LEGO® bricks as building blocks for centimeter-scale biological environments

LEGO bricks are commercially available interlocking pieces of plastic that are conventionally used as toys. We describe their use to build engineered environments for cm-scale biological systems, in particular plant roots. Specifically, we take advantage of the unique modularity of these building blocks to create inexpensive, transparent, reconfigurable, and highly scalable environments for plant growth in which structural obstacles and chemical gradients can be precisely engineered to mimic soil

A Realistic Validation Study of a New Nitrogen Multiple-Breath Washout System

Background For reliable assessment of ventilation inhomogeneity, multiple-breath washout (MBW) systems should be realistically validated. We describe a new lung model for in vitro validation under physiological conditions and the assessment of a new nitrogen (N2)MBW system. Methods The N2MBW setup indirectly measures the N2 fraction (FN2) from main-stream carbon dioxide (CO2) and side-stream oxygen (O2) signals: FN2 = 1−FO2−FCO2−FArgon. For in vitro N2MBW, a double chamber plastic lung model was filled with water, heated to 37°C, and ventilated at various lung volumes, respiratory rates, and FCO2. In vivo N2MBW was undertaken in triplets on two occasions in 30 healthy adults. Primary N2MBW outcome was functional residual capacity (FRC). We assessed in vitro error (√[difference]2) between measured and model FRC (100–4174 mL), and error between tests of in vivo FRC, lung clearance index (LCI), and normalized phase III slope indices (Sacin and Scond). Results The model generated 145 FRCs under BTPS conditions and various breathing patterns. Mean (SD) error was 2.3 (1.7)%. In 500 to 4174 mL FRCs, 121 (98%) of FRCs were within 5%. In 100 to 400 mL FRCs, the error was better than 7%. In vivo FRC error between tests was 10.1 (8.2)%. LCI was the most reproducible ventilation inhomogeneity index. Conclusion The lung model generates lung volumes under the conditions encountered during clinical MBW testing and enables realistic validation of MBW systems. The new N2MBW system reliably measures lung volumes and delivers reproducible LCI values

Eurythmy therapy in chronic disease: a four-year prospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many patients with chronic diseases use complementary therapies, often provided by their physicians. In Germany, several physician-provided complementary therapies have been reimbursed by health insurance companies as part of health benefit programs. In most of these therapies, the patient has a predominantly passive role. In eurythmy therapy, however, patients actively exercise specific movements with the hands, the feet or the whole body. The purpose of this study was to describe clinical outcomes in patients practising eurythmy therapy exercises for chronic diseases.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In conjunction with a health benefit program, 419 outpatients from 94 medical practices in Germany, referred to 118 eurythmy therapists, participated in a prospective cohort study. Main outcomes were disease severity (Disease and Symptom Scores, physicians' and patients' assessment on numerical rating scales 0–10) and quality of life (adults: SF-36, children aged 8–16: KINDL, children 1–7: KITA). Disease Score was documented after 0, 6 and 12 months, other outcomes after 0, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, and (SF-36 and Symptom Score) 48 months.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Most common indications were mental disorders (31.7% of patients; primarily depression, fatigue, and childhood emotional disorder) and musculoskeletal diseases (23.4%). Median disease duration at baseline was 3.0 years (interquartile range 1.0–8.5). Median number of eurythmy therapy sessions was 12 (interquartile range 10–19), median therapy duration was 119 days (84–188).</p> <p>All outcomes improved significantly between baseline and all subsequent follow-ups (exceptions: KITA Psychosoma in first three months and KINDL). Improvements from baseline to 12 months were: Disease Score from mean (standard deviation) 6.65 (1.81) to 3.19 (2.27) (p < 0.001), Symptom Score from 5.95 (1.75) to 3.49 (2.12) (p < 0.001), SF-36 Physical Component Summary from 43.13 (10.25) to 47.10 (9.78) (p < 0.001), SF-36 Mental Component Summary from 38.31 (11.67) to 45.01 (11.76) (p < 0.001), KITA Psychosoma from 69.53 (15.45) to 77.21 (13.60) (p = 0.001), and KITA Daily Life from 59.23 (21.78) to 68.14 (18.52) (p = 0.001). All these improvements were maintained until the last follow-up. Improvements were similar in patients not using diagnosis-related adjunctive therapies within the first six study months.</p> <p>Adverse reactions to eurythmy therapy occurred in 3.1% (13/419) of patients. No patient stopped eurythmy therapy due to adverse reactions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Patients practising eurythmy therapy exercises had long-term improvement of chronic disease symptoms and quality of life. Although the pre-post design of the present study does not allow for conclusions about comparative effectiveness, study findings suggest that eurythmy therapy can be useful for patients motivated for this therapy.</p

Allergic rhinitis: evidence for impact on asthma

BACKGROUND: This paper reviews the current evidence indicating that comorbid allergic rhinitis may have clinically relevant effects on asthma. DISCUSSION: Allergic rhinitis is very common in patients with asthma, with a reported prevalence of up to 100% in those with allergic asthma. While the temporal relation of allergic rhinitis and asthma diagnoses can be variable, the diagnosis of allergic rhinitis often precedes that of asthma. Rhinitis is an independent risk factor for the subsequent development of asthma in both atopic and nonatopic individuals. Controlled studies have provided conflicting results regarding the benefits for asthma symptoms of treating comorbid allergic rhinitis with intranasal corticosteroids. Effects of other treatments for comorbid allergic rhinitis, including antihistamines, allergen immunotherapy, systemic anti-IgE therapy, and antileukotriene agents, have been examined in a limited number of studies; anti-IgE therapy and antileukotriene agents such as the leukotriene receptor antagonists have benefits for treating both allergic rhinitis and asthma. Results of observational studies indicate that treating comorbid allergic rhinitis results in a lowered risk of asthma-related hospitalizations and emergency visits. Results of several retrospective database studies in the United States and in Europe indicate that, for patients with asthma, the presence of comorbid allergic rhinitis is associated with higher total annual medical costs, greater prescribing frequency of asthma-related medications, as well as increased likelihood of asthma-related hospital admissions and emergency visits. There is therefore evidence suggesting that comorbid allergic rhinitis is a marker for more difficult to control asthma and worsened asthma outcomes. CONCLUSION: These findings highlight the potential for improving asthma outcomes by following a combined therapeutic approach to comorbid allergic rhinitis and asthma rather than targeting each condition separately

DSYB catalyses the key step of dimethylsulfoniopropionate biosynthesis in many phytoplankton

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is a globally important organosulfur molecule and the major precursor for dimethyl sulfide. These compounds are important info-chemicals, key nutrients for marine microorganisms, and are involved in global sulfur cycling, atmospheric chemistry and cloud formation1,2,3. DMSP production was thought to be confined to eukaryotes, but heterotrophic bacteria can also produce DMSP through the pathway used by most phytoplankton4, and the DsyB enzyme catalysing the key step of this pathway in bacteria was recently identified5. However, eukaryotic phytoplankton probably produce most of Earth’s DMSP, yet no DMSP biosynthesis genes have been identified in any such organisms. Here we identify functional dsyB homologues, termed DSYB, in many phytoplankton and corals. DSYB is a methylthiohydroxybutryate methyltransferase enzyme localized in the chloroplasts and mitochondria of the haptophyte Prymnesium parvum, and stable isotope tracking experiments support these organelles as sites of DMSP synthesis. DSYB transcription levels increased with DMSP concentrations in different phytoplankton and were indicative of intracellular DMSP. Identification of the eukaryotic DSYB sequences, along with bacterial dsyB, provides the first molecular tools to predict the relative contributions of eukaryotes and prokaryotes to global DMSP production. Furthermore, evolutionary analysis suggests that eukaryotic DSYB originated in bacteria and was passed to eukaryotes early in their evolution

Neonatal Brain Injury and Neuroanatomy of Memory Processing following Very Preterm Birth in Adulthood: An fMRI Study

Altered functional neuroanatomy of high-order cognitive processing has been described in very preterm individuals (born before 33 weeks of gestation; VPT) compared to controls in childhood and adolescence. However, VPT birth may be accompanied by different types of adverse neonatal events and associated brain injury, the severity of which may have differential effects on brain development and subsequent neurodevelopmental outcome. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to investigate how differing degrees of neonatal brain injury, detected by neonatal ultrasounds, affect the functional neuroanatomy of memory processing in VPT young adults. We used a verbal paired associates learning task, consisting of four encoding, four cued-recall and four baseline condition blocks. To further investigate whether differences in neural activation between the groups were modulated by structural brain changes, structural MRI data were also collected. We studied 12 VPT young adults with a history of periventricular haemorrhage with associated ventricular dilatation, 17 VPT individuals with a history of uncomplicated periventricular haemorrhage, 12 individuals with normal ultrasonographic findings, and 17 controls. Results of a linear trend analysis demonstrated that during completion of the paired associates learning task right frontal and right parietal brain activation decreased as the severity of neonatal brain injury increased. There were no statistically significant between-group differences in on-line task performance and participants' intelligence quotient (IQ) at assessment. This pattern of differential activation across the groups was observed particularly in the right middle frontal gyrus during encoding and in the right posterior cingulate gyrus during recall. Structural MRI data analysis revealed that grey matter volume in the right superior temporal gyrus, right cerebellum, left middle temporal gyrus, right globus pallidus and right medial frontal gyrus decreased with increasing severity of neonatal brain injury. However, the significant between-group functional neuroanatomical differences were not directly attributable to the detected structural regional differences

Complete Chloroplast Genome Sequences of Important Oilseed Crop Sesamum indicum L

Sesamum indicum is an important crop plant species for yielding oil. The complete chloroplast (cp) genome of S. indicum (GenBank acc no. JN637766) is 153,324 bp in length, and has a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions consisting of 25,141 bp each. The lengths of the large single copy (LSC) and the small single copy (SSC) regions are 85,170 bp and 17,872 bp, respectively. Comparative cp DNA sequence analyses of S. indicum with other cp genomes reveal that the genome structure, gene order, gene and intron contents, AT contents, codon usage, and transcription units are similar to the typical angiosperm cp genomes. Nucleotide diversity of the IR region between Sesamum and three other cp genomes is much lower than that of the LSC and SSC regions in both the coding region and noncoding region. As a summary, the regional constraints strongly affect the sequence evolution of the cp genomes, while the functional constraints weakly affect the sequence evolution of cp genomes. Five short inversions associated with short palindromic sequences that form step-loop structures were observed in the chloroplast genome of S. indicum. Twenty-eight different simple sequence repeat loci have been detected in the chloroplast genome of S. indicum. Almost all of the SSR loci were composed of A or T, so this may also contribute to the A-T richness of the cp genome of S. indicum. Seven large repeated loci in the chloroplast genome of S. indicum were also identified and these loci are useful to developing S. indicum-specific cp genome vectors. The complete cp DNA sequences of S. indicum reported in this paper are prerequisite to modifying this important oilseed crop by cp genetic engineering techniques