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Anoectochilus roxburghii (Wall.) Lindl. (Orchidaceae) is an endangered medicinal plant in China, also called "King Medicine". Due to lacking of sufficient nutrients in dust-like seeds, orchid species depend on mycorrhizal fungi for seed germination in the wild. As part of a conservation plan for the species, research on seed germination is necessary. However, the molecular mechanism of seed germination and underlying orchid-fungus interactions during symbiotic germination are poorly understood. In this study, Illumina HiSeq 4000 transcriptome sequencing was performed to generate a substantial sequence dataset of germinating A. roxburghii seed. A mean of 44,214,845 clean reads were obtained from each sample. 173,781 unigenes with a mean length of 653 nt were obtained. A total of 51,514 (29.64%) sequences were annotated, among these, 49 unigenes encoding proteins involved in GA-GID1-DELLA regulatory module, including 31 unigenes involved in GA metabolism pathway, 5 unigenes encoding GID1, 11 unigenes for DELLA and 2 unigenes for GID2. A total of 11,881 genes showed significant differential expression in the symbiotic germinating seed sample compared with the asymbiotic germinating seed sample, of which six were involved in the GA-GID1-DELLA regulatory module, and suggested that they might be induced or suppressed by fungi. These results will help us understand better the molecular mechanism of orchid seed germination and orchid-fungus symbiosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2017, surveillance for tickborne diseases in China led to the identification of a patient who presented to a hospital in Inner Mongolia with a febrile illness that had an unknown cause. The clinical manifestation of the illness was similar to that of tickborne encephalitis virus (TBEV) infection, but neither TBEV RNA nor antibodies against the virus were detected.Methods: We obtained a blood specimen from the index patient and attempted to isolate and identify a causative pathogen, using genome sequence analysis and electron microscopy. We also initiated a heightened surveillance program in the same hospital to screen for other patients who presented with fever, headache, and a history of tick bites. We used reverse-transcriptase-polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) and cell-culture assays to detect the pathogen and immunofluorescence and neutralization assays to determine the levels of virus-specific antibodies in serum specimens from the patients.Results: We found that the index patient was infected with a previously unknown segmented RNA virus, which we designated Alongshan virus (ALSV) and which belongs to the jingmenvirus group of the family Flaviviridae. ALSV infection was confirmed by RT-PCR assay in 86 patients from Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang who presented with fever, headache, and a history of tick bites. Serologic assays showed that seroconversion had occurred in all 19 patients for whom specimens were available from the acute phase and the convalescent phase of the illness.Conclusions: A newly discovered segmented virus was found to be associated with a febrile illness in northeastern China. (Funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With economic development, the health of river ecosystems is becoming severely threatened because of the increasing effects of human activities on river ecosystems. Here, 101 sites along regional river systems in Beijing rivers were investigated from autumn 2020 to summer 2021. A total of 34 metrics, including aquatic organisms, hydrology, water quality, and habitat, were calculated to be the candidate indicators. Principal component and correlation analyses were used to select the core metrics from the candidate indicators, and the weight of each core metric was estimated using the entropy method. The integrated index of stream ecological health was constructed to assess the health condition of the Beijing rivers. The results of the PCA and correlation analyses revealed that eleven metrics were selected as the core metrics to construct the integrated index of stream ecological health, including water temperature, flow velocity, BOD 5 , NH 4 + -N, Cu, the density of phytoplankton and zooplankton, the Shannon-Wiener diversity index of macroinvertebrates and fish, the BMWP index, and the qualitative habitat evaluation index. According to the health assessment results, 4.95% of the sampling sites were healthy, 23.76% were subhealthy, and 71.29% were in a fair or below healthy state. The river health status showed strong spatial heterogeneity, and the river health statuses in the northern and western regions were relatively good, whereas the river health status in the central and southeastern regions were relatively poor. The results of four aspects stream ecosystem assessment showed that the overall water quality of the rivers was "subhealthy" and the aquatic organisms and habitat were "general poor," but the hydrology was "poor." The evaluation results of five water systems demonstrated that the Chaobai River had the best health status, followed by that of the Yongding River, Daqing River, and Jiyun River, and the Beiyun River had the worst health status. Maintaining river ecological baseflow, ensuring river system connectivity, and improving and restoring the river habitat environment are the key aspects of river ecological restoration and protection in Beijing in the future.

Background: In 2017, surveillance for tickborne diseases in China led to the identification of a patient who presented to a hospital in Inner Mongolia with a febrile illness that had an unknown cause. The clinical manifestation of the illness was similar to that of tickborne encephalitis virus (TBEV) infection, but neither TBEV RNA nor antibodies against the virus were detected., Methods: We obtained a blood specimen from the index patient and attempted to isolate and identify a causative pathogen, using genome sequence analysis and electron microscopy. We also initiated a heightened surveillance program in the same hospital to screen for other patients who presented with fever, headache, and a history of tick bites. We used reverse-transcriptase-polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) and cell-culture assays to detect the pathogen and immunofluorescence and neutralization assays to determine the levels of virus-specific antibodies in serum specimens from the patients., Results: We found that the index patient was infected with a previously unknown segmented RNA virus, which we designated Alongshan virus (ALSV) and which belongs to the jingmenvirus group of the family Flaviviridae. ALSV infection was confirmed by RT-PCR assay in 86 patients from Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang who presented with fever, headache, and a history of tick bites. Serologic assays showed that seroconversion had occurred in all 19 patients for whom specimens were available from the acute phase and the convalescent phase of the illness., Conclusions: A newly discovered segmented virus was found to be associated with a febrile illness in northeastern China. (Funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.)., (Copyright © 2019 Massachusetts Medical Society.)

Previous studies showed that, in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients with isolated 13q deletion (13q-), those carrying higher percentage of leukemic cells with 13q- had more aggressive diseases. However, the prognostic value of the percentage of leukemic cells with 13q- in Chinese CLL patients with isolated 13q- remained to be determined. Using interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), we identified 82 patients (25.4%) with isolated 13q deletion from a cohort of 323 untreated CLL patients. Among patients with isolated 13q deletion, cases of 13q- cells ≥ 80% (13q-H) had significantly shorter time to first treatment (TTT) than those of < 80% 13q- cells (13q-L) (median 11 vs. 92 months, p = 0.0016). A higher lymphocyte count (p = 0.0650) was associated with 13q-H, while other clinical, immunophenotypic, or molecular features did not differ between patients with 13q-H and 13q-L. Although 13q-H only showed marginal significance in multivariate analysis of TTT (hazards ratio 2.007; 95% confidence interval 0.975-4.129; p = 0.059), it helped refine the risk stratification based on Binet stage or immunoglobulin heavy chain variable gene (IGHV) status. In cases in Binet A or B stage, patients with 13q-H had a significantly shorter TTT (median TTT 18 months vs. undefined, p = 0.0101). And in IGHV mutated patients, 13q-H was also associated with reduced TTT (median TTT 13q-H. 18 months vs. 13q-L undefined, p = 0.0163). In conclusion, the prognosis of CLL patients with isolated 13q deletion was heterogeneous with 13q-H identifying patients with worse outcome.

Background: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common human birth defect. Genetic causes for CHD remain largely unknown. GATA transcription factor 5 (GATA 5) is an essential regulator for the heart development. Mutations in the GATA5 gene have been reported in patients with a variety of CHD. Since misregulation of gene expression have been associated with human diseases, we speculated that changed levels of cardiac transcription factors, GATA5, may mediate the development of CHD., Methods: In this study, GATA5 gene promoter was genetically and functionally analyzed in large cohorts of patients with ventricular septal defect (VSD) (n=343) and ethnic-matched healthy controls (n=348)., Results: Two novel and heterozygous DNA sequence variants (DSVs), g.61051165A>G and g.61051463delC, were identified in three VSD patients, but not in the controls. In cultured cardiomyocytes, GATA5 gene promoter activities were significantly decreased by DSV g.61051165A>G and increased by DSV g.61051463delC. Moreover, fathers of the VSD patients carrying the same DSVs had reduced diastolic function of left ventricles. Three SNPs, g.61051279C>T (rs77067995), g.61051327A>C (rs145936691) and g.61051373G>A (rs80197101), and one novel heterozygous DSV, g.61051227C>T, were found in both VSD patients and controls with similar frequencies., Conclusion: Our data suggested that the DSVs in the GATA5 gene promoter may increase the susceptibility to the development of VSD as a risk factor.