Oral candidiasis in Chikungunya viral fever: a case report

A 32 year old Indian male patient presented with chief complaints of a high fever, erythema on ear, severe polyarthritic joint pains & swelling, non pitting pedal oedema, facial puffiness and itching for past four days. He had no significant past medical and drug history and was serologically confirmed to have Chikungunya. Oral cavity inspection revealed whitish non erythematous pseudo membranous plaques on the hard palate, buccal surface of cheek and the floor of the mouth which was later microbiologically confirmed as Candidiasis. He tested negative for HIV and had leucopenia with severe CD4 T-lymphocytopenia. This is the first report of an opportunistic infection with CD4 T-lymphocytopaenia in Chikungunya fever

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Use of the pathfinder network scaling to measure online customer reviews: A theme park study

We use pathfinder network scaling (PENETS) approach to measure and evaluate theme park visitors' online reviews. PFNETS as an effective tool of big data analytics can be used to identify unobserved meaningful interrelationships between concepts. Although there are many research analyzing online reviews, this study is the first attempt to use an analytical approach of PFNETS to explore online reviews in theme park visitor experiences. The article collects 14,142 effective reviews of the world's first Disneyland in California from TripAdvisor. Using parallel and similarity comparison in pathfinder scaling, four individually but fully connected networks were generated to reveal different visitors' experiences in different segments. The findings indicate the dissimilarity of concept relatedness between different segments and revealed the knowledge gap of marketing to different segments in theme parks

Modulation of immune responses by targeting CD169/Siglec-1 with the glycan ligand

A fundamental role in the plant-bacterium interaction for Gram-negative phytopathogenic bacteria is played by membrane constituents, such as proteins, lipopoly- or lipooligosaccharides (LPS, LOS) and Capsule Polysaccharides (CPS). In the frame of the understanding the molecular basis of plant bacterium interaction, the Gram-negative bacterium Agrobacterium vitis was selected in this study. It is a phytopathogenic member of the Rhizobiaceae family and it induces the crown gall disease selectively on grapevines (Vitis vinifera). A. vitis wild type strain F2/5, and its mutant in the quorum sensing gene ΔaviR, were studied. The wild type produces biosurfactants; it is considered a model to study surface motility, and it causes necrosis on grapevine roots and HR (Hypersensitive Response) on tobacco. Conversely, the mutant does not show any surface motility and does not produce any surfactant material; additionally, it induces neither necrosis on grape, nor HR on tobacco. Therefore, the two strains were analyzed to shed some light on the QS regulation of LOS structure and the consequent variation, if any, on HR response. LOS from both strains were isolated and characterized: the two LOS structures maintained several common features and differed for few others. With regards to the common patterns, firstly: the Lipid A region was not phosphorylated at C4 of the non reducing glucosamine but glycosylated by an uronic acid (GalA) unit, secondly: a third Kdo and the rare Dha (3-deoxy-lyxo-2-heptulosaric acid) moiety was present. Importantly, the third Kdo and the Dha residues were substituted by rhamnose in a not stoichiometric fashion, giving four different oligosaccharide species. The proportions among these four species, is the key difference between the LOSs from both the two bacteria. LOS from both strains and Lipid A from wild type A. vitis are now examined for their HR potential in tobacco leaves and grapevine roots