Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy: toward real-time quantification of steatosis in liver

Assessment of fatty liver grafts during orthotopic liver transplantation is a challenge due to the lack of real-time analysis options during surgery. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) could be a new diagnostic tool to quickly assess steatosis. Eight hundred and seventy-eight optical measurements were performed in vivo in 17 patients in liver tissue during surgery and ex vivo on liver resection specimens from 41 patients. Liver steatosis was quantified from the collected optical spectra and compared with the histology analysis from the measurement location by three independent pathologists. Twenty two patients were diagnosed with <5% steatosis, 15 patients had mild steatosis, and four had moderate steatosis. Severe steatosis was not identified. Intraclass correlation between the pathologists analysis was 0.949. A correlation of 0.854 was found between the histology and DRS analyses of liver steatosis ex vivo. For the same liver tissue, a correlation of 0.925 was demonstrated between in vivo and ex vivo DRS analysis for steatosis quantification. DRS can quantify steatosis in liver tissue both in vivo and ex vivo with good agreement compared to histopathology analysis. This analysis can be performed real time and may therefore be useful for fast objective assessment of liver steatosis in liver surgery

The Ascomycota tree of life: A phylum-wide phylogeny clarifies the origin and evolution of fundamental reproductive and ecological traits

We present a 6-gene, 420-species maximum-likelihood phylogeny of Ascomycota, the largest phylum of Fungi. This analysis is the most taxonomically complete to date with species sampled from all 15 currently circumscribed classes. A number of superclass-level nodes that have previously evaded resolution and were unnamed in classifications of the Fungi are resolved for the first time. Based on the 6-gene phylogeny we conducted a phylogenetic informativeness analysis of all 6 genes and a series of ancestral character state reconstructions that focused on morphology of sporocarps, ascus dehiscence, and evolution of nutritional modes and ecologies. A gene-by-gene assessment of phylogenetic informativeness yielded higher levels of informativeness for protein genes (RPB1, RPB2, and TEF1) as compared with the ribosomal genes, which have been the standard bearer in fungal systematics. Our reconstruction of sporocarp characters is consistent with 2 origins for multicellular sexual reproductive structures in Ascomycota, once in the common ancestor of Pezizomycotina and once in the common ancestor of Neolectomycetes. This first report of dual origins of ascomycete sporocarps highlights the complicated nature of assessing homology of morphological traits across Fungi. Furthermore, ancestral reconstruction supports an open sporocarp with an exposed hymenium (apothecium) as the primitive morphology for Pezizomycotina with multiple derivations of the partially (perithecia) or completely enclosed (cleistothecia) sporocarps. Ascus dehiscence is most informative at the class level within Pezizomycotina with most superclass nodes reconstructed equivocally. Character-state reconstructions support a terrestrial, saprobic ecology as ancestral. In contrast to previous studies, these analyses support multiple origins of lichenization events with the loss of lichenization as less frequent and limited to terminal, closely related species