Diabetes is known to increase susceptibility to infections, partly due to impaired granulocyte function and changes in the innate immunity. Here, we investigate the effect of diabetes, and high ...glucose on the expression of the antimicrobial peptide, psoriasin and the putative consequences for E. coli urinary tract infection. Blood, urine, and urine exfoliated cells from patients are studied. The influence of glucose and insulin is examined during hyperglycemic clamps in individuals with prediabetes and in euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamped patients with type 1 diabetes. Important findings are confirmed in vivo in type 2 diabetic mice and verified in human uroepithelial cell lines. High glucose concentrations induce lower psoriasin levels and impair epithelial barrier function together with altering cell membrane proteins and cytoskeletal elements, resulting in increasing bacterial burden. Estradiol treatment restores the cellular function with increasing psoriasin and bacterial killing in uroepithelial cells, confirming its importance during urinary tract infection in hyperglycemia. In conclusion, our findings present the effects and underlying mechanisms of high glucose compromising innate immunity.
We study in a strip of R2 a combustion model of flame propagation with stepwise temperature kinetics and zero-order reaction, characterized by two free interfaces, respectively the ignition and the ...trailing fronts. The latter interface presents an additional difficulty because the non-degeneracy condition is not met. We turn the system to a fully nonlinear problem which is thoroughly investigated. When the width ℓ of the strip is sufficiently large, we prove the existence of a critical value Lec of the Lewis number Le, such that the one-dimensional, planar, solution is unstable for 0<Le<Lec. Some numerical simulations confirm the analysis.
Context:
Craniopharyngioma is a brain tumor whose high local recurrence rate has for a long time led to a preference for extensive surgery. Limited surgery minimizing hypothalamic damage may decrease ...the severe obesity rate at the expense of the need for radiotherapy to complete the treatment.
Objective:
We compared weight gain and local recurrence rates after extensive resection surgery (ERS) and hypothalamus-sparing surgery (HSS).
Design:
Our observational study compared a historical cohort managed with ERS between 1985 and 2002 to a prospective cohort managed with HSS between 2002 and 2010.
Setting:
The patients were treated in a pediatric teaching hospital in Paris, France.
Patients:
Thirty-seven boys and 23 girls were managed with ERS (median age, 8 years); 38 boys and 27 girls were managed with HSS (median age, 9.3 years).
Main outcome measures:
Data were collected before and 6 months to 7 years after surgery. Body mass index (BMI) Z-score was used to assess obesity and the number of surgical procedures to assess local recurrence rate.
Results:
Mean BMI Z-score before surgery was comparable in the 2 cohorts (0.756 after ERS vs 0.747 after HSS; P = .528). At any time after surgery, mean BMI Z-score was significantly lower after HSS (eg, 1.889 SD vs 2.915 SD, P = .004 at 1 year). At last follow-up, the HSS cohort had a significantly lower prevalence of severe obesity (28% vs 54%, P < .05) and higher prevalence of normal BMI (38% vs 17%, P < .01). Mean number of surgical procedures was not significantly different in the 2 cohorts.
Conclusions:
Hypothalamus-sparing surgery decreases the occurrence of severe obesity without increasing the local recurrence rate.
We report on magneto-optical studies of Bi2Se3, a representative member of the 3D topological insulator family. Its electronic states in bulk are shown to be well described by a simple Dirac-type ...Hamiltonian for massive particles with only two parameters: the fundamental band gap and the band velocity. In a magnetic field, this model implies a unique property-spin splitting equal to twice the cyclotron energy: Es=2Ec. This explains the extensive magnetotransport studies concluding a fortuitous degeneracy of the spin and orbital split Landau levels in this material. The Es=2Ec match differentiates the massive Dirac electrons in bulk Bi2Se3 from those in quantum electrodynamics, for which Es=Ec always holds.
Abstract
Background
To avoid the overuse of antibiotics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), acting via cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibition, have been used to reduce pain and as an ...alternative treatment for uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs). However, clinical studies evaluating NSAIDs versus antibiotics have reported an increased risk of acute pyelonephritis. Therefore, we hypothesized that COX inhibition could compromise the innate immune response and contribute to complications in patients with uncomplicated UTI.
Results
We here demonstrate that in particular COX-2 inhibition led to decreased expression of the antimicrobial peptides psoriasin and human β-defensin-2 in human uroepithelial cells. Psoriasin expression was altered in neutrophils and macrophages. COX-2 inhibition also had impact on the inflammasome mediated IL-1β expression in response to uroepithelial
E. coli
infection. Further, COX-2 inhibition downregulated free radicals and the epithelial barrier protein claudin 1, favoring infectivity. In addition, conditioned media from COX-2 inhibited uroepithelial cells infected with
E. coli
failed to activate macrophages.
Conclusions
Taken together, our data suggests an adverse innate immune effect of COX-2 inhibition on uroepithelial cells during UTI.
Hydrostatic pressure is known to protect fish from damage by total dissolved gas (TDG) supersaturation, but empirical relationships are lacking. In this study we demonstrate the relationship between ...depth, TDG, and gas bubble trauma (GBT). Hydroelectric dams generate TDG supersaturation that causes bubble growth in the tissues of aquatic animals, resulting in sublethal and lethal effects. We exposed fish to 100%, 115%, 120%, and 130% TDG at 16 and 63 cm of depth and recorded time to 50% loss of equilibrium and sublethal symptoms. Our linear model of the log-transformed time to 50% LOE (R
2
= 0.94) was improved by including depth. Based on our model, a depth of 47 cm compensated for the effects of 4.1% (±1.3% SE) TDG supersaturation. Our experiment reveals that once the surface threshold for GBT from TDG supersaturation is known, depth protects rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) from GBT by 9.7% TDG supersaturation per metre depth. Our results can be used to estimate the impacts of TDG on fish downstream of dams and to develop improved guidelines for TDG.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) enter seawater earlier and smaller (0.2 g) than any other salmonid following a two-stage salinity tolerance process initiated around yolk-sac absorption and ...completed with seawater entry. For the first time, this two-stage ontogeny of salinity tolerance was characterized by either holding posthatch pink salmon in fresh water or transferring them to seawater every 2 weeks. A window of salinity tolerance around yolk-sac absorption was evidenced by a period of zero morbidity in seawater compared with 100% morbidity for newly hatched alevins and 25% morbidity for fry (~0.2-0.3 g). Increased hypo-osmoregulatory ability at the time of yolk-sac absorption was indicated in fish held in fresh water under constant photoperiod (12 h light : 12 h dark) and temperature (5 °C) by a switch from catabolic to anabolic growth, increased gill Na.sup.+K+-ATPase activity and a-1b/a-1a isoform expression, and a plateau in whole-body water content, implying that pink salmon go through a form of smoltification. A large increase in whole-body Na.sup.+ observed in fresh water at yolk-sac absorption may represent a unique strategy for maintaining water balance once fish enter seawater.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
An altered haemodynamic profile for various ocular posterior segment capillary beds has been documented in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). POAG may also involve abnormal non-ocular blood flow, ...and the nailfold capillaries, which are not affected by elevated intraocular pressure (IOP), are readily assessable.
We measured resting nailfold capillary blood flow in 67 POAG and 63 control subjects using video capillaroscopy. Masked readers tracked blood column voids between consecutive, registered image sequence frames, measured vessel diameter and calculated blood flow. We used multiple logistic regression to investigate the relation between nailfold capillary blood flow and POAG. In secondary analyses, we stratified cases by maximum IOP and concurrent topical beta-blocker use.
Mean (±SD) blood flow in picolitres per second was 26.8±17.6 for POAG cases and 50.1±24.2 for controls (p<0.0001). After adjustment for demographic and clinical factors including blood pressure and pulse, every picolitre per second increase in resting nailfold blood flow was associated with a 6% (95% CI 0.92 to 0.96) reduced odds of POAG (p<0.0001). Similar relations between nailfold capillary blood flow and POAG were found for cases stratified by maximum known IOP and for cases stratified by concurrent topical beta-blocker use.
Reduced resting nailfold capillary blood flow is present in POAG independent of covariates such as blood pressure, pulse and IOP.
Key message
Doubled-haploid libraries from landraces capture native genetic diversity for a multitude of quantitative traits and make it accessible for breeding and genome-based studies.
Maize ...landraces comprise large allelic diversity. We created doubled-haploid (DH) libraries from three European flint maize landraces and characterized them with respect to their molecular diversity, population structure, trait means, variances, and trait correlations. In total, 899 DH lines were evaluated using high-quality genotypic and multi-environment phenotypic data from up to 11 environments. The DH lines covered 95% of the molecular variation present in 35 landraces of an earlier study and represent the original three landrace populations in an unbiased manner. A comprehensive analysis of the target trait plant development at early growth stages as well as other important agronomic traits revealed large genetic variation for line per se and testcross performance. The majority of the 378 DH lines evaluated as testcrosses outperformed the commercial hybrids for early development. For total biomass yield, we observed a yield gap of 15% between mean testcross yield of the commercial hybrids and mean testcross yield of the DH lines. The DH lines also exhibited genetic variation for undesirable traits like root lodging and tillering, but correlations with target traits early development and yield were low or nonsignificant. The presented diversity atlas is a valuable, publicly available resource for genome-based studies to identify novel trait variation and evaluate the prospects of genomic prediction in landrace-derived material.
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