Korte historiek van het aandeel van de diergeneeskunde in het experimenteel onderzoek in de humane geneeskunde = A short description of veterinary contributions to experimental research in human medicine

A short description is given of the life and work of scientists active in veterinary research, who contributed substantially to the knowledge of human disease and health. Microbiology and immunology were their main fields of interest. Important microbiologists include Edmond Nocard, Karl F. Meyer, Daniel Salmon, Victor Babes and Arnold Theiler. Still others were mainly active as immunologists. Gaston Ramon's works on bacterial toxins resulted in effective vaccines against tetanos as well as diphteritis, until then an important cause of child mortality. Early findings of Auguste Chauveau established a basis for understanding immunity to microbial diseases. Nobel prize-winning Peter C. Doherty helped to elucidate the complex mechanisms of cellular immunity

Dieren als drijfkracht = Animals powering machines

A short description is given of horse- and dog-powered machines, which freed humans from several types of hard slave labor. Horse-driven norias helped to evacuate water in the construction of canals. The well-known horse mills were mainly used for milling wheat and other grains to meal. On dairy farms, dog-powered treadmills took over from maids and peasant women the heavy task of producing butter by keping cream in rapid motion in order to separate fat. Dogs also powered very diverse ustensils such as roasting spits in large kitchens and bellows in forgeries

Reduced structural flexibility of eplet amino acids in HLA proteins

International audienceThe proteins encoded in the HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) system are largely responsible for the compatibility in organ transplants. To date, the molecular determinants involved in recognizing HLA antigens by recipient antibodies are unknown. Here we explore flexibility as a potential determinant. For this purpose, we compare in terms of N-RMSF (Normalized Root Mean Square Fluctuation) amino acids labeled as confirmed eplets (regions defined around polymorphic amino acids) against amino acids that have not been reported as eplets. We found that eplet amino acids tend to be less flexible than non-eplet amino acids, which would indicate that the antibodies would have a preference for binding with less mobile regions

Phylogenetic Analysis of a Spontaneous Cocoa Bean Fermentation Metagenome Reveals New Insights into Its Bacterial and Fungal Community Diversity

This is the first report on the phylogenetic analysis of the community diversity of a single spontaneous cocoa bean box fermentation sample through a metagenomic approach involving 454 pyrosequencing. Several sequence-based and composition-based taxonomic profiling tools were used and evaluated to avoid software-dependent results and their outcome was validated by comparison with previously obtained culture-dependent and culture-independent data. Overall, this approach revealed a wider bacterial (mainly γ-Proteobacteria) and fungal diversity than previously found. Further, the use of a combination of different classification methods, in a software-independent way, helped to understand the actual composition of the microbial ecosystem under study. In addition, bacteriophage-related sequences were found. The bacterial diversity depended partially on the methods used, as composition-based methods predicted a wider diversity than sequence-based methods, and as classification methods based solely on phylogenetic marker genes predicted a more restricted diversity compared with methods that took all reads into account. The metagenomic sequencing analysis identified Hanseniaspora uvarum, Hanseniaspora opuntiae, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Lactobacillus fermentum, and Acetobacter pasteurianus as the prevailing species. Also, the presence of occasional members of the cocoa bean fermentation process was revealed (such as Erwinia tasmaniensis, Lactobacillus brevis, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactococcus lactis, Leuconostoc mesenteroides, and Oenococcus oeni). Furthermore, the sequence reads associated with viral communities were of a restricted diversity, dominated by Myoviridae and Siphoviridae, and reflecting Lactobacillus as the dominant host. To conclude, an accurate overview of all members of a cocoa bean fermentation process sample was revealed, indicating the superiority of metagenomic sequencing over previously used techniques