With the increase in antimicrobial resistance and the subsequent demand for novel therapeutics, the deep-sea fish microbiome can be a relatively untapped source of antimicrobials, including ...bacteriocins. Previously, bacterial isolates were recovered from the gut of deep-sea fish sampled from the Atlantic Ocean.In this study, we used in vitro methods to screen a subset of these isolates for antimicrobial activity, and subsequently mined genomic DNA from isolates of interest for bacteriocin and other antimicrobial metabolite genes. We observed antimicrobial activity against foodborne pathogens, including Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Enterococcus faecalis and Micrococcus luteus. In total, 147 candidate biosynthetic gene clusters were identified in the genomic sequences, including 35 bacteriocin/RiPP-like clusters. Other bioactive metabolite genes detected included non-ribosomal peptide synthases (NRPS), polyketide synthases (PKS; Types 1 and 3), beta-lactones and terpenes. Moreover, four unique bacteriocin gene clusters were annotated and shown to encode novel peptides: a class IIc bacteriocin, two class IId bacteriocins and a class I lanthipeptide (LanM subgroup). Our dual in vitro and in silico approach allowed for a more comprehensive understanding of the bacteriocinogenic potential of these deep-sea isolates and an insight into the antimicrobial molecules that they may produce.
Racial disparity in infant mortality Matoba, Nana; Collins, James W.
Seminars in perinatology,
October 2017, 2017-10-00, 20171001, Letnik:
41, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In the United States, African-American infants have significantly higher mortality than white infants. Previous work has identified associations between individual socioeconomic factors and select ...community-level factors. In this review, the authors look beyond traditional risk factors for infant mortality and examine the social context of race in this country, in an effort to understand African-American women’s long-standing birth outcome disadvantage. In the process, recent insights are highlighted concerning neighborhood-level factors such as crime, segregation, built environment, and institutional racism, other likely causes for the poor outcomes of African-American infants in this country compared with infants in most other industrialized nations.
We analyze subdaily continental convective precipitation data relative to the Southeastern U.S. from gridded rain gauge measurements, conventional global climate models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model ...Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) archive, and a multiscale GCM. GCMs react too quickly to local convective instability and, therefore, overestimate the incidence of middle rainfall events and underestimate the incidence of no, little, and heavy rainfall events. Moreover, GCMs overestimate the persistence of heavy precipitation and underestimate the persistence of no and light precipitation. In general, GCMs with suppression mechanisms in the treatments of convective precipitation compare best with rain gauge derived data and should be trusted more than the others when assessing the risk from extreme precipitation events. The multiscale GCM has the best estimate of the diurnal cycle and a good estimate of heavy rainfall persistence.
Key Points
Climate model underestimate continental sub‐daily extreme precipitation
Inhibition factors make simulated cumulus convection more realistic
A multiscale model improves diurnal cycle and heavy rainfall persistence
Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) can be exacerbated by haemostatic failure. We hypothesized that early fibrinogen replacement, guided by viscoelastometric testing, reduces blood product usage and bleed ...size.
Women with PPH 1000–1500 ml were enrolled. If Fibtem A5 was ≤15 mm and bleeding continued, subjects were randomized to fibrinogen concentrate or placebo. The primary outcome compared the number of units of red blood cells, plasma, cryoprecipitate and platelets transfused.
Of 663 women enrolled 55 were randomized. The adjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) (95% CI) for the number of allogeneic units transfused in the fibrinogen group compared with placebo was 0.72 (0.3–1.7), P=0.45. In pre-specified subgroup analyses, subjects who had a Fibtem A5 ≤12 mm at the time of randomization and who received fibrinogen concentrate received a median (25th–75th centile) of 1 (0–4.5) unit of allogeneic blood products and had an additional 300 (100–350) ml blood loss whereas those who received placebo also received 3 (0–6) units of allogeneic blood products and had 700 (200–1550) ml additional blood loss; these differences were not statistically significantly different. There was one thrombotic event in each group.
Infusion of fibrinogen concentrate triggered by Fibtem A5 ≤15 mm did not improve outcomes in PPH. Pre-specified subgroup analyses suggest that fibrinogen replacement is not required if the Fibtem A5 is > 12 mm or Clauss fibrinogen >2 g litre−1, but an effect below these levels cannot be excluded. The raised fibrinogen at term appears to be a physiological buffer rather than required for haemostasis.
ISRCTN46295339 (http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN46295339, last accessed 5 July 2017), EudraCT 2012-005511-11 (https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/search?query=2012-005511-11, last accessed 5 July 2017).
The Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Model Intercomparison Project (ACCMIP) consists of a series of time slice experiments targeting the long-term changes in atmospheric composition between 1850 and ...2100, with the goal of documenting composition changes and the associated radiative forcing. In this overview paper, we introduce the ACCMIP activity, the various simulations performed (with a requested set of 14) and the associated model output. The 16 ACCMIP models have a wide range of horizontal and vertical resolutions, vertical extent, chemistry schemes and interaction with radiation and clouds. While anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions were specified for all time slices in the ACCMIP protocol, it is found that the natural emissions are responsible for a significant range across models, mostly in the case of ozone precursors. The analysis of selected present-day climate diagnostics (precipitation, temperature, specific humidity and zonal wind) reveals biases consistent with state-of-the-art climate models. The model-to- model comparison of changes in temperature, specific humidity and zonal wind between 1850 and 2000 and between 2000 and 2100 indicates mostly consistent results. However, models that are clear outliers are different enough from the other models to significantly affect their simulation of atmospheric chemistry.
Infection of mice with Citrobacter rodentium is a robust model to study bacterial pathogenesis, mucosal immunology, the health benefits of probiotics and the role of the microbiota during infection. ...C. rodentium was first isolated by Barthold from an outbreak of mouse diarrhea in Yale University in 1972 and was 'rediscovered' by Falkow and Schauer in 1993. Since then the use of the model has proliferated, and it is now the gold standard for studying virulence of the closely related human pathogens enteropathogenic and enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EPEC and EHEC, respectively). Here we provide a detailed protocol for various applications of the model, including bacterial growth, site-directed mutagenesis, mouse inoculation (from cultured cells and after cohabitation), monitoring of bacterial colonization, tissue extraction and analysis, immune responses, probiotic treatment and microbiota analysis. The main protocol, from mouse infection to clearance and analysis of tissues and host responses, takes ∼5 weeks to complete.
When analysts provide forecasts of both earnings and operating cash flow, they also implicitly provide a forecast of total operating accruals. We posit that this increases the transparency and the ...expected costs of accrual manipulations used to manage earnings. As a consequence, we predict and find that accrual quality improves and firms’ propensity to meet or beat earnings benchmarks declines following the provision of cash flow forecasts. We also predict and find that firms turn to other benchmark-beating mechanisms, such as real activities manipulation and earnings guidance in response to the provision of cash flow forecasts.
This paper examines the impact of measuring accruals as the change in successive balance sheet accounts, as opposed to measuring accruals directly from the statement of cash flows. Our primary ...finding is that studies using a balance sheet approach to test for earnings management are potentially contaminated by measurement error in accruals estimates. In particular, if the partitioning variable used to indicate the presence of earnings management is correlated with the occurrence of mergers and acquisitions or discontinued operations, tests are biased and researchers are likely to erroneously conclude that earnings management exists when there is none. Additional results show that the errors in balance sheet accruals estimation can confound returns regressions where discretionary and non-discretionary accruals are used as explanatory variables. Moreover, we demonstrate that tests of market mispricing of accruals will be understated due to erroneous classification of "extreme" accruals firms.
The functions of most long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are unknown. In contrast to proteins, lncRNAs with similar functions often lack linear sequence homology; thus, the identification of function in ...one lncRNA rarely informs the identification of function in others. We developed a sequence comparison method to deconstruct linear sequence relationships in lncRNAs and evaluate similarity based on the abundance of short motifs called k-mers. We found that lncRNAs of related function often had similar k-mer profiles despite lacking linear homology, and that k-mer profiles correlated with protein binding to lncRNAs and with their subcellular localization. Using a novel assay to quantify Xist-like regulatory potential, we directly demonstrated that evolutionarily unrelated lncRNAs can encode similar function through different spatial arrangements of related sequence motifs. K-mer-based classification is a powerful approach to detect recurrent relationships between sequence and function in lncRNAs.
PDF
