-based proteomic techniques, providing a systematic discussion of the benefits and current challenges of the various applications.

Plasmid-cured derivative strains of Bacillus anthracis are frequently used in laboratory studies. Plasmid incompatibility, which does not increase the risk of chromosomal mutation, is a useful method for plasmid curing. However, in bacteria containing multiple plasmids, it often requires the sequential introduction of multiple, specific incompatibility plasmids. This lengthy process renders the traditional plasmid incompatibility method inefficient and mutation-prone. In this study, we successfully cured plasmids pXO1 and pXO2 from B. anthracis A16 simultaneously using only one recombinant incompatible plasmid, pKORT, to obtain a plasmid-free strain, designated A16DD. This method may also be useful for the simultaneous, one-step curing of multiple plasmids from other bacteria, including Bacillus thuringiensis and Yersinia pestis.

An attenuated Bacillus anthracis vaccine strain for human use, A16R, was obtained in China after ultraviolet radiation treatment and continuous subculture of the wild-type strain A16. A16R can synthesize the exotoxin, but without a capsule. We sequenced and annotated the A16R genome to encourage the use of this strain. The genome sequencing of the wild-type strain A16 is underway and the genomic comparison between the two strains will help to illustrate the attenuating mechanism of the A16R vaccine strain.