Corneal Thickness in Pigs Measured by Ultrasound Pachymetry In Vivo

The objective was to evaluate the normal thickness and diameter of the pig cornea using, under general  anesthesia, 13 female, young, domestic Danish Landrace pigs. The thickness was measured, for the first  time in vivo, and were: 666 μm centrally, 657 μm nasally, 713 μm inferiorly, 669 μm temporally, and 714  μm superiorly (mean values). The cornea diameters were also measured, using calipers, and were: 14.9 mm  horizontally and 12.4 mm vertically (mean values). Conclusion: The pig cornea is only slightly thicker than  the human cornea. However, unlike the human cornea, no significant difference in thickness exists between  the central and the tempero-nasal peripheral locations of the pig cornea. The pig could prove useful as  source for corneas in human xenotransplantation.

Deficiency of the BMP Type I receptor ALK3 partly protects mice from anemia of inflammation

Background: Inflammatory stimuli induce the hepatic iron regulatory hormone hepcidin, which contributes to anaemia of inflammation (AI). Hepcidin expression is regulated by the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) and the interleukin-6 (IL-6) signalling pathways. Prior results indicate that the BMP type I receptor ALK3 is mainly involved in the acute inflammatory hepcidin induction four and 72 h after IL-6 administration. In this study, the role of ALK3 in a chronic model of inflammation was investigated. The intact, heat-killed bacterium Brucella abortus (BA) was used to analyse its effect on the development of inflammation and hypoferremia in mice with hepatocyte-specific Alk3-deficiency (Alk3fl/fl; Alb-Cre) compared to control (Alk3fl/fl) mice. Results: An iron restricted diet prevented development of the iron overload phenotype in mice with hepatocyte-specific Alk3 deficiency. Regular diet leads to iron overload and increased haemoglobin levels in these mice, which protects from the development of AI per se. Fourteen days after BA injection Alk3fl/fl; Alb-Cre mice presented milder anaemia (Hb 16.7 g/dl to 11.6 g/dl) compared to Alk3fl/fl control mice (Hb 14.9 g/dl to 8.6 g/dl). BA injection led to an intact inflammatory response in all groups of mice. In Alk3fl/fl; Alb-Cre mice, SMAD1/5/8 phosphorylation was reduced after BA as well as after infection with Staphylococcus aureus. The reduction of the SMAD1/5/8 signalling pathway due to hepatocyte-specific Alk3 deficiency partly suppressed the induction of STAT3 signalling. Conclusion: The results reveal in vivo, that 1) hepatocyte-specific Alk3 deficiency partly protects from AI, 2) the development of hypoferremia is partly dependent on ALK3, and 3) the ALK3/BMP/hepcidin axis may serve as a possible therapeutic target to attenuate AI

Interoperability of institutional data management systems

Motivation • Awareness of FAIR data requirements is rising • We have come FAR but: Interoperability is the remaining challenge for productive systems Here we present • Description of the existing infrastructures and interfaces at GEOMAR • Challenges to reach interoperability • A roadmap with planned steps to g

THREDDS Data Server a simplified way to discover and access scientific data at GEOMAR

One of today‘s challenge is the effective access to scientific data either within research groups or across different institutions to allow and increase the reusability of the data. While large operational modeling and service centers have enabled query and access to data via common web services, this is often not the case for smaller research groups. Especially the maintenance of the infrastructure and simple workflows to make the data available is a common challenge for scientists and data management. Here we would like to introduce the updated THREDDS Data Server (TDS) available at GEOMAR to provide, query, access and explore scientific data in netcdf format. This includes a simple and well documented workflow with step-by-step guidelines to provide data to the TDS system. This workflow aims to maximize the use of semi-automated processes, such as data integrity including standard metadata, checksums and persistent identifiers. By doing so, this workflow minimizes extra workload for persons involved in the data provision procedure such as scientists, data stewards and data managers but maximizes data reusibility under the FAIR principles. The TDS is a system developed and maintained by Unidata,a division of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). The aim of the TDS is 1) to make it simple to enable web service access to existing output files, 2) using free technologies that are easy to deploy and configure, and 3) provide standardized, service-based tools that work in existing research environments. The TDS provides catalog, metadata, and data access services for scientific datasets with remote data access protocols including OPeNDAP, OGC WCS, OGC WMS, and HTTPS. These standardized services enable reusability and increase the visibility of scientific datasets. We will show examples using viewer technologies to access datasets or directly explore these within common development environments such as Python or MATLAB