Molecular genetic analysis in 21 Chinese families with congenital insensitivity to pain with or without anhidrosis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies (HSANs) are a group of clinically and genetically heterogeneous neurological disorders characterized by sensory dysfunctions. Here, 21 affected Chinese families are reported, including 19 with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA; namely HSAN IV) and two with congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP; namely HSAN IID) caused by biallelic variations in NTRK1 and SCN9A, respectively, aiming to identify causative variants in these families and compare how different variants in NTRK1 affect the function of tropomyosin receptor kinase A (TrkA).

METHODS

Recombinant plasmids harboring the wild-type and six mutant alleles (p.Gln216*, p.Glu584Lys, p.Leu595Arg, p.Pro684Leu, p.Val709Leu and p.Arg765Cys) of NTRK1 cDNA were constructed and transfected into HEK293 cells.

RESULTS

The results suggested that the five missense variants only presented a subtle influence on the expression level and glycosylation of TrkA but compromised the receptor phosphorylation. Our findings also suggested that a synonymous variant c.219C>T in NTRK1 may cause aberrant splicing, indicating a potential novel pathogenic mechanism of CIPA. Furthermore, gross deletion of SCN9A was first associated with CIP.

CONCLUSIONS

This study identified multiple forms of variants responsible for CIPA/CIP in the Chinese population and might provide new insights into the pathogenesis of CIPA.

Measurement of R(D) and R(D^{*}) with a Semileptonic Tagging Method

The experimental results on the ratios of branching fractions R(D)=B(B[over ¯]→Dτ^{-}ν[over ¯]_{τ})/B(B[over ¯]→Dℓ^{-}ν[over ¯]_{ℓ}) and R(D^{*})=B(B[over ¯]→D^{*}τ^{-}ν[over ¯]_{τ})/B(B[over ¯]→D^{*}ℓ^{-}ν[over ¯]_{ℓ}), where ℓ denotes an electron or a muon, show a long-standing discrepancy with the standard model predictions, and might hint at a violation of lepton flavor universality. We report a new simultaneous measurement of R(D) and R(D^{*}), based on a data sample containing 772×10^{6}  BB[over ¯] events recorded at the ϒ(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB e^{+}e^{-} collider. In this analysis the tag-side B meson is reconstructed in a semileptonic decay mode and the signal-side τ is reconstructed in a purely leptonic decay. The measured values are R(D)=0.307±0.037±0.016 and R(D^{*})=0.283±0.018±0.014, where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second are systematic. These results are in agreement with the standard model predictions within 0.2, 1.1, and 0.8 standard deviations for R(D), R(D^{*}), and their combination, respectively. This work constitutes the most precise measurements of R(D) and R(D^{*}) performed to date as well as the first result for R(D) based on a semileptonic tagging method.

Search for an Invisibly Decaying Z^{'} Boson at Belle II in e^{+}e^{-}→μ^{+}μ^{-}(e^{±}μ^{∓}) Plus Missing Energy Final States

Theories beyond the standard model often predict the existence of an additional neutral boson, the Z^{'}. Using data collected by the Belle II experiment during 2018 at the SuperKEKB collider, we perform the first searches for the invisible decay of a Z^{'} in the process e^{+}e^{-}→μ^{+}μ^{-}Z^{'} and of a lepton-flavor-violating Z^{'} in e^{+}e^{-}→e^{±}μ^{∓}Z^{'}. We do not find any excess of events and set 90% credibility level upper limits on the cross sections of these processes. We translate the former, in the framework of an L_{μ}-L_{τ} theory, into upper limits on the Z^{'} coupling constant at the level of 5×10^{-2}-1 for M_{Z^{'}}≤6  GeV/c^{2}.

[Influence of dietary patterns on type 2 diabetes mellitus in local residents aged 40 years and above in Songjiang district, Shanghai]

Objective: To evaluate the association between dietary pattern and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in local residents aged 40 years and above in Songjiang district of Shanghai. Methods: Data was obtained from the baseline investigation of Shanghai Peak-Plan cohort. According to inclusion and exclusion criteria, we selected people with T2DM as the case group, and people without T2DM as controls, matched with gender, age and alcohol intake status. Dietary patterns were established by factor analysis. Conditional logistic regression model (CLRM) was used to explore the relationship between different dietary patterns and T2DM, as well as the association between multiplicative interactions of dietary patterns and T2DM. Results: We used factor analysis to obtain six dietary patterns: including meat, desserts-coarse cereals, condiment-egg, beverage, cereals-tubers and fruit-vegetable. Data from multivariate condition logistic regression suggested that condiment-egg patterns as (OR=0.543, 95%CI: 0.377-0.781), beverage (OR=0.590, 95%CI: 0.409-0.852), cereals-tubers (OR=0.592, 95%CI: 0.414-0.848), fruit-vegetable (OR=0.604, 95%CI: 0.417-0.876) were associated with the reduced risks for T2DM. After analyzing the multiplicative interactions between dietary patterns, there were three interaction items associated with T2DM with statistical significances: the multiplicative interaction between meat pattern and condiments-egg pattern was related with the increased risk for T2MD, and the multiplicative interactions between cereal-tubers pattern, meat pattern between cereal-tubers pattern and fruit-vegetable pattern were related with the reduced risks for T2MD. Conclusions: In the six dietary pattern under study, cereals-tubers pattern undwr studly, fruit-vegetable pattern might be more practical in preventing T2DM. In addition, the dietary pattern with cereals and potatos as the main ingredients, appropriate meat and reduced condiment intake might also play positive roles in reducing the risk for T2DM.

Magnesium isotopes of the bulk solar wind from Genesis diamond-like carbon films

NASA's Genesis Mission returned solar wind (SW) to the Earth for analysis to derive the composition of the solar photosphere from solar material. SW analyses control the precision of the derived solar compositions, but their ultimate accuracy is limited by the theoretical or empirical models of fractionation due to SW formation. Mg isotopes are "ground truth" for these models since, except for CAIs, planetary materials have a uniform Mg isotopic composition (within ≤1‰) so any significant isotopic fractionation of SW Mg is primarily that of SW formation and subsequent acceleration through the corona. This study analyzed Mg isotopes in a bulk SW diamond-like carbon (DLC) film on silicon collector returned by the Genesis Mission. A novel data reduction technique was required to account for variable ion yield and instrumental mass fractionation (IMF) in the DLC. The resulting SW Mg fractionation relative to the DSM-3 laboratory standard was (-14.4‰, -30.2‰) ± (4.1‰, 5.5‰), where the uncertainty is 2ơ SE of the data combined with a 2.5‰ (total) error in the IMF determination. Two of the SW fractionation models considered generally agreed with our data. Their possible ramifications are discussed for O isotopes based on the CAI nebular composition of McKeegan et al. (2011).

The Performance of Belle II High Level Trigger in the First Physics Run

The Belle II experiment is a new generation B-factory experiment at KEK in Japan aiming at the search for New Physics in a huge sample of B-meson decays. The commissioning of the accelerator and the detector for the first physics run has started from March this year. The Belle II High Level Trigger (HLT) is fully working in the beam run. The HLT is now operated with 1600 cores clusterized in 5 units, which is 1/4 of the full configuration. The software trigger is performed using the same offline reconstruction code, and events are classified into a set of physics categories. Only the events in the categories of interest are finally sent out to the storage. Live data quality monitoring is also performed on HLT. For the selected events, the reconstructed tracks are extrapolated to the surface of the pixel detector (PXD) and quickly fed back to the readout electronics for the real time data reduction by sending only the associated hits. The maximum trigger rate in the first physics run was 3.5kHz, and the Belle II data acquisition system was stably operated. There were several problems in the HLT operation, but they have successfully been fixed during the data taking period. The HLT reduction factor is measured to be 8 which is still higher than the design because of the high background environment.

Effects of sevoflurane or propofol combined with remifentanil anesthesia on clinical efficacy and stress response in pregnant women with pregnancy-induced hypertension

OBJECTIVE

To compare the effects of sevoflurane or propofol combined with remifentanil anesthesia on the clinical efficacy and stress response of pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIHS) in cesarean section.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

150 patients with PIHS and treated with cesarean section in our hospital from May 2015 to September 2016 were selected. All patients were randomly divided into sevoflurane-remifentanil group (n=75) and propofol-remifentanil (n=75). The elbow blood of patients in both groups were collected, the levels of Norepinephrine (NE) adrenaline (AD), cortisol and blood glucose in plasma were compared at before anesthesia induction (T0), operation 30 min (T1), end of operation (T2), 2 h after operation (T3), 24 h after operation (T4). The blood pressure control, muscle control, anesthesia onset time, maternal pain and complications were compared between the two groups.

RESULTS

The patients in the sevoflurane group were superior to the propofol group (p<0.05) in terms of muscle control effect, anesthesia onset time and maternal pain. There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of blood pressure control and anesthesia complications (p>0.05). There was no significant difference in plasma AD, NE, cortisol and blood glucose between the two groups before induction of anesthesia (p>0.05). However, the plasma markers of the two groups began to increase after anesthesia induction and reached peak at T2 or T3, returned back to preoperative level or higher than before surgery at T4. The levels of AD, NE, cortisol and blood glucose in plasma of sevoflurane group were significantly lower than those in propofol group at T1-T4 time point, the difference was statistically significant (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The clinical efficacy of sevoflurane combined with remifentanil anesthesia is better than that of propofol combined with remifentanil, and it can effectively reduce the stress of pregnant women with pregnancy-induced hypertension treated with cesarean section.

[The Rice OsDUF810 Family: OsDUF810.7 May be Involved in the Tolerance to Salt and Drought]

With the advance of sequencing technology, the number of sequenced plant genomes has been rapidly increasing. However, understanding of the gene function in these sequenced genomes lags far behind; as a result, many coding plant sequences in public databases are annotated as proteins with domains of unknown function (DUF). Function of a protein family DUF810 in rice is not known. In this study, we analysed seven members of OsDU810 (OsDUF810.1-OsDUF810.7) family with three distinct motifs in rice Nipponbare. By phylogenetic analysis, OsDUF810 proteins fall into three major groups (I, II, III). Expression patterns of the seven corresponding OsDUF810 protein-encoding genes in 15 different rice tissues vary. Under drought, salt, cold and heat stress conditions and ABA treatment, the expression of OsDUF810.7 significantly increases. Overexpression of this protein in E. coli lead to a significant enhancement of catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POD) activities, and improved bacterial resistance to salt and drought.

Neural stem cells promote glioblastoma formation in nude mice

PURPOSE

Neural stem cells (NSCs) have been characterized with the ability of self-renewal and neurogenesis, which has inspired lots of studies to clarify the functions of NSCs in neural injury, ischemic stroke, brain inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases. We focused on the relationship of NSCs with glioblastoma, since we have discovered that recurrent glioblastomas were inclined to be derived from subventricular zone (SVZ), where NSCs reside. We want to clarify whether NSCs are involved in glioblastoma relapse.

METHODS

Immunocytochemistry was used to confirm the stemness of NSCs. The Cell Counting Kit-8 was used to measure the proliferation of cells. Migration abilities were examined by wound healing and transwell assays, and tumor formation abilities were confirmed in nude mice.

RESULTS

We found in experiments that NSCs promoted proliferation of a glioblastoma cell line-Ln229, the migration ability of Ln229 cells was motivated by co-cultured with NSCs. Tumor formation of Ln229 cells was also accelerated in nude mice when co-transplanted with NSCs. In immunohistochemistry, we found that the Sox2- and Ki67-positive cells were much higher in co-transplanted groups than that of control groups.

CONCLUSIONS

These results imply the potential role that NSCs play in speeding up tumor formation in the process of glioblastoma relapse, providing the basis for dealing with newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients, which may help postpone the recurrence of glioblastoma as far as possible through preprocessing the tumor-adjacent SVZ tissue.

[Progress in research of relationship between ambient air PM(2.5) and lung diseases]

Fine Particulate Matter (PM(2.5)-particles with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm) can penetrate deeply into the lung, deposit in the alveoli, and consequently impair lung function. Both short term and long term exposures to PM(2.5) are associated with the incidence of respiratory diseases (e.g. asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer). This paper summarizes the effects of ambient air PM(2.5) exposure on human respiratory system revealed by epidemiological studies.

Observation of Transverse Λ/Λ[over ¯] Hyperon Polarization in e^{+}e^{-} Annihilation at Belle

We report the first observation of the spontaneous polarization of Λ and Λ[over ¯] hyperons transverse to the production plane in e^{+}e^{-} annihilation, which is attributed to the effect arising from a polarizing fragmentation function. For inclusive Λ/Λ[over ¯] production, we also report results with subtracted feed-down contributions from Σ^{0} and charm. This measurement uses a dataset of 800.4  fb^{-1} collected by the Belle experiment at or near a center-of-mass energy of 10.58 GeV. We observe a significant polarization that rises with the fractional energy carried by the Λ/Λ[over ¯] hyperon.

First Evidence for cos2β>0 and Resolution of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa Quark-Mixing Unitarity Triangle Ambiguity

We present first evidence that the cosine of the CP-violating weak phase 2β is positive, and hence exclude trigonometric multifold solutions of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) Unitarity Triangle using a time-dependent Dalitz plot analysis of B^{0}→D^{(*)}h^{0} with D→K_{S}^{0}π^{+}π^{-} decays, where h^{0}∈{π^{0},η,ω} denotes a light unflavored and neutral hadron. The measurement is performed combining the final data sets of the BABAR and Belle experiments collected at the ϒ(4S) resonance at the asymmetric-energy B factories PEP-II at SLAC and KEKB at KEK, respectively. The data samples contain (471±3)×10^{6}BB[over ¯] pairs recorded by the BABAR detector and (772±11)×10^{6}BB[over ¯] pairs recorded by the Belle detector. The results of the measurement are sin2β=0.80±0.14(stat)±0.06(syst)±0.03(model) and cos2β=0.91±0.22(stat)±0.09(syst)±0.07(model). The result for the direct measurement of the angle β of the CKM Unitarity Triangle is β=[22.5±4.4(stat)±1.2(syst)±0.6(model)]°. The measurement assumes no direct CP violation in B^{0}→D^{(*)}h^{0} decays. The quoted model uncertainties are due to the composition of the D^{0}→K_{S}^{0}π^{+}π^{-} decay amplitude model, which is newly established by performing a Dalitz plot amplitude analysis using a high-statistics e^{+}e^{-}→cc[over ¯] data sample. CP violation is observed in B^{0}→D^{(*)}h^{0} decays at the level of 5.1 standard deviations. The significance for cos2β>0 is 3.7 standard deviations. The trigonometric multifold solution π/2-β=(68.1±0.7)° is excluded at the level of 7.3 standard deviations. The measurement resolves an ambiguity in the determination of the apex of the CKM Unitarity Triangle.