Suchergebnisse

Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) is the recommended first line therapy for patients with HIV. Since 2004, Chinese government has provided free Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) for Chinese HIV/AIDS patients. Data of living patients with HIV from the NFTCMP database and Center for Disease Control (CDC) database during 2003–2016 in Guangxi province was obtained and compared. Patients were divided into 3 groups according to their recorded treatment regimens. A total of 2954 patients with their treatment recorded in the two databases were included for analysis, their median age was 46 years (IQR = 36–59), and 64.63% were male. CHM regimens users had baseline CD4 cell counts (380.11 ± 240.59 cell/μL), approximately 100 cell/μL significantly higher than patients receiving CHM combined with ART regimens or only ART regimens. There was no significant difference in mortality among groups. All three regimens improved patients' CD4 cell counts. Compared to the sharp improvement in ART group during the first 6 months, CD4 cell counts of patients in CHM group and CHM combined with ART group showed a smooth and steady rise. CD4 cell counts of the combined group remained much lower than ART group in the first 3 years, but overtook ART group in the fourth year.

The laurel family within the Magnoliids has attracted attentions owing to its scents, variable inflorescences, and controversial phylogenetic position. Here, we present a chromosomelevel assembly of the Litsea cubeba genome, together with low-coverage genomic and transcriptomic data for many other Lauraceae. Phylogenomic analyses show phylogenetic discordance at the position of Magnoliids, suggesting incomplete lineage sorting during the divergence of monocots, eudicots, and Magnoliids. An ancient whole-genome duplication (WGD) event occurred just before the divergence of Laurales and Magnoliales; subsequently, independent WGDs occurred almost simultaneously in the three Lauralean lineages. The phylogenetic relationships within Lauraceae correspond to the divergence of inflorescences, as evidenced by the phylogeny of FUWA, a conserved gene involved in determining panicle architecture in Lauraceae. Monoterpene synthases responsible for production of specific volatile compounds in Lauraceae are functionally verified. Our work sheds light on the evolution of the Lauraceae, the genetic basis for floral evolution and specific scents. ; The Fundamental Research Funds of Chinese Academy of Forestry, China; the Science and Technology Major Program on Agricultural New Variety Breeding of Zhejiang, China; the Ten Thousand People Plan of Science and Technology Innovation Leading Talent of Zhejiang, China; the National Key R&D Program of China; the Special Research Fund of Ghent University; the National Key Research and Development Program of China; the Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration for Orchid Conservation and Utilization Construction Funds and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program. ; http://www.nature.com/ncomms ; am2021 ; Biochemistry ; Genetics ; Microbiology and Plant Pathology

Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) is the recommended first line therapy for patients with HIV. Since 2004, Chinese government has provided free Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) for Chinese HIV/AIDS patients. Data of living patients with HIV from the NFTCMP database and Center for Disease Control (CDC) database during 2003-2016 in Guangxi province was obtained and compared. Patients were divided into 3 groups according to their recorded treatment regimens. A total of 2954 patients with their treatment recorded in the two databases were included for analysis, their median age was 46 years (IQR = 36-59), and 64.63% were male. CHM regimens users had baseline CD4 cell counts (380.11±240.59 cell/μL), approximately 100 cell/μL significantly higher than patients receiving CHM combined with ART regimens or only ART regimens. There was no significant difference in mortality among groups. All three regimens improved patients' CD4 cell counts. Compared to the sharp improvement in ART group during the first 6 months, CD4 cell counts of patients in CHM group and CHM combined with ART group showed a smooth and steady rise. CD4 counts of the combined group remained much lower than ART group in the first 3 years, but overtook ART group in the fourth year.

Abstract Background Clinical and laboratory data were collected and analysed from patients with Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Jui Government Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where patients with EVD were received and/or treated from October 1, 2014 to March 21, 2015 during the West Africa EVD outbreak. Methods The study admitted 285 patients with confirmed EVD and followed them up till the endpoint (recovery or death). EVD was confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR assays detecting blood Ebola virus (EBOV). Results Among the 285 lab-confirmed EVD cases in Jui Government Hospital, 146 recovered and 139 died, with an overall survival rate of 51.23 %. Patients under the age of 6 years had a lower survival rate (37.50 %). Most non-survivors (79.86 %) died within 7 days after admission and the mean hospitalization time for non-survivors was 5.56 ± 6.11 days. More than half survivors (63.69 %) turned blood EBOV negative within 3 weeks after admission and the mean hospitalization time for survivors was 20.38 ± 7.58 days. High blood viral load (≥10 6 copies/ml) was found to be predictive of the non-survival outcome as indicated by the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The probability of patients' survival was less than 15 % when blood viral load was greater than 10 6 copies/ml. Multivariate analyses showed that blood viral load ( P = 0.005), confusion ( P = 0.010), abdominal pain ( P = 0.003), conjunctivitis ( P = 0.035), and vomiting ( P = 0.004) were factors independently associated with the outcomes of EVD patients. Conclusions Most death occurred within 1 week after admission, and patients at the age of 6 or younger had a lower survival rate. Most surviving patients turned blood EBOV negative within 1–4 weeks after admission. Factors such as high blood viral load, confusion, abdominal pain, vomiting and conjunctivitis were associated with poor prognosis for EVD patients.

The domestication and subsequent global dispersal of livestock are crucial events in human history, but the migratory episodes during the history of livestock remain poorly documented [1, 2, 3]. Here, we first developed a set of 493 novel ovine SNPs of the male-specific region of Y chromosome (MSY) by genome mapping. We then conducted a comprehensive genomic analysis of Y chromosome, mitochondrial DNA, and whole-genome sequence variations in a large number of 595 rams representing 118 domestic populations across the world. We detected four different paternal lineages of domestic sheep and resolved, at the global level, their paternal origins and differentiation. In Northern European breeds, several of which have retained primitive traits (e.g., a small body size and short or thin tails), and fat-tailed sheep, we found an overrepresentation of MSY lineages y-HC and y-HB, respectively. Using an approximate Bayesian computation approach, we reconstruct the demographic expansions associated with the segregation of primitive and fat-tailed phenotypes. These results together with archaeological evidence and historical data suggested the first expansion of early domestic hair sheep and the later expansion of fat-tailed sheep occurred ∼11,800–9,000 years BP and ∼5,300–1,700 years BP, respectively. These findings provide important insights into the history of migration and pastoralism of sheep across the Old World, which was associated with different breeding goals during the Neolithic agricultural revolution. ; This study was funded by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program-Key Projects of International Innovation Cooperation between Governments (2017YFE0117900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 31825024, 31661143014, 31760661, and 31972527), the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (no. 2019QZKK0501), the External Cooperation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (152111KYSB20190027), the Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province (no. ts201511085), and Chinese Government contribution to CAAS-ILRI Joint Laboratory on Livestock and Forage Genetic Resources in Beijing and to ICARDA. ; Peer reviewed