National Health and Family Planning Commission

About: National Health and Family Planning Commission is a government organization based out in Beijing, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Kashin–Beck disease. The organization has 2379 authors who have published 1440 publications receiving 20078 citations. The organization is also known as: Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China.

PKD1 Promotes Functional Synapse Formation Coordinated with N-Cadherin in Hippocampus.

Abstract: Functional synapse formation is critical for the wiring of neural circuits in the developing brain. The cell adhesion molecule N-cadherin plays important roles in target recognition and synaptogenesis. However, the molecular mechanisms that regulate the localization of N-cadherin and the subsequent effects remain poorly understood. Here, we show that protein kinase D1 (PKD1) directly binds to N-cadherin at amino acid residues 836-871 and phosphorylates it at Ser 869, 871, and 872, thereby increasing the surface localization of N-cadherin and promoting functional synapse formation in primary cultured hippocampal neurons obtained from embryonic day 18 rat embryos of either sex. Intriguingly, neuronal activity enhances the interactions between N-cadherin and PKD1, which are critical for the activity-dependent growth of dendritic spines. Accordingly, either disruption the binding between N-cadherin and PKD1 or preventing the phosphorylation of N-cadherin by PKD1 in the hippocampal CA1 region of male rat leads to the reduction in synapse number and impairment of LTP. Together, this study demonstrates a novel mechanism of PKD1 regulating the surface localization of N-cadherin and suggests that the PKD1-N-cadherin interaction is critical for synapse formation and function.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Defects in synapse formation and function lead to various neurological diseases, although the mechanisms underlying the regulation of synapse development are far from clear. Our results suggest that protein kinase D1 (PKD1) functions upstream of N-cadherin, a classical synaptic adhesion molecule, to promote functional synapse formation. Notably, we identified a crucial binding fragment to PKD1 at C terminus of N-cadherin, and this fragment also contains PKD1 phosphorylation sites. Through this interaction, PKD1 enhances the stability of N-cadherin on cell membrane and promotes synapse morphogenesis and synaptic plasticity in an activity-dependent manner. Our study reveals the role of PKD1 and the potential downstream mechanism in synapse development, and contributes to the research for neurodevelopment and the therapy for neurological diseases.

Use of integrative epigenetic and mRNA expression analyses to identify significantly changed genes and functional pathways in osteoarthritic cartilage

Abstract: Aim Osteoarthritis (OA) is caused by complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors. Epigenetic mechanisms control the expression of genes and are likely to regulate the OA transcri...

Integrative analysis of genome-wide association study and brain region related enhancer maps identifies biological pathways for insomnia.

Abstract: Insomnia is a common sleep disorder whose genetic mechanism remains unknown. The aim of this study is to identify novel genes, gene enrichment sets and enriched tissue/cell types for insomnia considering the differences across different brain regions. We conducted an integrative analysis of genome-wide association study (GWAS) and brain region related enhancer maps. Summary data was derived from a large-scale GWAS of insomnia, involving 113,006 unrelated individuals. The chromosomal enhancer maps of 6 brain regions were then aligned with the GWAS summary data to obtain the association testing results of enhancer regions for insomnia. Gene prioritization, tissue/cell and pathway enrichment analysis were implemented by Data-driven Expression Prioritized Integration for Complex Traits (DEPICT) tool. We identified multiple cross-brain regions or brain-region specific prioritized genes for insomnia, such as MADD (P = .0013 in angular gyrus), PPP2R3C (P = .0319 in cingulate gyrus), CASP9 (P = .0066 in angular gyrus and P = .0278 in hippocampus middle), PLEKHM2 (P = .0032 in angular gyrus, P = .0052 in anterior caudate, P = .0385 in cingulate gyrus and P = .0011 in inferior temporal lobe). This study also detected a group of insomnia associated biological pathways within multiple or specific brain regions, such as REACTOME_SIGNALING_BY_NOTCH and KEGG_GLYCEROPHOSPHOLIPID_METABOLISM. Our results showed that insomnia associated genes were significantly enriched in neural stem cells. Our results highlight a set of potential points, particularly neural stem cells, for subsequent biological studies for insomnia.

Socioeconomic inequality in periconceptional folic acid supplementation in China: a census of 0.9 million women in their first trimester of pregnancy

Abstract: To assess socioeconomic inequality in periconceptional folic acid supplementation in China. We used data of periconceptional folic acid (FA) supplementation of rural Chinese women from the National Free Preconception Health Examination Project from 2010 to 2012 and socioeconomic level data from the National Bureau of Statistics. We used logistic models to assess the associations between the prevalence of taking FA and the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, the couples, and the socioeconomic levels of their region of residence. Of the 907,720 included women, 682,315 (75.62%) of the women reported taking FA. The prevalence of FA supplementation was significantly higher in participants aged 21–29 (75.87%) than in those women aged 40–49 (68.44%, p < 0.01). The prevalence of FA supplementation was significantly higher in the region with the highest Per Capita Gross Regional Product than in the regions with lower Per Capita Gross Regional Product (aOR = 12.20 [95% CI:9.54–15.61]). The higher the per capita net income of farmer households in the region, the higher the prevalence of FA supplementation (aOR = 1.95 [95% CI:1.74–2.18]). The rate of periconceptional FA supplementation among rural Chinese women has increased with the support of China’s Health System Reform policy. However, socioeconomic disparities in periconceptional folic acid supplementation remain.

Diagnostic value of circulating microRNAs for osteosarcoma in Asian populations: a meta-analysis

Abstract: A large number of studies have provided new insights into the diagnostic value of circulating microRNAs (miRNA) for osteosarcoma (OS), one of the most common primary malignancies in adolescents. However, inconsistent conclusions on the diagnostic performance of various kinds of miRNAs have been made. To assess the true diagnostic value of circulating miRNA for the early detection of OS in this meta-analysis, multiple databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Technology of Chongqing (VIP), were carefully searched for available studies up to October 30, 2015. The quality of each study was scored using the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies-2 (QUADAS-2). Sensitivity and specificity was pooled using a random-effects model. Positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and the area under the curve (AUC) were used to measure the diagnostic values. Subgroup and meta-regression analyses were used to find potential sources of heterogeneity. Publication bias was tested with the Deeks' funnel plot asymmetry test. Eight articles with 741 OS patients and 479 healthy controls were finally included in this meta-analysis. The pooled estimations indicated circulating miRNAs has a high accuracy for diagnosing OS, with sensitivity of 0.94, specificity of 0.80, PLR of 4.75, NLR of 0.07, DOR of 69, and AUC of 0.94. In addition, subgroup and meta-regression analyses revealed that the expression patterns of miRNAs obtained from plasma are more credible diagnostic biomarkers than those from serum. In conclusion, as noninvasive biomarkers, circulating miRNAs have a promising future for the diagnosis of OS in Asian populations.