Evaluation of Glucose Monitoring Technologies for Cost Effective and Quality Control/Management of Diabetes

The diabetes epidemic in the United States (U.S.) has become a burden in regards to treatment, disease management, and associated costs. Key advancements in medical technology have been developed in efforts to mitigate this issue. We compare several types of glucose monitoring systems with respect to quality of care, management, and cost-effectiveness for type 1 and type 2 diabetics

Medlinella amphoroidea gen. et sp. nov. (Bacillariophyta) from the neck skin of Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta)

Medlinella amphoroidea gen. et sp. nov. is described from the dorsal neck skin of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta). The presence of girdle septa, multiple copulae, and the marine epizoic habitat of Medlinella amphoroidea are characteristic features shared with many species in the similar Tripterion, Chelonicola, and Poulinea genera. The semi-lanceolate valve shape, the asymmetric valve face with distinct dorsal and ventral striae, and the volate pore occlusions distinguish Medlinella from these genera. Medlinella amphoroidea accounted for up to 50% of all diatom valves on the skin of examined loggerhead turtles. Examination of the type slides of Tripterion kalamensis and T. philoderma for comparative purposes revealed morphological features that were either insufficiently or incorrectly described in the original publications. Our observations confirm that T. philoderma lacks septa and therefore does not conform to the genus description of Tripterion. The description of cingulum structure in Tripterion kalamensis is amended to identify multiple porose copulae that are open at one end. While the description of Medlinella creates another monotypic genus within a group of similar marine epizoic genera, we feel the novel character state (volate occlusions) present in this taxon is significant. Clearly, however, further phylogenetic analysis of morphological, or the development of molecular characters in the group of similar genera is required

Shared Mycobacterium avium Genotypes Observed among Unlinked Clinical and Environmental Isolates

Our understanding of the sources of Mycobacterium avium infection is partially based on genotypic matching of pathogen isolates from cases and environmental sources. These approaches assume that genotypic identity is rare in isolates from unlinked cases or sources. To test this assumption, a high-resolution PCR-based genotyping approach, large-sequence polymorphism (LSP)-mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit–variable-number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR), was selected and used to analyze clinical and environmental isolates of M. avium from geographically diverse sources. Among 127 clinical isolates from seven locations in North America, South America, and Europe, 42 genotypes were observed. Among 12 of these genotypes, matches were seen in isolates from apparently unlinked patients in two or more geographic locations. Six of the 12 were also observed in environmental isolates. A subset of these isolates was further analyzed by alternative strain genotyping methods, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and MIRU-VNTR, which confirmed the existence of geographically dispersed strain genotypes. These results suggest that caution should be exercised in interpreting high-resolution genotypic matches as evidence for an acquisition event

Cultivating epizoic diatoms provides insights into the evolution and ecology of both epibionts and hosts

11 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-19064-0.-- Data availability: DNA sequence data generated for this study are published on the NCBI GenBank online sequence depository under the accession numbers listed in Table S1. Additional micrographs and cleaned voucher material from the sequenced cultures are available from lead author MPAOur understanding of the importance of microbiomes on large aquatic animals—such as whales, sea turtles and manatees—has advanced considerably in recent years. The latest observations indicate that epibiotic diatom communities constitute diverse, polyphyletic, and compositionally stable assemblages that include both putatively obligate epizoic and generalist species. Here, we outline a successful approach to culture putatively obligate epizoic diatoms without their hosts. That some taxa can be cultured independently from their epizoic habitat raises several questions about the nature of the interaction between these animals and their epibionts. This insight allows us to propose further applications and research avenues in this growing area of study. Analyzing the DNA sequences of these cultured strains, we found that several unique diatom taxa have evolved independently to occupy epibiotic habitats. We created a library of reference sequence data for use in metabarcoding surveys of sea turtle and manatee microbiomes that will further facilitate the use of environmental DNA for studying host specificity in epizoic diatoms and the utility of diatoms as indicators of host ecology and health. We encourage the interdisciplinary community working with marine megafauna to consider including diatom sampling and diatom analysis into their routine practicesFinancial support for sequencing and SEM comes from the Jane and the Roland Blumberg Centennial Professorship in Molecular Evolution at UT Austin and the US Department of Defense (grant number W911NF-17-2-0091). Sampling in South Africa was done with partial financial support from The Systematics Association (UK) through the Systematics Research Fund Award granted to RM (2017 and 2020). Work in the Adriatic Sea was supported by Croatian Science Foundation, project UIP-05-2017-5635 (TurtleBIOME). KF has been fully supported by the “Young researchers' career development project – training of doctoral students” of the CSF funded by the EU from the European Social Fund. NJR was funded by the Spanish government (AEI) through the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S)Peer reviewe