Intracellular NAD+ levels are associated with LPS-induced TNF-α release in pro-inflammatory macrophages

Bacterial lipopolysaccharide induces changes in intracellular NAD+ levels in a pro-inflammatory, but not an anti-inflammatory, macrophage model that are correlated with the release of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α).</jats:p

Combination of decisions from a multiple neural network classifier system

In this paper, a study of the effectiveness of a multiple classifier system (MCS) in a medical diagnostic task is described. A hybrid network, based on the integration of a fuzzy ARTMAP and the probabilistic neural network, is employed as the basis of the MCS. Outputs from multiple networks are combined using some decision combination method to reach a final prediction. By using a real medical database, a set of experiments has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the MSC with different network configurations. The experimental results reveal the potential of the MCS as a useful decision support tool in the medical field.<br /

Effect of dietary components on the gut microbiota of aquatic animals. A never-ending story?

It is well known that healthy gut microbiota is essential to promote host health and well-being. The intestinal microbiota of endothermic animals as well as fish are classified as autochthonous or indigenous, when they are able to colonize the host's epithelial surface or are associated with the microvilli, or as allochthonous or transient (associated with digesta or are present in the lumen). Furthermore, the gut microbiota of aquatic animals is more fluidic than that of terrestrial vertebrates and is highly sensitive to dietary changes. In fish, it is demonstrated that [a] dietary form (live feeds or pelleted diets), [b] dietary lipid (lipid levels, lipid sources and polyunsaturated fatty acids), [c] protein sources (soybean meal, krill meal and other meal products), [d] functional glycomic ingredients (chitin and cellulose), [e] nutraceuticals (probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics and immunostimulants), [f] antibiotics, [g] dietary iron and [h] chromic oxide affect the gut microbiota. Furthermore, some information is available on bacterial colonization of the gut enterocyte surface as a result of dietary manipulation which indicates that changes in indigenous microbial populations may have repercussion on secondary host–microbe interactions. The effect of dietary components on the gut microbiota is important to investigate, as the gastrointestinal tract has been suggested as one of the major routes of infection in fish. Possible interactions between dietary components and the protective microbiota colonizing the digestive tract are discussed