Van beeld naar Beslissing

Door vergrijzing van de bevolking neemt de vraag naar medische zorg aanzienlijk toe. Daarnaast beschikken artsen over steeds meer informatie om de juiste zorg te bepalen. Om voor de toekomst goede en betaalbare zorg te waarborgen, zal deze effectiever en efficiënter moeten worden. Medische beeldanalyse kan hieraan een belangrijke bijdrage leveren. Met behulp van beeldanalyse kunnen artsen beter en sneller de in de medische beelden aanwezige informatie vertalen naar inzicht in het patiëntspecifieke ziektebeeld, om zo beter en sneller beslissingen te nemen over de toe te passen therapie. In deze rede beschrijft Breeuwer de huidige status van cardiovasculaire beeldanalyse algoritmiek en gaat hij in op de onderzoeksvragen voor de toekomst. Hij concentreert zich daarbij op de toepassing van cardiovasculaire beeldanalyse algoritmiek op magnetische resonantie beelden

Lack of evidence for western flower thrips biotypes base don intra and inter-strain variation in gut bacteria

Western flower thrips is a polyphagous insect, which during the last 30 years has become a world wide pest. It was found earlier that these thrips are associated with a type of Erwinia species gut bacteria. In this study we examine the variation of bacteria within and between thrips individuals and try to find evidence for biotypes in western flower thrips regarding the type of gut bacteria. The existence of biotypes in this thrips species has been suggested by different authors. For example, thrips populations have been found that differ in resistance against pesticides and in their ability to transmit plant viruses. With biotypes we mean groups of individuals (strains, populations, lines) of a species which differ in one or more traits with other groups of that species. The gut bacteria of thrips are acquired by young thrips larvae via the host plant and have a beneficial effect on thrips development and oviposition. We studied thrips strains from different countries and host plants, and the isofemale lines that were created from them, on bean plant leaves. All thrips lines that we studied contained Erwinia species gut bacteria. Morphological and biochemical characteristics of gut bacteria from the thrips isofemale lines were similar to the Erwinia type strain from the reference, a thrips strain cultured on chrysanthemum in Amsterdam (TAC 93.XII.8). Per isofemale line we studied five thrips individuals and per thrips we studied four bacterial colonies, with RAPD markers. The genetic variation between bacteria isolated from thrips was as large among isofemale lines as within isofemale lines. No evidence for thrips biotypes was found. Bacteria within one thrips individual show a stronger degree of similarity than bacteria from different thrips individuals within a single rearing. This is probably due to a bottleneck caused by the limited number of successful infections of bacteria into the gut of the thrip

Perfusion dyssynchrony analysis

AIMS: We sought to describe perfusion dyssynchrony analysis specifically to exploit the high temporal resolution of stress perfusion CMR. This novel approach detects differences in the temporal distribution of the wash-in of contrast agent across the left ventricular wall.METHODS AND RESULTS: Ninety-eight patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) were retrospectively identified. All patients had undergone perfusion CMR at 3T and invasive angiography with fractional flow reserve (FFR) of lesions visually judged &gt;50% stenosis. Stress images were analysed using four different perfusion dyssynchrony indices: the variance and coefficient of variation of the time to maximum signal upslope (V-TTMU and C-TTMU) and the variance and coefficient of variation of the time to peak myocardial signal enhancement (V-TTP and C-TTP). Patients were classified according to the number of vessels with haemodynamically significant CAD indicated by FFR &lt;0.8. All indices of perfusion dyssynchrony were capable of identifying the presence of significant CAD. C-TTP &gt;10% identified CAD with sensitivity 0.889, specificity 0.857 (P &lt; 0.0001). All indices correlated with the number of diseased vessels. C-TTP &gt;12% identified multi-vessel disease with sensitivity 0.806, specificity 0.657 (P &lt; 0.0001). C-TTP was also the dyssynchrony index with the best inter- and intra-observer reproducibility. Perfusion dyssynchrony indices showed weak correlation with other invasive and non-invasive measurements of the severity of ischaemia, including FFR, visual ischaemic burden, and MPR.CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that perfusion dyssynchrony analysis is a robust novel approach to the analysis of first-pass perfusion and has the potential to add complementary information to aid assessment of CAD.</p

Diversity and recombination in Wolbachia and Cardinium from Bryobia spider mites

Background Wolbachia and Cardinium are endosymbiotic bacteria infecting many arthropods and manipulating host reproduction. Although these bacteria are maternally transmitted, incongruencies between phylogenies of host and parasite suggest an additional role for occasional horizontal transmission. Consistent with this view is the strong evidence for recombination in Wolbachia, although it is less clear to what extent recombination drives diversification within single host species and genera. Furthermore, little is known concerning the population structures of other insect endosymbionts which co-infect with Wolbachia, such as Cardinium. Here, we explore Wolbachia and Cardinium strain diversity within nine spider mite species (Tetranychidae) from 38 populations, and quantify the contribution of recombination compared to point mutation in generating Wolbachia diversity. Results We found a high level of genetic diversity for Wolbachia, with 36 unique strains detected (64 investigated mite individuals). Sequence data from four Wolbachia genes suggest that new alleles are 7.5 to 11 times more likely to be generated by recombination than point mutation. Consistent with previous reports on more diverse host samples, our data did not reveal evidence for co-evolution of Wolbachia with its host. Cardinium was less frequently found in the mites, but also showed a high level of diversity, with eight unique strains detected in 15 individuals on the basis of only two genes. A lack of congruence among host and Cardinium phylogenies was observed. Conclusions We found a high rate of recombination for Wolbachia strains obtained from host species of the spider mite family Tetranychidae, comparable to rates found for horizontally transmitted bacteria. This suggests frequent horizontal transmission of Wolbachia and/or frequent horizontal transfer of single genes. Our findings strengthens earlier reports of recombination for Wolbachia, and shows that high recombination rates are also present on strains from a restrictive host range. Cardinium was found co-infecting several spider mite species, and phylogenetic comparisons suggest also horizontal transmission of Cardinium among host

Sains Permakanan: Makanan Berfungsi

Kebanyakan pakar farmakologi mengakui bahawa permakanan penting unluk kesihatan dan kesejahteraan. Pada tahun 500 sebelum masihi, hubungan antara farmakologi dengan pemakanan adalah rapat sebagaimana yang dinyatakan oleh Hippocrates, 'Biarkan makanan menjadi ubat anda dan biarkan ubat meniadi makanan anda. Hanya rawatan semulajadi yang memenuhi kritera tersebut.' Orang Yunan kuno membahagikan perubatan kepada tiga kategori, atau diet, farmasi dan perubatan surgeri. Hal ini menunjukkan bahawa adalah makanan sebahagian daripada perubatan yang diamalkan. Dalam sistem perubatan tradisional seperti Ayurveda dan perubatan tradisional Cina, juga tidak ada perbezaan antara makanan dengan ubalan ialtu rnakanan adalah bahagan yang penting untuk mencegah penyakit dan menjaga kesihatan

Spider mite (Acari: Tetranychidae) mitochondrial COI phylogeny reviewed: host plant relationships, phylogeography, reproductive parasites and barcoding

The past 15 years have witnessed a number of molecular studies that aimed to resolve issues of species delineation and phylogeny of mites in the family Tetranychidae. The central part of the mitochondrial COI region has frequently been used for investigating intra- and interspecific variation. All these studies combined yield an extensive database of sequence information of the family Tetranychidae. We assembled this information in a single alignment and performed an overall phylogenetic analysis. The resulting phylogeny shows that important patterns have been overlooked in previous studies, whereas others disappear. It also reveals that mistakes were made in submitting the data to GenBank, which further disturbed interpretation of the data. Our total analysis clearly shows three clades that most likely correspond to the species T. urticae, T. kanzawai and T. truncatus. Intraspecific variation is very high, possibly due to selective sweeps caused by reproductive parasites. We found no evidence for host plant associations and phylogeographic patterns in T. urticae are absent. Finally we evaluate the application of DNA barcoding