Identification of pathogenic nonsporulating molds in eyes by internal transcribed spacer sequences alignment

AIM: To identify the species and genus of pathogenic nonsporulating molds(NSM)by internal transcribed spacer(ITS)sequences alignment, and reveal the biodiversity of NSM in Hainan Island with tropical climate. METHODS: Nine teen fungal strains, identified as NSM by conventional method in the laboratory department of Hainan Province Eye Hospital, were involved in this study. All of the strains were isolated from the infectious eye tissues from patients, and cultured with potato-dextrose agar and Sabourand's agar in 37℃ incubator for 7-21d. Any reproductive structure was detected by microscopy for up to 21d. After growth for 3-7d, the genomic DNA of specimens were extracted by grinding method combined with chemical method. Then, ITS sequences in the ribosome were amplified by PCR and analyzed using the National Center for Biological Information(NCBI)GenBank database. Finally, the species and genus were confirmed by sequence alignment. RESULTS: The corresponding target bars could be observed in all 19 specimens after PCR. The results from genetic alignment classified the 19 specimens into 12 species, including Lasiodiplodia theobromae(6 isolates), Curvalaria lunata(1 isolate), Arthrinium sp.(2 isolates), neodeightonia subglabosa(2 isolates), Earliella scabrosa(1 isolate), Hypocreales sp.(1 isolate), phoma multirostrata(1 isolate), Trichophyton rubrum(1 isolate), Aspergillus westerdijkiae(1 isolate), roussoella siamensis(1 isolate), Ceriporia lacerata(1 isolate), Fusarium solqni(1 isolate).CONCLUSION: ITS sequence alignment can identify NSM to genus and species level. The NSM in Hainan Island contains varies species, and is associated with multiple infectious diseases of the eye

A multi-view latent variable model reveals cellular heterogeneity in complex tissues for paired multimodal single-cell data

Motivation Single-cell multimodal assays allow us to simultaneously measure two different molecular features of the same cell, enabling new insights into cellular heterogeneity, cell development and diseases. However, most existing methods suffer from inaccurate dimensionality reduction for the joint-modality data, hindering their discovery of novel or rare cell subpopulations. Results Here, we present VIMCCA, a computational framework based on variational-assisted multi-view canonical correlation analysis to integrate paired multimodal single-cell data. Our statistical model uses a common latent variable to interpret the common source of variances in two different data modalities. Our approach jointly learns an inference model and two modality-specific non-linear models by leveraging variational inference and deep learning. We perform VIMCCA and compare it with 10 existing state-of-the-art algorithms on four paired multi-modal datasets sequenced by different protocols. Results demonstrate that VIMCCA facilitates integrating various types of joint-modality data, thus leading to more reliable and accurate downstream analysis. VIMCCA improves our ability to identify novel or rare cell subtypes compared to existing widely used methods. Besides, it can also facilitate inferring cell lineage based on joint-modality profiles

The therapeutic effects of low-intensity pulsed ultrasound in musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries: Focusing on the molecular mechanism

Musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries are very common and usually occur during both sporting and everyday activities. The intervention of adjuvant therapies to promote tissue regeneration is of great importance to improving people’s quality of life and extending their productive lives. Though many studies have focused on the positive results and effectiveness of the LIPUS on soft tissue, the molecular mechanisms standing behind LIPUS effects are much less explored and reported, especially the intracellular signaling pathways. We incorporated all research on LIPUS in soft tissue diseases since 2005 and summarized studies that uncovered the intracellular molecular mechanism. This review will also provide the latest evidence-based research progress in this field and suggest research directions for future experiments

Human Papillomaviruses and Papillomatosis Lesions of the Female Lower Genital Tract

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine whether human papillomavirus (HPV) infections are involved in the development of papillomatosis lesions of the lower female genital tract

Hilbert-Huang Transform analysis of quasi-periodic oscillations in MAXI J1820+070

We present time-frequency analysis, based on the Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT), of the evolution on the low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (LFQPOs) observed in the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070. Through the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method, we decompose the light curve of the QPO component and measure its intrinsic phase lag between photons from different energy bands. We find that the QPO phase lag is negative (low energy photons lag behind high energy photons), meanwhile the absolute value of the lag increases with energy. By applying the Hilbert transform to the light curve of the QPO, we further extract the instantaneous frequency and amplitude of the QPO. Compared these results with those from the Fourier analysis, we find that the broadening of the QPO peak is mainly caused by the frequency modulation. Through further analysis, we find that these modulations could share a common physical origin with the broad-band noise, and can be well explained by the internal shock model of the jet

Subunit Characteristics of Pig Pancreas Ferritin Revealed by MALDI-TOF MS and RP-HPLC

Pig pancreas ferritin(PPF) was purified by ultra-centrifugation, ion-exchange chromatography, and native gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis(PAGE(NG)). Sodium dodecyl sulfate(SDS)-PAGE indicates that PPF consists of two subunit types, namely, H(21000) and L(19000) subunits, and its core shows an average element composition of 1698 Fe3+ and 179 phosphate molecules within the hollow shell, giving a 9.51 ratio of Fe3+ to phosphate. An off line approach combining reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography(RP-HPLC) with matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry(MALDI-TOF MS) made the decomposition of PPF shell into H and L subunits for the analysis of mass spectrometry(MS), giving molecular weights of both H(21014.4) and L(18319.9) subunits. Both subunit types were further identified by an approach combining peptide mass fingerprint(PMF) with database search. A ratio of 1H to 2L subunits in PPF was determined by SDS-PAGE, RP-HPLC, and MALDI-TOF MS. respectively. It is well known that the non-covalent interaction of L-L or H-L subunits is stronger than that of H-H subunits in PPF, which may be further used to explain the unclear physiological function between H and L subunits in PPF.National Natural Science Foundation of China [40776060]; Program for Innovative Research Team in Science and Technology in Fujian Province Universit

A Comprehensive Study of Gamma-Ray Burst Optical Emission: I. Flares and Early Shallow Decay Component

Well-sampled optical lightcurves of 146 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are compiled from the literature. By empirical fitting we identify eight possible emission components and summarize the results in a "synthetic" lightcurve. Both optical flare and early shallow-decay components are likely related to long-term central engine activities. We focus on their statistical properties in this paper. Twenty-four optical flares are obtained from 19 GRBs. The isotropic R-band energy is smaller than 1% of $E_{\gamma, \rm iso}$. The relation between isotropic luminosities of the flares and gamma-rays follows $L^{\rm F}_{\rm R, iso}\propto L_{{\gamma}, \rm iso}^{1.11\pm 0.27}$. Later flares tend to be wider and dimmer, i.e., $w^{\rm F}\sim t^{\rm F}_{\rm p}/2$ and $L^{\rm F}_{\rm R, iso}\propto [t^{\rm F}_{\rm p}/(1+z)]^{-1.15\pm0.15}$. The detection probability of the optical flares is much smaller than that of X-ray flares. An optical shallow decay segment is observed in 39 GRBs. The relation between the break time and break luminosity is a power-law, with an index of $-0.78\pm 0.08$, similar to that derived from X-ray flares. The X-ray and optical breaks are usually chromatic, but a tentative correlation is found. We suggest that similar to the prompt optical emission that tracks $\gamma$-rays, the optical flares are also related to the erratic behavior of the central engine. The shallow decay component is likely related to a long-lasting spinning-down central engine or piling up of flare materials onto the blastwave. Mixing of different emission components may be the reason of the diverse chromatic afterglow behaviors.Comment: 43 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in Ap