Systematic Analysis of Impact of Sampling Regions and Storage Methods on Fecal Gut Microbiome and Metabolome Profiles.

The contribution of human gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota and metabolites to host health has recently become much clearer. However, many confounding factors can influence the accuracy of gut microbiome and metabolome studies, resulting in inconsistencies in published results. In this study, we systematically investigated the effects of fecal sampling regions and storage and retrieval conditions on gut microbiome and metabolite profiles from three healthy children. Our analysis indicated that compared to homogenized and snap-frozen samples (standard control [SC]), different sampling regions did not affect microbial community alpha diversity, while a total of 22 of 176 identified metabolites varied significantly across different sampling regions. In contrast, storage conditions significantly influenced the microbiome and metabolome. Short-term room temperature storage had a minimal effect on the microbiome and metabolome profiles. Sample storage in RNALater showed a significant level of variation in both microbiome and metabolome profiles, independent of the storage or retrieval conditions. The effect of RNALater on the metabolome was stronger than the effect on the microbiome, and individual variability between study participants outweighed the effect of RNALater on the microbiome. We conclude that homogenizing stool samples was critical for metabolomic analysis but not necessary for microbiome analysis. Short-term room temperature storage had a minimal effect on the microbiome and metabolome profiles and is recommended for short-term fecal sample storage. In addition, our study indicates that the use of RNALater as a storage medium of stool samples for microbial and metabolomic analyses is not recommended.IMPORTANCE The gastrointestinal microbiome and metabolome can provide a new angle to understand the development of health and disease. Stool samples are most frequently used for large-scale cohort studies. Standardized procedures for stool sample handling and storage can be a determining factor for performing microbiome or metabolome studies. In this study, we focused on the effects of stool sampling regions and stool sample storage conditions on variations in the gut microbiome composition and metabolome profile

Quasi-exactly solvable cases of the N-dimensional symmetric quartic anharmonic oscillator

The O(N) invariant quartic anharmonic oscillator is shown to be exactly solvable if the interaction parameter satisfies special conditions. The problem is directly related to that of a quantum double well anharmonic oscillator in an external field. A finite dimensional matrix equation for the problem is constructed explicitly, along with analytical expressions for some excited states in the system. The corresponding Niven equations for determining the polynomial solutions for the problem are given.Comment: 7 pages, RevTeX4. A discussion on the N=1 case has been added with the boundary condition properly treate

Control of Anticoagulation Therapy in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation Treated with Warfarin:A Study from the Chinese Atrial Fibrillation Registry

Background: Several factors determine the efficacy of warfarin anticoagulation in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This study aimed to use data from the Chinese Atrial Fibrillation Registry study to assess the control of anticoagulation therapy in Chinese patients with NVAF treated with warfarin. Material/Methods: From the Chinese Atrial Fibrillation Registry study the anticoagulant use and dosing, the time in therapeutic range (TTR) of the international normalized ratio (INR), and standard deviation of the observed INR values (SD INR), and their influencing factors were evaluated. Results: The median INR and SD INR were 2.04 (IQR 1.71–2.41) and 0.50 (IQR, 0.35–0.69), respectively. The median TTR was 51.7% (IQR, 30.6–70.1%) and only 25.1% had a TTR ≥70%. Age was ≥70 years (OR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.55–0.94; P=0.015), bleeding history (OR 0.48; 95% CI, 0.23–0.89; P=0.029), the use of a single drug (OR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.42–0.92; P=0.016), more than drug (OR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.41–0.88; P=0.009), and lack of assessment of bleeding risk (OR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.54–0.97; P=0.033) were associated with TTR &lt;70% (INR 2.0–3.0). Coronary heart disease (CHD) and peripheral artery disease (PAD) (OR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.52–0.90; P=0.007) and diabetes mellitus (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.62–0.99; P=0.044) were associated with increased variability in INR (SD INR ≥0.5). Conclusions: In Chinese patients with NVAF, warfarin anticoagulation was associated with lower TTR and less stable anticoagulation than in current guidelines, and risk factors for reduced safety and efficacy were identified. </p

Nanodiamond as a vector for siRNA delivery to Ewing sarcoma cells

We investigated the ability of diamond nanoparticles (nanodiamonds, NDs) to deliver small interfering RNA (siRNA) in Ewing sarcoma cells, in the perspective of in vivo anti-cancer nucleic acid drug delivery. siRNA was adsorbed onto NDs previously coated with cationic polymer. Cell uptake of NDs has been demonstrated by taking advantage of NDs intrinsic fluorescence coming from embedded color center defects. Cell toxicity of these coated NDs was shown to be low. Consistent with the internalization efficacy, we have shown a specific inhibition of EWS/Fli-1 gene expression at the mRNA and protein level by the ND vectorized siRNA in a serum containing medium

Broken rotational symmetry in the pseudogap phase of a high-Tc superconductor

The nature of the pseudogap phase is a central problem in the quest to understand high-Tc cuprate superconductors. A fundamental question is what symmetries are broken when that phase sets in below a temperature T*. There is evidence from both polarized neutron diffraction and polar Kerr effect measurements that time- reversal symmetry is broken, but at temperatures that differ significantly. Broken rotational symmetry was detected by both resistivity and inelastic neutron scattering at low doping and by scanning tunnelling spectroscopy at low temperature, but with no clear connection to T*. Here we report the observation of a large in-plane anisotropy of the Nernst effect in YBa2Cu3Oy that sets in precisely at T*, throughout the doping phase diagram. We show that the CuO chains of the orthorhombic lattice are not responsible for this anisotropy, which is therefore an intrinsic property of the CuO2 planes. We conclude that the pseudogap phase is an electronic state which strongly breaks four-fold rotational symmetry. This narrows the range of possible states considerably, pointing to stripe or nematic orders.Comment: Published version. Journal reference and DOI adde

Directionality of large-scale resting-state brain networks during eyes open and eyes closed conditions

The present study examined directional connections in the brain among resting-state networks (RSNs) when the participant had their eyes open (E0) or had their eyes closed (EC). The resting state fMRI data were collected from 20 healthy participants (9 males, 20.17 +/- 2.74 years) under the EO and EC states. Independent component analysis (ICA) was applied to identify the separated RSNs (i.e., the primary/high-level visual, primary sensory-motor, ventral motor, salience/dorsal attention, and anterior/posterior default-mode networks), and the Gaussian Bayesian network (BN) learning approach was then used to explore the conditional dependencies among these RSNs. The network-to-network directional connections related to EO and EC were depicted, and a support vector machine (SVM) was further employed to identify the directional connection patterns that could effectively discriminate between the two states. The results indicated that the connections among RSNs are directionally connected within a BN during the EO and EC states. The directional connections from the salience network (SN) to the anterior/posterior default-mode networks and the high-level to primary-level visual network were the obvious characteristics of both the EO and EC resting-state BNs. Of the directional connections in BN, the directional connections of the salience and dorsal attention network (DAN) were observed to be discriminative between the EO and EC states. In particular, we noted that the properties of the salience and DANs were in opposite directions. Overall, the present study described the directional connections of RSNs using a BN learning approach during the E0 and EC states, and the results suggested that the directionality of the attention systems (i.e., mainly for the salience and the DAN) in resting state might have Important roles in switching between the EO and EC conditions

High Prevalence and Genetic Heterogeneity of Rodent-Borne Bartonella Species on Heixiazi Island, China

We performed genetic analysis of Bartonella isolates from rodent populations from Heixiazi Island in northeast China. Animals were captured at four sites representing grassland and brushwood habitats in 2011 and examined for the prevalence and genetic diversity of Bartonella species, their relationship to their hosts, and geographic distribution. A high prevalence (57.7%) and a high diversity (14 unique genotypes which belonged to 8 clades) of Bartonella spp. were detected from 71 rodents comprising 5 species and 4 genera from 3 rodent families. Forty-one Bartonella isolates were recovered and identified, including B. taylorii, B. japonica, B. coopersplainsensis, B. grahamii, B. washoensis subsp. cynomysii, B. doshiae, and two novel Bartonella species, by sequencing of four genes (gltA, the 16S rRNA gene, ftsZ, and rpoB). The isolates of B. taylorii and B. grahamii were the most prevalent and exhibited genetic difference from isolates identified elsewhere. Several isolates clustered with strains from Japan and far-eastern Russia; strains isolated from the same host typically were found within the same cluster. Species descriptions are provided for Bartonella heixiaziensis sp. nov. and B. fuyuanensis sp. nov