The myostatin gene of seven important meat (Beltex (Australia), Beltex×Huyang (F1), Meat and Multi-Prolific Chinese Merino Fine Wool, Meat Chinese Merino Fine Wool and Dorper (South Africa)) and non-meat (Huyang and Kazak) sheep breeds was analyzed to study the genetic basis of muscular hypertrophy (double muscling) phenotype in sheep. SNPs, four in regulatory regions and several in the introns in the myostatin gene, were identified, and the former four SNPs were used for further studies. Twelve haplotypes were predicted by PHASE program, of which four main haplotypes (1, 3, 7, 9) were present in 90% of the 364 sheep in the study. Haplotypes 1-4 were mainly present in meat breeds while haplotypes 7 and 9 dominated the non-meat breeds. The association between haplotypes and average daily gain (ADG) was analyzed among 116 sheep with production data, Haplo2 (CGAA) and Haplo8 (TGAA) were identified to have significant (p<0.05) effect on ADG by the model (JMP5.1 software) taking into account the effects of breed, family background, haplotype, birth weight and sex. ADG of these haplotype groups also correlated well (r = 0.82) with hypertrophic phenotype scores. In conclusion, the mutations -956 (T→C), -41 (C→A) and 6223 (G→A) involved in Haplo2 and 8 may be associated with the double-muscling trait by influencing myostatin function and be suitable markers in selecting meat sheep.

Diacylglyceryltrimethylhomo-Ser (DGTS) is an abundant lipid in the membranes of many algae, lower plants, and fungi. It commonly has an inverse concentration relationship with phosphatidylcholine, thus seemingly capable of replacing this phospholipid in these organisms. In some places this replacement is complete; Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is such an organism, and was used for these investigations. We have assayed headgroup incorporation to form DGTS in vitro. The precursor for both the homo-Ser moiety and the methyl groups was found to be S-adenosyl-L-Met. DGTS formation was associated with microsomal fractions and is not in plastids. By analogy with phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine biosynthesis in higher plants, the microsomal activity probably is associated with the endoplasmic reticulum. The pH optimum for the total reaction was between 7.5 and 8.0, and the best temperature was 30°C. The apparent K m and V max for S-adenosyl-L-Met in the overall reaction were 74 and 250 m, respectively.

Background: Patients with pollinosis are often multi-sensitized to diverse pollen allergens. However, little is known about pollen allergy types among Chinese pollinosis patients. This study is aimed to characterize clinical manifestations of food allergy among patients with different types of pollen allergy. Methods:We retrospectively analyzed 402 pollinosis patients from an outpatient allergy department of the Peking Union Medical College Hospital who had been diagnosed by experienced allergists. All included patients who answered a questionnaire regarding seasonal pollinosis and clinical symptoms after ingestion of food and underwent intradermal skin tests. Total IgE and specific IgE levels were quantified by ImmunoCAP, using 0.35 kUA/L as a threshold for positivity. Results:The patients were divided into 3 groups, based on the season during which they experienced symptoms and the 2 peaks of Chinese airborne pollen: spring-tree pollen symptoms group (SG), autumn-weed pollen symptoms group (AG), and a combined spring and autumn pollen symptoms group (CG). Birch pollen (83%) and ash pollen (74%) were common allergens among patients with spring symptoms, while mugwort pollen (87%) was a common allergen among patients with autumn symptoms. In total, 30% of the study population experienced pollenrelated food allergy. Pollen-related food allergies were more prevalent among the single-season symptom groups (68% and 50% for the SG and AG, respectively) than among the CG (20%). All patients with pollen-related food-induced anaphylaxis exhibited autumn weed pollen symptoms. Except for 2 patients, all patients with food-induced anaphylaxis were allergic to mugwort pollen. In the SG, all patients with food allergy were sensitive to birch pollen, with birch and Bet v 1specific IgE levels higher in this group than in the group without food allergy (p < 0.001). In the AG, Art v 3 was more prevalent among patients with pollen-related food allergy than without food allergy (79% vs. 33%, p < 0.001), a proportion similar to the one in the CG (67% vs. 48%, p ¼ 0.01). Meanwhile, the Art v 3-specific IgE levels among patients with pollen-related food allergy were higher than among tolerant patients in the AG (p < 0.001) and CG (p ¼ 0.02). Unexpectedly, the Art v 3-specific IgE levels were higher in patients with food-induced anaphylaxis than with oral allergy syndrome only in the CG.

Gene polymorphisms of the renin-angiotensin system are involved in the pathophysiology of hypertension. We genotyped 4 polymorphisms of angiotensinogen (AGT) gene A-20C (rs5050), A-6G (rs5051), C3889T (rs4762), and C4072T (rs699) by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism in 652 patients and 780 controls to examine the association of AGT and hypertension in a Northern Han Chinese population. There were significant differences in the distribution of genotypes and allele frequencies at C4072T between the patients and the controls (both P < .01); patients with CC genotype had a higher risk of hypertension (odds ratio = 1.7, 95% confidence interval 1.4-2.1). The distribution of genotypes at A-6G was significantly different between patients and controls (P < .05). No other significant differences in genotypes or frequencies were observed. No association was observed between the haplotypes of AGT and hypertension. The AGT-6A and 4072C alleles are associated with susceptibility to hypertension in this population.

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Background Wheat-dependent exercise-induced anaphylaxis (WDEIA) is a serious and potentially life-threatening form of wheat allergy. Further episodes can only be prevented by avoiding wheat ingestion or avoiding exercise after wheat intake. Anaphylaxis may recur in some patients post-diagnosis. This study aimed to analyze the clinical features and management/outcomes of WDEIA in China. Methods We retrospectively analyzed the clinical characteristics, and laboratory testing of 197 patients with WDEIA. After diagnosis, the patients were followed up as outpatients to evaluate dietary/exercise choice and clinical outcomes. Results Among the 197 WDEIA patients (median age, 37 years), 53.8% were male and 28.4% had other allergic disorders. The median duration of anaphylaxis before diagnosis was 16 months. Significant delays in diagnosis (> 1 years) were recorded in 52.7% of the patients, which has not decreased by years (P = 0.064). Exercise (83.8%), alcohol (12.2%), and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (7.1%) were the most common cofactors. The most common clinical features were urticaria (100%), loss of consciousness (82.7%), dyspnea (50.8%), and hypotension (47.2%). Of the 197 eligible patients, 155 responded (78.7%), and 124 (80.0%) of which had no anaphylaxis post-diagnosis. A wheat-free diet prevented future anaphylaxis in 91.7% of the patients, followed by the avoidance of wheat combined with exercise (87%) and reduced wheat intake combined with exercise avoidance (80.5%). Conclusion The diagnosis of WDEIA is frequently delayed. Therefore, when patients present with unexplained anaphylaxis, the possibility of WDEIA should be considered. A wheat-free diet or avoiding wheat combined with exercise or reduced wheat combined with exercise avoidance helps to significantly reduce the onset of future anaphylaxis. However, approximately one-fifth of patients continue to experience anaphylaxis post-diagnosis. Thus, these patients must always carry epinephrine autoinjectors.

Targeting the problems of the insufficient utilization of temporal and spatial information in videos and a lower accuracy rate, this paper proposes a human action recognition method for dynamic videos of emergency rescue based on a spatial-temporal fusion network. A time domain segmentation strategy based on random sampling maintains the overall time domain structure of the video. Considering the spatial-temporal asynchronous relationship, multiple asynchronous motion sequences are increased as input of the temporal convolutional network. spatial-temporal features are fused in convolutional layers to reduce feature loss. Because time series information is crucial for human action recognition, the acquired mid-layer spatial-temporal fusion features are sent into Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) to obtain the human movement features in the whole video temporal dimension. Experiment results show the proposed method fully fuses spatial and temporal dimension information and improves the accuracy of human action recognition in dynamic scenes. It is also faster than traditional methods.

Background: Inactivated vaccines against coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) offer an effective public health intervention to mitigate this devastating pandemic. However, little is known about their safety in patients with wheat-dependent exercise-induced anaphylaxis (WDEIA). Methods: We recruited 72 WDEIA patients and 730 healthy matched controls who received an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine. Participants were monitored for 4 weeks after each immunization for adverse reactions and completed questionnaires regarding local and systemic reactions at 7 and 28 days after each vaccination. For those who had received the COVID-19 vaccine prior to enrollment, adverse event data were obtained retrospectively. Results: Local and systemic adverse events occurred at similar rates in the WDEIA group and the control group. In both groups, injection-site pain and fatigue were the most common local and systemic reactions, respectively. Compared with healthy controls, more allergic events were reported in the WDEIA group (after dose 1, 0.5% vs. 4.2%, p=0.019; after dose 2, 0% vs. 1.4%, p=0.089). Allergic reactions mainly manifested as rash, urticaria, and edema, which were mild and controllable. No serious allergic events were reported. Conclusions: The adverse event profile of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine did not differ between WDEIA patients and healthy controls. The risk of allergic reactions in patients with WDEIA seems higher, but no anaphylaxis was reported, and the allergic reactions were controllable. Inactivated COVID-19 vaccines appear to be well-tolerated in WDEIA patients, but patients with potential allergy risks should be cautious.