This study aims to establish a 198Au-radiotracer technique for in vivo tracing, rapid quantification, and ex vivo visualization of PEGylated gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in animals, organs and tissue ...dissections. The advantages of GNPs lie in its superior optical property, biocompatibility and versatile conjugation chemistry, which are promising to develop diagnostic probes and drug delivery systems. 198Au is used as a radiotracer because it simultaneously emits beta and gamma radiations with proper energy and half-life; therefore, 198Au can be used for bioanalytical purposes. The 198Au-tagged radioactive gold nanoparticles (198Au-GNPs) were prepared simply by irradiating the GNPs in a nuclear reactor through the 197Au(n,γ)198Au reaction and subsequently the 198Au-GNPs were subjected to surface modification with polyethylene glycol to form PEGylated 198Au-GNPs. The 198Au-GNPs retained physicochemical properties that were the same as those of GNP before neutron irradiation. Pharmacokinetic and biodisposition studies were performed by intravenously injecting three types of 198Au-GNPs with or without PEGylation into mice; the γ radiation in blood specimens and dissected organs was then measured. The 198Au-radiotracer technique enables rapid quantification freed from tedious sample preparation and shows more than 95% recovery of injected GNPs. Clinical gamma scintigraphy was proved feasible to explore spatial- and temporal-resolved biodisposition of 198Au-GNPs in living animals. Moreover, autoradiography, which recorded beta particles from 198Au, enabled visualizing the heterogeneous biodisposition of 198Au-GNPs in different microenvironments and tissues. In this study, the 198Au-radiotracer technique facilitated creating a trimodality analytical platform for tracing, quantifying and imaging GNPs in animals.
Ductal dissection is rarely mentioned but intractable complication of ductal stenting. We demonstrate the dissection image under fluoroscopy and the use of a relatively large stent as an applicable ...treatment.
The Tigecycline In Vitro Surveillance in Taiwan (TIST) study, a nationwide, prospective surveillance during 2006 to 2010, collected a total of 7,793 clinical isolates, including methicillin-resistant ...Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (n = 1,834), penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae (PRSP) (n = 423), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) (n = 219), extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli (n = 1,141), ESBL-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (n = 1,330), Acinetobacter baumannii (n = 1,645), and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (n = 903), from different specimens from 20 different hospitals in Taiwan. MICs of tigecycline were determined following the criteria of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST-2011). Among drug-resistant Gram-positive pathogens, all of the PRSP isolates were susceptible to tigecycline (MIC90, 0.03 μg/ml), and only one MRSA isolate (MIC90, 0.5 μg/ml) and three VRE isolates (MIC90, 0.125 μg/ml) were nonsusceptible to tigecycline. Among the Gram-negative bacteria, the tigecycline susceptibility rates were 99.65% for ESBL-producing E. coli (MIC90, 0.5 μg/ml) and 96.32% for ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae (MIC90, 2 μg/ml) when interpreted by FDA criteria but were 98.7% and 85.8%, respectively, when interpreted by EUCAST-2011 criteria. The susceptibility rate for A. baumannii (MIC90, 4 μg/ml) decreased from 80.9% in 2006 to 55.3% in 2009 but increased to 73.4% in 2010. A bimodal MIC distribution was found among carbapenem-susceptible A. baumannii isolates, and a unimodal MIC distribution was found among carbapenem-nonsusceptible A. baumannii isolates. In Taiwan, tigecycline continues to have excellent in vitro activity against several major clinically important drug-resistant bacteria, with the exception of A. baumannii.
We report a practical approach, the first of its kind, to construct nanoscale UiO-type metal-organic framework (Mi-UiO-66 and Mi-UiO-67) fluorescent probes for the detection of Cys and GSH. They ...showed high sensitivity (10(-11) M) and selectivity for Cys and GSH, and their fluorescence imaging of Cys and GSH in living cells was well demonstrated.
Riparian vegetation is crucial for maintaining terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, but it is threatened by land-use activities. To assess the ecological impacts of riparian vegetation conversion to ...an oil tea (Camellia oleifera) plantation, we quantified the responses of small mammals in two natural habitats (mature forest and flood-meadow) and in Camellia forests at the community, population, and individual level. We found that the community diversity was similar between Camellia forests and mature forests, but higher than the flood-meadow. Meanwhile, the community composition differed across three habitats, with Camellia forests favoring habitat generalist species. At the population level, Camellia forests and flood-meadow had a similar population density, which were higher than mature forests. At the individual level, Rattus nitidus was less sensitive to this conversion, but the body condition index of Niviventer confucianus was higher in Camellia forests than in mature forests, and Apodemus agrarius in Camellia forests had more ectoparasite load than in the flood-meadow, indicating a species-specific response to the impacts of oil tea plantation. Our study highlights that the occurrence of habitat generalist species and high ectoparasite loads may threaten regional biodiversity and increase the risk of parasite transmission with enlarging the oil tea plantation area within riparian zones.
We report a case of a heart transplant recipient who presented with a rapidly growing Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)–positive, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma 7 days after receiving the first dose of the ...ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine. Because of the atypical radiologic presentation, the initial tentative diagnosis was a mediastinal abscess. This observation indicates a potential risk of EBV reactivation after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination, which might lead to or aggravate the presentation of posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorder in transplantation patients. Transplant surgeons should be aware of the potential immunomodulatory effects of the COVID-19 vaccination.
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