Exacerbation of hepatitis C induced subclinical hypoadrenalism by Interferon-alpha2beta: A case report

Adrenal disease is an uncommon manifestation of hepatitis C infection and its related treatment regimen. This is a case of subclinical hypoadrenalism, probably induced by hepatitis C infection and further exacerbated by interferon-α2β and Ribavirin therapy. The adrenal deterioration during the treatment course was observed closely with 24-hour salivary profiles and 250 μg adrenocorticotropin stimulation tests using parallel serum and salivary cortisol concentrations. A number of possible pathogenic mechanisms are discussed, and the controversy over its management is emphasized

Two-Photon Fluorescence Microscopy Imaging of Cellular Oxidative Stress Using Profluorescent Nitroxides

A range of varying chromophore nitroxide free radicals and their nonradical methoxyamine analogues were synthesized and their linear photophysical properties examined. The presence of the proximate free radical masks the chromophore’s usual fluorescence emission, and these species are described as profluorescent. Two nitroxides incorporating anthracene and fluorescein chromophores (compounds 7 and 19, respectively) exhibited two-photon absorption (2PA) cross sections of approximately 400 G.M. when excited at wavelengths greater than 800 nm. Both of these profluorescent nitroxides demonstrated low cytotoxicity toward Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Imaging colocalization experiments with the commercially available CellROX Deep Red oxidative stress monitor demonstrated good cellular uptake of the nitroxide probes. Sensitivity of the nitroxide probes to H2O2-induced damage was also demonstrated by both one- and two-photon fluorescence microscopy. These profluorescent nitroxide probes are potentially powerful tools for imaging oxidative stress in biological systems, and they essentially “light up” in the presence of certain species generated from oxidative stress. The high ratio of the fluorescence quantum yield between the profluorescent nitroxide species and their nonradical adducts provides the sensitivity required for measuring a range of cellular redox environments. Furthermore, their reasonable 2PA cross sections provide for the option of using two-photon fluorescence microscopy, which circumvents commonly encountered disadvantages associated with one-photon imaging such as photobleaching and poor tissue penetration

Recruitment in the sea: bacterial genes required for inducing larval settlement in a polychaete worm

Metamorphically competent larvae of the marine tubeworm Hydroides elegans can be induced to metamorphose by biofilms of the bacterium Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea strain HI1. Mutational analysis was used to identify four genes that are necessary for metamorphic induction and encode functions that may be related to cell adhesion and bacterial secretion systems. No major differences in biofilm characteristics, such as biofilm cell density, thickness, biomass and EPS biomass, were seen between biofilms composed of P. luteoviolacea (HI1) and mutants lacking one of the four genes. The analysis indicates that factors other than those relating to physical characteristics of biofilms are critical to the inductive capacity of P. luteoviolacea (HI1), and that essential inductive molecular components are missing in the non-inductive deletion-mutant strains

Diversity and dynamics of bacterial communities in early life stages of the Caribbean coral Porites astreoides

In this study, we examine microbial communities of early developmental stages of the coral Porites astreoides by sequence analysis of cloned 16S rRNA genes, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP), and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) imaging. Bacteria are associated with the ectoderm layer in newly released planula larvae, in 4-day-old planulae, and on the newly forming mesenteries surrounding developing septa in juvenile polyps after settlement. Roseobacter clade-associated (RCA) bacteria and Marinobacter sp. are consistently detected in specimens of P. astreoides spanning three early developmental stages, two locations in the Caribbean and 3 years of collection. Multi-response permutation procedures analysis on the TRFLP results do not support significant variation in the bacterial communities associated with P. astreoides larvae across collection location, collection year or developmental stage. The results are the first evidence of vertical transmission (from parent to offspring) of bacteria in corals. The results also show that at least two groups of bacterial taxa, the RCA bacteria and Marinobacter, are consistently associated with juvenile P. astreoides against a complex background of microbial associations, indicating that some components of the microbial community are long-term associates of the corals and may impact host health and survival

Determination of nutrient salts by automatic methods both in seawater and brackish water: the phosphate blank

9 páginas, 2 tablas, 2 figurasThe main inconvenience in determining nutrients in seawater by automatic methods is simply solved: the preparation of a suitable blank which corrects the effect of the refractive index change on the recorded signal. Two procedures are proposed, one physical (a simple equation to estimate the effect) and the other chemical (removal of the dissolved phosphorus with ferric hydroxide).Support for this work came from CICYT (MAR88-0245 project) and Conselleria de Pesca de la Xunta de GaliciaPeer reviewe

Secondary Metabolites of Marine Microbes: From Natural Products Chemistry to Chemical Ecology

Marine natural products (MNPs) exhibit a wide range of pharmaceutically relevant bioactivities, including antibiotic, antiviral, anticancer, or anti-inflammatory properties. Besides marine macroorganisms such as sponges, algae, or corals, specifically marine bacteria and fungi have shown to produce novel secondary metabolites (SMs) with unique and diverse chemical structures that may hold the key for the development of novel drugs or drug leads. Apart from highlighting their potential benefit to humankind, this review is focusing on the manifold functions of SMs in the marine ecosystem. For example, potent MNPs have the ability to exile predators and competing organisms, act as attractants for mating purposes, or serve as dye for the expulsion or attraction of other organisms. A large compilation of literature on the role of MNPs in marine ecology is available, and several reviews evaluated the function of MNPs for the aforementioned topics. Therefore, we focused the second part of this review on the importance of bioactive compounds from crustose coralline algae (CCA) and their role during coral settlement, a topic that has received less attention. It has been shown that certain SMs derived from CCA and their associated bacteria are able to induce attachment and/or metamorphosis of many benthic invertebrate larvae, including globally threatened reef-building scleractinian corals. This review provides an overview on bioactivities of MNPs from marine microbes and their potential use in medicine as well as on the latest findings of the chemical ecology and settlement process of scleractinian corals and other invertebrate larvae

A horizontal alignment tool for numerical trend discovery in sequence data: application to protein hydropathy.

PMC3794901An algorithm is presented that returns the optimal pairwise gapped alignment of two sets of signed numerical sequence values. One distinguishing feature of this algorithm is a flexible comparison engine (based on both relative shape and absolute similarity measures) that does not rely on explicit gap penalties. Additionally, an empirical probability model is developed to estimate the significance of the returned alignment with respect to randomized data. The algorithm's utility for biological hypothesis formulation is demonstrated with test cases including database search and pairwise alignment of protein hydropathy. However, the algorithm and probability model could possibly be extended to accommodate other diverse types of protein or nucleic acid data, including positional thermodynamic stability and mRNA translation efficiency. The algorithm requires only numerical values as input and will readily compare data other than protein hydropathy. The tool is therefore expected to complement, rather than replace, existing sequence and structure based tools and may inform medical discovery, as exemplified by proposed similarity between a chlamydial ORFan protein and bacterial colicin pore-forming domain. The source code, documentation, and a basic web-server application are available.JH Libraries Open Access Fun

Entwicklung einer Wertschoepfungskette durch prozessintegrierten Umweltschutz (PIUS) bei der Verarbeitung pflanzlicher Rohstoffe am Beispiel der Kartoffelstaerkeproduktion. Teilprojekt 1: Massstabsvergroesserung und Erprobung einer Anlage zur Erzeugung von Hochspannungsimpulsen und Entwicklung eines Verfahrens zur #beta#-Glucanherstellung Schlussbericht

SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F04B1045 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

Entwicklung einer Wertschoepfungskette durch prozessintegrierten Umweltschutz (PIUS) bei der Verarbeitung pflanzlicher Rohstoffe am Beispiel der Kartoffelstaerkeproduktion. Teilprojekt 1: Massstabsvergroesserung und Erprobung einer Anlage zur Erzeugung von Hochspannungsimpulsen und Entwicklung eines Verfahrens zur #beta#-Glucanherstellung Schlussbericht

SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F04B1045 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman