Methodological quality (risk of bias) assessment is an important step before study initiation usage. Therefore, accurately judging study type is the first priority, and the choosing proper tool is also important. In this review, we introduced methodological quality assessment tools for randomized controlled trial (including individual and cluster), animal study, non-randomized interventional studies (including follow-up study, controlled before-and-after study, before-after/ pre-post study, uncontrolled longitudinal study, interrupted time series study), cohort study, case-control study, cross-sectional study (including analytical and descriptive), observational case series and case reports, comparative effectiveness research, diagnostic study, health economic evaluation, prediction study (including predictor finding study, prediction model impact study, prognostic prediction model study), qualitative study, outcome measurement instruments (including patient -reported outcome measure development, content validity, structural validity, internal consistency, cross-cultural validity/ measurement invariance, reliability, measurement error, criterion validity, hypotheses testing for construct validity, and responsiveness), systematic review and meta-analysis, and clinical practice guideline. The readers of our review can distinguish the types of medical studies and choose appropriate tools. In one word, comprehensively mastering relevant knowledge and implementing more practices are basic requirements for correctly assessing the methodological quality.

Plant volatile compounds synergize attraction of codling moth males Cydia pomonella to sex pheromone (E,E)-8,10-dodecadien-1-ol (codlemone). Several apple volatiles, known to elicit a strong antennal response, were tested in a wind tunnel. Two-component blends of 1 pg/min codlemone and 100 pg/min of either racemic linalool, (E)-beta-farnesene, or (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol attracted significantly more males to the source than codlemone alone (60, 58, 56, and 37%, respectively). In comparison, a blend of codlemone and a known pheromone synergist, dodecanol, attracted 56% of the males tested. Blends of pheromone and plant volatiles in a 1:100 ratio attracted more males than 1:1 or 1:10,000 blends. Adding two or four of the most active plant compounds to codlemone did not enhance attraction over blends of codlemone plus single-plant compounds. Of the test compounds, only farnesol was attractive by itself; at a release rate of 10,000 pg/min, 16% of the males arrived at the source. However, attraction to a 1:10,000 blend of codlemone and farnesol (42%) was not significantly different from attraction to codlemone alone (37%). In contrast, a codlemone mimic, (E)-10-dodecadien-1-ol, which attracted 2% males by itself, had a strong antagonistic effect when blended in a 1:10,000 ratio with codlemone.

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Primary cilia are dynamic, complex structures that contain Ͼ500 proteins, including several related to polycystic kidney disease. How these proteins target to cilia and assemble is unknown. We previously identified Cys1 as the gene responsible for disease in Cys1 cpk mice, a mouse model of autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease; this gene encodes cystin, a 145-amino acid cilium-associated protein. Here, we characterized the localization of cystin in the embryonic kidney and liver, in isolated renal collecting ducts, and in an inner medullary collecting duct mouse cell line. Because endogenous levels of cystin expression are low, we generated inner medullary collecting duct cell lines that stably express enhanced green fluorescence protein-tagged constructs of wild-type cystin or various truncation mutants. We determined that cystin is myristoylated at its G2 residue and that N-myristoylated cystin fractionates with membrane microdomains. Furthermore, the N-myristoylation signal is necessary but not sufficient to target cystin to the primary cilium. Analysis of deletion and chimeric constructs identified an AxEGG motif that is necessary to target and retain cystin in the cilium. Derangement of these localization motifs may lead to cystic kidney disease.