It is necessary to develop new methods for the isolation of unknown actinomycetes from soils. To evaluate the effects of oligotrophic medium on the isolation of soil actinomycetes and develop a new isolation method, the Gause's synthetic medium was diluted to one tenth the recommended concentration in the present study. Soil dilution plate technique was used to isolate actinomycetes from the soil samples. Oligotrophy decreased actinomycete and streptomycete counts, as well as the number of antagonistic actinomycete species. Oligotrophy also decreased the number of actinomycete species in five samples. Some actinomycete species were cultured only on the oligotrophic medium, whereas other species could not be cultured. Oligotrophy decreased actinomycete counts more significantly for soils with organic matter content[40 g/kg. We used 16S rRNA sequence analysis to identify 22 actinomycete species that were only cultured on the oligotrophic medium. Oligotrophic medium was helpful for the isolation of Streptomyces spp., Micromonospora spp. and Streptosporangium spp. Slightly more than 80 % of the identified actinomycete species were biologically active. Therefore, we could draw a conclusion that oligotrophic medium could be helpful for the discovery of new antibiotic producers and the exploitation and utilization of new, biologically active compounds.

Heterotopic cesarean scar pregnancy is a rare, life-threatening form of ectopic pregnancy. To provide information regarding the clinical manifestations, diagnosis, management, and prognosis of this condition, we reviewed all cases reported in the English literature. All literature on heterotopic cesarean scar pregnancy was retrieved by searching the PubMed database and tracking references of the relevant literature. Full texts were reviewed, and clinical manifestations, diagnostic methods, and the relationship between the treatment and prognosis were summarized. A total of 14 patients with heterotopic cesarean scar pregnancies were identified, including 6 spontaneous pregnancies and 8 following in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer. Gestational ages at diagnosis ranged from 5 weeks to 8 weeks 4 days. Only 5 cases presented with vaginal bleeding, and the others were asymptomatic. All 14 cases were diagnosed by transvaginal sonography. One patient with no future fertility requirements underwent pregnancy termination by methotrexate. Of the remaining 13 patients who desired to preserve their intrauterine gestations, 10 were treated by sonographically guided selective embryo reduction in situ (by embryo aspiration, drug injection, or both); 2 underwent laparoscopic and hysteroscopic excision of the ectopic pregnancy masses; and 1 was treated by expectant management. All operations were successful and maintained a living intrauterine gestation. Twelve cases resulted in live births by cesarean delivery (3 at term and 9 preterm). One patient underwent pregnancy termination at 12 weeks because of a fetal malformation confirmed by sonography. The possibility of heterotopic cesarean scar pregnancy after cesarean delivery should be considered, especially when pregnancy follows assisted reproductive technology. Transvaginal sonography is an important tool for diagnosis and management. Despite the many options, the best treatment for this condition remains unclear. Selective embryo reduction in situ with sonographic guidance is the main treatment modality and can result in a successful intrauterine gestation, albeit at high risk.

No abstract

Background: Mangiferin (MF) was reported to possess anti-inflammatory activity. This investigation tried to probe into the underlying mechanism of MF in osteoarthritis.Methods: ATDC5 cells were pretreated with series concentrations of MF (0.1, 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 mM) for 2 h and then were exposed to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (5 mg/ml) for 12 h to construct the inflammatory injury model. The cell viability, productions of pro-inflammatory cytokines and enzymes were respectively measured by employing CCK-8 assay, western blot, ELISA, and quantitative reverse-transcription (qRT)-PCR. miR-181a expression was altered by employing cell transfection. Dichloro-dihydro-fluorescein diacetate (DCFH-DA) method was employed for detection of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. Dual luciferase activity assay was conducted for analyzing the relationship between miR-181a and PTEN. The underlying mechanism was determined by employing western blot.Results: High doses of MF treatment (15 and 20 mM) noticeably induced inflammatory injury exhibiting as increased the productions of pro-inflammatory cytokines, enzymes and ROS, activated NF-kB pathway and deactivated PTEN/PI3K/AKT pathway in ATDC5 cells. Besides, MF treatment notably remitted LPS-induced inflammatory injury through deactivation of NF-kB pathway and activation of PTEN/PI3K/AKT pathway. PTEN was a target of miR-181a. Inhibition of miR-181a remarkably reversed MF-triggered impacts on ATDC5 cells.Conclusion: MF attenuated LPS-induced inflammatory damage through miR-181a/ PTEN axis and thereby inhibiting NF-kB pathway and activating PI3K/AKT pathway.

Background: Maintenance hemodialysis is the main therapy for clinical treatment of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The aim of this study was to analyze the current status of the economic burden levied on families with members who are maintenance hemodialysis patients in Nanchong, and the related influencing factors.Methods: A total of 111 patients with ESRD who were admitted to our hospital from April 2018 to April 2020 and treated with maintenance hemodialysis were selected as research subjects. A questionnaire survey was adopted as a data collection and interview method to observe the economic burden of families with a member who was a maintenance hemodialysis patient. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the independent risk factors that affect this economic burden. Results:The direct economic burden, indirect economic burden, and average annual total economic burden (the sum of the direct economic burden and indirect economic burden of hemodialysis patients) of patients in the resident medical insurance group were significantly higher than those in the employee medical insurance group, resident medical insurance + poverty relief group, and employee medical insurance + poverty relief group (P<0.05). The analysis of the unconditional multifactor logistic regression model showed that age, occupation, monthly family income, and medical insurance type were independent risk factors that affected the average annual total economic burden of patients with maintenance hemodialysis (P<0.01).Conclusions: Various medical insurance systems can effectively reduce the economic burden of hemodialysis patients, but patients must still bear significant financial hardship. It is necessary to further improve the medical insurance for patients with hemodialysis and increase management efforts to popularize the poverty relief policy.

Besides the target in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image, the structural information remained in speckle and shadow is also very important when we extract the invariant feature of SAR image. However, the output of the classical pulse coupled neural network (PCNN) is a binary value. All the information remained in speckle and shadow is lost, when the classical PCNN is used to process SAR image directly. To overcome this problem, a multi-gray level simplified PCNN (MSPCNN) is proposed in this paper. All the useful information in speckle, shadow, and target can be considered when we use MSPCNN to compute the invariant feature of the SAR target. In order to suppress the negative influence of speckle noise and keep the useful structured information, the improved speckle reducing algorithm (SRAD) is used first. By an adaptive threshold delt0, we can keep the remained speckle in different SAR images to an ideal same level. The negative influence of the remained speckle to different targets' signature becomes basically the same and can be ignored. Combining with SRAD and MSPCNN, the SAR image invariant feature extraction scheme AD-MSPCNN is put forward. After analyzing the performance of different signature computing methods, we splice the time signature and the entropy signature together and use the new spliced vector as the invariant feature of the SAR target. The validity and robustness of AD-MSPCNN are proved by the experimental results on MSTAR database. INDEX TERMS Anisotropic diffusion, feature extraction, pulse coupled neural network, speckle reducing, SAR image signature.

No abstract

No abstract