Multiple common garden experiments suggest lack of local adaptation in an invasive ornamental plant

Aims: Adaptive evolution along geographic gradients of climatic conditions is suggested to facilitate the spread of invasive plant species, leading to clinal variation among populations in the introduced range. We investigated whether adaptation to climate is also involved in the invasive spread of an ornamental shrub, Buddleja davidii, across western and central Europe. Material and Methods: We combined a common garden experiment, replicated in three climatically different central European regions, with reciprocal transplantation to quantify genetic differentiation in growth and reproductive traits of 20 invasive B. davidii populations. Additionally, we compared compensatory regrowth among populations after clipping of stems to simulate mechanical damage. Important findings: Our results do not provide evidence for clinal variation among invasive B. davidii populations: populations responded similarly to the different environments, and trait values were not correlated to climatic conditions or geographic coordinates of their home sites. Moreover, we did not detect differences in the compensatory ability of populations. We suppose that the invasive spread of B. davidii has been facilitated by phenotypic plasticity rather than by adaptation to climate, and that continent-wide shuffling of cultivars due to horticultural trade may have limited local adaptation so far

Influence of different isoflurane anesthesia protocols on murine cerebral hemodynamics measured with pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling

Arterial spin labeling (ASL)-MRI can noninvasively map cerebral blood flow (CBF) and cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), potential biomarkers of cognitive impairment and dementia. Mouse models of disease are frequently used in translational MRI studies, which are commonly performed under anesthesia. Understanding the influence of the specific anesthesia protocol used on the measured parameters is important for accurate interpretation of hemodynamic studies with mice. Isoflurane is a frequently used anesthetic with vasodilative properties. Here, the influence of three distinct isoflurane protocols was studied with pseudo-continuous ASL in two different mouse strains. The first protocol was a free-breathing set-up with medium concentrations, the second a free-breathing set-up with low induction and maintenance concentrations, and the third a set-up with medium concentrations and mechanical ventilation. A protocol with the vasoconstrictive anesthetic medetomidine was used as a comparison. As expected, medium isoflurane anesthesia resulted in significantly higher CBF and lower CVR values than medetomidine (median whole-brain CBF of 157.7 vs 84.4 mL/100 g/min and CVR of 0.54 vs 51.7% in C57BL/6 J mice). The other two isoflurane protocols lowered the CBF and increased the CVR values compared with medium isoflurane anesthesia, without obvious differences between them (median whole-brain CBF of 138.9 vs 131.7 mL/100 g/min and CVR of 10.0 vs 9.6%, in C57BL/6 J mice). Furthermore, CVR was shown to be dependent on baseline CBF, regardless of the anesthesia protocol used

Distinct Genetic Loci Control Plasma HIV-RNA and Cellular HIV-DNA Levels in HIV-1 Infection: The ANRS Genome Wide Association 01 Study

Previous studies of the HIV-1 disease have shown that HLA and Chemokine receptor genetic variants influence disease progression and early viral load. We performed a Genome Wide Association study in a cohort of 605 HIV-1-infected seroconverters for detection of novel genetic factors that influence plasma HIV-RNA and cellular HIV-DNA levels. Most of the SNPs strongly associated with HIV-RNA levels were localised in the 6p21 major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region and were in the vicinity of class I and III genes. Moreover, protective alleles for four disease-associated SNPs in the MHC locus (rs2395029, rs13199524, rs12198173 and rs3093662) were strikingly over-represented among forty-five Long Term HIV controllers. Furthermore, we show that the HIV-DNA levels (reflecting the HIV reservoir) are associated with the same four SNPs, but also with two additional SNPs on chromosome 17 (rs6503919; intergenic region flanked by the DDX40 and YPEL2 genes) and chromosome 8 (rs2575735; within the Syndecan 2 gene). Our data provide evidence that the MHC controls both HIV replication and HIV reservoir. They also indicate that two additional genomic loci may influence the HIV reservoir

EVolution : an edge-based variational method for non-rigid multi-modal image registration

Image registration is part of a large variety of medical applications including diagnosis, monitoring disease progression and/or treatment effectiveness and, more recently, therapy guidance. Such applications usually involve several imaging modalities such as ultrasound, computed tomography, positron emission tomography, x-ray or magnetic resonance imaging, either separately or combined. In the current work, we propose a non-rigid multi-modal registration method (namely EVolution: an edge-based variational method for non-rigid multi-modal image registration) that aims at maximizing edge alignment between the images being registered. The proposed algorithm requires only contrasts between physiological tissues, preferably present in both image modalities, and assumes deformable/elastic tissues. Given both is shown to be well suitable for non-rigid co-registration across different image types/contrasts (T1/T2) as well as different modalities (CT/MRI). This is achieved using a variational scheme that provides a fast algorithm with a low number of control parameters. Results obtained on an annotated CT data set were comparable to the ones provided by state-of-the-art multi-modal image registration algorithms, for all tested experimental conditions (image pre-filtering, image intensity variation, noise perturbation). Moreover, we demonstrate that, compared to existing approaches, our method possesses increased robustness to transient structures (i.e. that are only present in some of the images)

Real-time artefact corrections for quantitative MR temperature mapping

Apart from anatomical and physiological imaging, MRI can also be used to produce temperature maps. Our objective is to obtain such maps in real-time to monitor mini-invasive thermal therapies. The acquisition procedure of temperature MRI produces specific artefacts : noise generated by MRI, motion artefacts and geometric distortions. Here, numerical methods are described for attenuation of such artefacts. The methods are based on a physical description of the origin of such artefacts in MR temperature mapping

Correction for photobleaching in dynamic fluorescence microscopy : application in the assessment of pharmacokinetic parameters in ultrasound-mediated drug delivery

We have previously demonstrated the feasibility of monitoring ultrasound-mediated uptake of a hydrophilic model drug in real time with dynamic confocal fluorescence microscopy. In this study, we evaluate and correct the impact of photobleaching to improve the accuracy of pharmacokinetic parameter estimates. To model photobleaching of the fluorescent model drug SYTOX Green, a photobleaching process was added to the current two-compartment model describing cell uptake. After collection of the uptake profile, a second acquisition was performed when SYTOX Green was equilibrated, to evaluate the photobleaching rate experimentally. Photobleaching rates up to 5.0 10(-3) s(-1) were measured when applying power densities up to 0.2 W.cm(-2). By applying the three-compartment model, the model drug uptake rate of 6.0 10(-3) s(-1) was measured independent of the applied laser power. The impact of photobleaching on uptake rate estimates measured by dynamic fluorescence microscopy was evaluated. Subsequent compensation improved the accuracy of pharmacokinetic parameter estimates in the cell population subjected to sonopermeabilization

Accelerating multi-modal image registration using a supervoxel-based variational framework

For the successful completion of medical interventional procedures, several concepts, such as daily positioning compensation, dose accumulation or delineation propagation, rely on establishing a spatial coherence between planning images and images acquired at different time instants over the course of the therapy. To meet this need, image-based motion estimation and compensation relies on fast, automatic, accurate and precise registration algorithms. However, image registration quickly becomes a challenging and computationally intensive task, especially when multiple imaging modalities are involved. In the current study, a novel framework is introduced to reduce the computational overhead of variational registration methods. The proposed framework selects representative voxels of the registration process, based on a supervoxel algorithm. Costly calculations are hereby restrained to a subset of voxels, leading to a less expensive spatial regularized interpolation process. The novel framework is tested in conjunction with the recently proposed EVolution multi-modal registration method. This results in an algorithm requiring a low number of input parameters, is easily parallelizable and provides an elastic voxel-wise deformation with a subvoxel accuracy. The performance of the proposed accelerated registration method is evaluated on cross-contrast abdominal T1/T2 MR-scans undergoing a known deformation and annotated CT-images of the lung. We also analyze the ability of the method to capture slow physiological drifts during MR-guided high intensity focused ultrasound therapies and to perform multi-modal CT/MR registration in the abdomen. Results have shown that computation time can be reduced by 75% on the same hardware with no negative impact on the accuracy

On the suitability of Elekta's Agility 160 MLC for tracked radiation delivery : closed-loop machine performance

For motion adaptive radiotherapy, dynamic multileaf collimator tracking can be employed to reduce treatment margins by steering the beam according to the organ motion. The Elekta Agility 160 MLC has hitherto not been evaluated for its tracking suitability. Both dosimetric performance and latency are key figures and need to be assessed generically, independent of the used motion sensor. In this paper, we propose the use of harmonic functions directly fed to the MLC to determine its latency during continuous motion. Furthermore, a control variable is extracted from a camera system and fed to the MLC. Using this setup, film dosimetry and subsequent. statistics are performed, evaluating the response when tracking (MRI)-based physiologic motion in a closed-loop. The delay attributed to the MLC itself was shown to be a minor contributor to the overall feedback chain as compared to the impact of imaging components such as MRI sequences. Delay showed a linear phase behaviour of the MLC employed in continuously dynamic applications, which enables a general MLC-characterization. Using the exemplary feedback chain, dosimetry showed a vast increase in pass rate employing. statistics. In this early stage, the tracking performance of the Agility using the test bench yielded promising results, making the technique eligible for translation to tracking using clinical imaging modalities

On-line 3D motion estimation using low resolution MRI

Image processing such as deformable image registration finds its way into radiotherapy as a means to track non-rigid anatomy. With the advent of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided radiotherapy, intrafraction anatomy snapshots become technically feasible. MRI provides the needed tissue signal for high-fidelity image registration. However, acquisitions, especially in 3D, take a considerable amount of time. Pushing towards real-time adaptive radiotherapy, MRI needs to be accelerated without degrading the quality of information. In this paper, we investigate the impact of image resolution on the quality of motion estimations. Potentially, spatially undersampled images yield comparable motion estimations. At the same time, their acquisition times would reduce greatly due to the sparser sampling. In order to substantiate this hypothesis, exemplary 4D datasets of the abdomen were downsampled gradually. Subsequently, spatiotemporal deformations are extracted consistently using the same motion estimation for each downsampled dataset. Errors between the original and the respectively downsampled version of the dataset are then evaluated. Compared to ground-truth, results show high similarity of deformations estimated from downsampled image data. Using a dataset with (2.5 mm)3 voxel size, deformation fields could be recovered well up to a downsampling factor of 2, i.e. (5 mm)3. In a therapy guidance scenario MRI, imaging speed could accordingly increase approximately fourfold, with acceptable loss of estimated motion quality