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.

Regiospecific Prenylation of Hydroxyxanthones by a Plant Flavonoid Prenyltransferase

Abstract: C-Prenylated xanthones are pharmacologically attractive specialized metabolites that are distributed in plants and microorganisms. The prenylation of xanthones often contributes to the structural diversity and biological activities of these compounds. However, efficient regiospecific prenylation of xanthones is still challenging. In this study, the regiospecific prenylation of a number of structurally different hydroxyxanthones (3-10) by MaIDT, a plant flavonoid prenyltransferase with substrate flexibility from Morus alba, is demonstrated. Among the enzymatic products, 2-dimethylallyl-1,3,7-trihydroxyxanthone (3a) effectively attenuated glutamate-induced injury in SK-N-SH neuroblastoma cells. These results suggest a potential approach for the synthesis of bioactive prenylated xanthones by a substrate-relaxed flavonoid prenyltransferase.

Top-down control of the medial orbitofrontal cortex to nucleus accumbens core pathway in decisional impulsivity.

Abstract: Decisional impulsivity is one of the risk factors for occurrence and development of many mental disorders, and that the dysfunctions of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and nucleus accumbens core (NAcC) are at least involved. Although previous studies have shown that the role of OFC as a whole in regulating decision-making impulse behavior is inconsistent, it's still unclear that the roles of the subregions of OFC including their projections to the NAcC in decisional impulsivity. The present study was designed to investigate the roles of OFC subregions, medial OFC (mOFC) and lateral OFC (lOFC) and their projections to the NAcC in decisional impulsivity in free-moving rats. We found that rats with low level of decisional impulsivity (LI) showed higher neuronal activity in both the mOFC and lOFC, and more neurons in mOFC but not lOFC projecting to the NAcC were activated, compared with high level of decisional impulsivity (HI) rats. The mOFC-NAcC projections of LI rats showed stronger information communication in beta and low gamma oscillations in the expected reward choice and delay time windows. Further, specific activation (in HI rats) or inhibition (in LI rats) of the mOFC-NAcC pathway could partly reverse their decisional impulsive behaviors. The findings first demonstrated that the mOFC-NAcC pathway was more important than the lOFC-NAcC pathway to the top-down control in decisional impulsivity, which could be a new neural physiological mechanism for psychiatric disorders associated with decisional impulsivity.

Discovery and engineering of small SlugCas9 with broad targeting range and high specificity and activity.

Abstract: The compact CRISPR/Cas9 system, which can be delivered with their gRNA and a full-length promoter for expression by a single adeno-associated virus (AAV), is a promising platform for therapeutic applications. We previously identified a compact SauriCas9 that displays high activity and requires a simple NNGG PAM, but the specificity is moderate. Here, we identified three compact Cas9 orthologs, Staphylococcus lugdunensis Cas9 (SlugCas9), Staphylococcus lutrae Cas9 (SlutrCas9) and Staphylococcus haemolyticus Cas9 (ShaCas9), for mammalian genome editing. Of these three Cas9 orthologs, SlugCas9 recognizes a simple NNGG PAM and displays comparable activity to SaCas9. Importantly, we generated a SlugCas9-SaCas9 chimeric nuclease, which has both high specificity and high activity. We finally engineered SlugCas9 with mutations to generate a high-fidelity variant that maintains high specificity without compromising on-target editing efficiency. Our study offers important minimal Cas9 tools that are ideal for both basic research and clinical applications.

[Epidemiological analysis on mortality of cancer in China, 2015].

Abstract: Objective: To understand the distribution of cancer deaths in China in 2015 and provide reference for the prevention and control of cancer. Methods: Based on the results of Global Burden of Disease 2015, the cancer death distributions in different age groups, sex groups, provinces or by different malignant tumor in Chinese were described. Results: The age-standardized mortality rate of cancer was 159.01/100 000 in China in 2015. The mortality rate was highest in age group ≥70 years (1 102.73/100 000), and lowest in age group 5-14 years (5.40/100 000). The mortality rate in males was 2.15 times higher than that in females. The first 5 provinces with high cancer mortality rate were Anhui, Qinghai, Sichuan, Guangxi and Henan. Lung cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer, esophageal cancer and colorectal cancer ranked 1-5 in term of mortality rate. Conclusion: The cancer mortality differed with age, gender, area and different malignant tumors, suggesting the necessity to develop targeted prevention and control strategies.

Integrated care reform in urban China: a qualitative study on design, supporting environment and implementation.

Abstract: Initiatives on integrated care between hospitals and community health centers (CHCs) have been introduced to transform the current fragmented health care delivery system into an integrated system in China. Up to date no research has analyzed in-depth the experiences of these initiatives based on perspectives from various stakeholders. This study analyzed the integrated care pilot in Hangzhou City by investigating stakeholders’ perspectives on its design features and supporting environment, their acceptability of this pilot, and further identifying the enabling and constraining factors that may influence the implementation of the integrated care reform. The qualitative study was carried out based on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 50 key informants who were involved in the policy-making process and implementation. Relevant policy documents were also collected for analysis. The pilot in Hangzhou was established as a CHC-led delivery system based on cooperation agreement between CHCs and hospitals to deliver primary and specialty care together for patients with chronic diseases. An innovative learning-from-practice mentorship system between specialists and general practitioners was also introduced to solve the poor capacity of general practitioners. The design of the pilot, its governance and organizational structure and human resources were enabling factors, which facilitated the integrated care reform. However, the main constraining factors were a lack of an integrated payment mechanism from health insurance and a lack of tailored information system to ensure its sustainability. The integrated care pilot in Hangzhou enabled CHCs to play as gate-keeper and care coordinator for the full continuum of services across the health care providers. The government put integrated care a priority, and constructed an efficient design, governance and organizational structure to enable its implementation. Health insurance should play a proactive role, and adopt a shared financial incentive system to support integrated care across providers in the future.