Background: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a common disease and its prevalence is increasing worldwide. Data on the current prevalence of AR in China, one of the biggest countries in the world, with a population of around 1.3 billion citizens, are scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of self-reported AR in Chinese citizens. Methods: In a cross-sectional, population-based study, telephone interviews were conducted in 11 major cities in China after sampling target telephone numbers through the approach of random digital dialing. The questions for the telephone interviews were based on validated questionnaires. Results: A total of 38,203 telephone interviews were conducted from September 2004 to May 2005. The response rate was 63.7%. After adjustment for age and gender, the self-reported prevalence of AR was lowest in Beijing (8.7%) and highest in Urumqi (24.1%). Among the subjects with self-reported AR, 25.6% were diagnosed with persistent AR and 74.4% suffered from intermittent AR. Less than half of the subjects with self-reported AR had presented at a health clinic. In 37.3% AR had previously been diagnosed by physicians, and 33.1% of subjects with self-reported AR had been treated. Comorbidities reported were asthma (9.2%), rhinosinusitis (13.3%) and atopic dermatitis (16.4%). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the self-reported prevalence of AR in 11 cities across Mainland China has wide variations, ranging from <10% to >20%; 26% of the self-reported AR subjects were classified as suffering from persistent AR.

Many studies have evaluated the relationships between alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels and the prognosis for osteosarcoma. However, a consensus has yet to be reached. We completed a meta-analysis to assess the significance of ALP and prognosis for osteosarcoma. We retrieved eligible documents from the PubMed and Embase databases and extracted related data from those documents. The overall survival (OS), hazard ratio (HR) and event-free survival (EFS) HR were obtained after combination to evaluate the impacts of ALP levels on prognosis for osteosarcoma. After screening, a total of 12 documents published between 1999 and 2013 were included. The ALP levels on OS were evaluated in nine documents. The pooled HRs was 1.78 (95% CI: 1.52-2.07, p < .05). The ALP levels on EFS were determined in eight documents. The pooled HRs was 1.58 (95% CI: 1.37-1.82, p < .05). Begg's test (OS, p > .754; EFS, p > .386) and Egger's test (OS, p > .649; EFS, p > .274) showed that there was no significant publication bias during analytic process. In summary, our meta-analysis shows that a higher level of ALP can decrease the OS and EFS in patients with osteosarcoma and ALP is an important biological indicator for patients with osteosarcoma.

The highly variable leaf color of Cymbidium sinense significantly improves its horticultural and economic value, and makes it highly desirable in the flower markets in China and Southeast Asia. However, little is understood about the molecular mechanism underlying leaf-color variations. In this study, we found the content of photosynthetic pigments, especially chlorophyll degradation metabolite in the leaf-color mutants is distinguished significantly from that in the wild type of Cymbidium sinense 'Dharma'. To further determine the candidate genes controlling leaf-color variations, we first sequenced the global transcriptome using 454 pyrosequencing. More than 0.7 million expressed sequence tags (ESTs) with an average read length of 445.9 bp were generated and assembled into 103,295 isotigs representing 68,460 genes. Of these isotigs, 43,433 were significantly aligned to known proteins in the public database, of which 29,299 could be categorized into 42 functional groups in the gene ontology system, 10,079 classified into 23 functional classifications in the clusters of orthologous groups system, and 23,092 assigned to 139 clusters of specific metabolic pathways in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes. Among these annotations, 95 isotigs were designated as involved in chlorophyll metabolism. On this basis, we identified 16 key enzyme-encoding genes in the chlorophyll metabolism pathway, the full length cDNAs and expressions of which were further confirmed. Expression pattern indicated that the key enzyme-encoding genes for chlorophyll degradation were more highly expressed in the leaf color mutants, as was consistent with their lower chlorophyll contents. This study is the first to supply an informative 454 EST dataset for Cymbidium sinense 'Dharma' and to identify original leaf color-associated genes, which provide important resources to facilitate gene discovery for molecular breeding, marketable trait discovery, and investigating various biological process in this species.

Objective: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a significant class of molecules involved in a wide range of diverse biological functions that are abnormally expressed in many types of diseases. The present study aimed to determine the circRNAs specifically expressed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients to identify their possible molecular mechanisms. Methods: To identify the circRNAs specifically expressed in RA, we started by sequencing the of PBMCs circRNA and microRNAs (miRNAs) from a RA group (n = 3) and a control group (n = 3). We constructed a network of differentially expressed circRNAs and miRNAs. Then, we selected differentially expressed circRNAs in PBMCs from 10 RA patients relative to 10 age-and sex-matched controls using real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Spearman's correlation test was used to evaluate the correlation of circRNAs with biochemical measurements. Results: A total of 165 circRNAs and 63 miRNAs were differently expressed between RA patients and healthy people according to RNA-seq, including 109 circRNAs that were significantly up-regulated and 56 circRNAs that were down-regulated among the RA patients. RT-qPCR validation demonstrated that the expression levels of hsa circ 0001200, hsa circ 0001566, hsa circ 0003972, and hsa circ 0008360 were consistent with the results from the sequencing analysis. Then, we found that there were significant correlations between the circRNAs and disease severity. Conclusion: Generally, these results suggest that expression of hsa circ 0001200, hsa circ 0001566, hsa circ 0003972, and hsa circ 0008360 in PBMCs from RA patients may serve as potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of RA, and these circRNAs may influence the occurrence and development of RA.