Cinnamic acid, ethanol and temperature interaction on coumarate decarboxylase activity and the relative expression of the putative cd gene in D. bruxellensis

Dekkera bruxellensis is one of the main contaminating yeasts in wine due to its ability to metabolize cinnamic acids into volatile phenols. This yeast metabolizes p-coumaric acid into 4-vinylphenol through a coumarate decarboxylase (CD) and then transforms it into to 4-ethylphenol (EF) through a vinylphenol reductase. In this work we investigated the influence of the interaction between the concentration of p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid and ethanol as well as growth temperature on the production of CD activity and the expression of a putative gene that codes for this enzymatic activity. For this, a Box Behnken experimental design was used. The concentration of p-coumaric acid (5-26 ppm) and ferulic acid (3-9 ppm) alone did not show any significant effect on any of the studied response variables. However, the interaction between (ethanol concentration * cinnamic acid concentration) and (ethanol concentration * temperature) had a significant statistical effect on the production of CD activity. Additionally, a higher growth temperature negatively affected the expression of the putative cd gene and the production of CD activity. This is the first work that studies the effect of cinnamic acids on the production of CD activity and the relative expression of its putative gene, using natural concentrations of cinnamic acid found in wine

Geographical variation in therapy for bloodstream infections due to multidrug-resistant enterobacteriaceae: a post hoc analysis of the INCREMENT study

We aimed to describe regional differences in therapy for bloodstream infection (BSI) caused by extended-spectrum ?-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBL-E) or carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE). 1,482 patients in 12 countries were included from an observational study of BSI caused by ESBL-E or CPE. Multivariate logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (aORs) for the influence of country of recruitment on empirical use of ?-lactam/?-lactamase inhibitors (BLBLI) or carbapenems, targeted use of BLBLI for ESBL-E and use of targeted combination therapy for CPE. The use of BLBLI for empirical therapy was least likely in sites from Israel (aOR 0.34, 95% CI 0.14-0.81), Greece (aOR 0.49, 95% CI 0.26-0.94) and Canada (aOR 0.31, 95% CI 0.11-0.88) but more likely in Italy (aOR 1.58, 95% CI 1.11-2.2) and Turkey (aOR 2.09, 95% CI 1.14-3.81), compared to Spain as a reference. Empirical carbapenems were more likely to be used in sites from Taiwan (aOR 1.73, 95% CI 1.03-2.92) and USA (aOR 1.89; 95% CI 1.05-3.39), and less likely in Italy (aOR 0.44, 95% CI 0.28-0.69) and Canada (aOR 0.10, 95% CI 0.01-0.74). Targeted BLBLI for ESBL-E was more likely in sites from Italy. Treatment at sites within Israel, Taiwan, Turkey and Brazil was associated with less combination therapy for CPE. Although this study does not provide precise data on the relative prevalence of ESBL-E or CPE, significant variation in therapy exists across countries even after adjustment for patient factors. A better understanding of what influences therapeutic choices for these infections will aid antimicrobial stewardship efforts.PH is supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award from the University of Queensland. The study was funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Instituto de Salud Carlos III - co-financed by European Development Regional Fund "A way to achieve Europe" ERDF, Spanish Network for the Research in Infectious Diseases (REIPI RD12/0015). BGG, JRB, APH and YC also received funds from the COMBACTE-CARE project (grant agreement 115620), Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and in-kind contributions from EFPIA companies

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Diagn\uf3stico de la cromomicosis en el Municipio Urdaneta del Estado Lara. y evaluaci\uf3n del tratamiento con itraconazol

La cromomicosis es una micosis profunda granulomatosa cr\uf3nica de la piel y tejido celular subcut\ue1neo, causada por hongos dematiaceos, hasta el momento se describen cinco agentes etiol\uf3gicos Cladophialophora carrion\ufc, Fonsecaea pedrosoi, Fonsecaea compacta, Rhinocladiella aquaspersa y Phialophora verrugosa. Reportada en los cinco continentes, es com\ufan en Brasil, M\ue9xico, Am\ue9rica Central y Venezuela. En Venezuela el \ue1rea end\ue9mica de la cromomicosis se encuentra limitada a los estados Lara, Falc\uf3n y Zulia. Se diagnosticaron 46 casos con cromomicosis en el Municipio Urdaneta del estado Lara en 6 a\uf1os lo que corresponde al 24,5% de la muestra. El agente etiol\uf3gico aislado en un 93,47% o fue Cl. carrionii seguido de un 2,17% por F. pedrosoi y un 2,17% R. aquaspersa. Se caracterizaron cuatro formas cl\uednicas, lesiones verrugosas, tipo placa elevada, con un borde indurado, eritematoviol\ue1ceo en un 80,4% otro lesi\uf3n plana con escamas perladas y puntillado hemorr\ue1gico, en un 13%. Una Lesi\uf3n ulcerada de fondo granulomatoso en un 2,1%. Lesiones verrugosas linfang\uedticas" con edema por compromiso linf\ue1tico 4,3%. A 31 paciente se les prescribi\uf3 f\ue1rmaco terapia, 100. a 400mgrs de itraconazol diarios, en 21 de los casos se observ\uf3 negativizaci\uf3n de los cultivos, cicatrizaci\uf3n de las lesiones y seguimiento hasta 1 a\uf1o que permiti\uf3 confirmar la curaci\uf3n. Se reporta 1 caso de disminuci\uf3n de los valores leucocitarios que representa el 4,3 %, durante la administraci\uf3n del f\ue1rmaco. Disminuci\uf3n del prurito en 4 pacientes para un 17,3% Aumento de las velocidad de sedimentaci\uf3n (VSG), en un 78,2%. Con este trabajo se eval\ufaa el itraconazol como tratamiento en la cromomicosis por Cl. carrion\ufc, agente etiol\uf3gico m\ue1s aislado en Venezuela

Propuesta de Incorporaci\uf3n de Dispositivos de Nuevas Tecnolog\uedas de la Informaci\uf3n y Comunicaci\uf3n en el Decanato de Administraci\uf3n y Contadur\ueda, que Permitan Grabar el Audio de las Clases de las Materias Te\uf3ricas y Divulgarlas a los Estudiantes

La presente investigaci\uf3n tiene por finalidad presentar una propuesta para la implementaci\uf3n de las NTIC en el DAC, que permitan la grabaci\uf3n del audio de lo impartido en las clases de las materias te\uf3ricas y la divulgaci\uf3n de est\ue1s por un medio de comunicaci\uf3n masivo, como mecanismo de reforzamiento del proceso de ense\uf1anza-aprendizaje, siendo las NTIC herramientas tecnol\uf3gicas surgidas del campo de la inform\ue1tica, soportes de la informaci\uf3n y canales de comunicaci\uf3n, relacionados con el almacenamiento, procesamiento y transmisi\uf3n digital de la informaci\uf3n. Por lo tanto, la presente investigaci\uf3n es de tipo proyecto especial, y para ello se efectu\uf3 el diagn\uf3stico por medio de encuestas y entrevistas, de las cuales se obtuvieron resultados entre los que se destacan, que el 97% de los estudiantes aprueban la implementaci\uf3n de este mecanismo en el DAC, as\ued como tambi\ue9n el 85% de los profesores, adem\ue1s se constato que el 30% de los profesores encuestados no utilizan el internet como herramienta tecnol\uf3gica para el desarrollo del proceso de ense\uf1anza. Se determino que los reproductores de memoria flash serian los dispositivos para la grabaci\uf3n, las cuales se aplicar\uedan a todas las clases de las materias te\uf3ricas y el medio para la divulgaci\uf3n para estas grabaciones seria el internet, espec\uedficamente el portal www.ucla.edu.ve/dac/pregrado.htm

Actividad antif\ufangica In Vitro de Itraconazol, SCH56592, Ajoene e Hidrazonas sobre aislados de Cladophialophora Carrionii

La cromomicosis es una infecci\uf3n granulomatosa cr\uf3nica de la piel y tejido celular subcut\ue1neo causada por hongos dimorfos demateaceos. En Venezuela, el \ue1rea end\ue9mica esta limitada a la regi\uf3n Noroccidental (estados Lara, Falc\uf3n y Zulia); los agentes etiol\uf3gicos son Cladophialophora carrionhi y Fonsecaea pedrosoi. En el tratamiento de la cromomicosis han sido ensayados varios procedimientos: la extirpaci\uf3n quir\ufargica, termoterapia, electrocoagulaci\uf3n o crioterapia, causando cicatrices indeseables. En este estudio se evalu\uf3 la actividad antif\ufangica in vitro por el m\ue9todo de microdiluci\uf3n, de acuerdo a las normas NCCLS y EUCAST se ensayaron drogas que inhiben la s\uedntesis de l\uedpidos tales como itraconazol, SCH 56592, (compuesto antif\ufangico experimental), ambos inhibidores de la s\uedntesis end\uf3gena del ergosterol al bloquear la demetilaci\uf3n del carbono 14 dependiente del citocromo P-450, se ensayaron an\ue1logos de azasterol, inhibidores de la incorporaci\uf3n del grupo etilo en el carbono 24 del ergosterol, finalmente se ensay\uf3 la actividad del ajoene, inhibidor de la s\uedntesis de fosfol\uedpidos, con amplia actividad antimic\uf3tica demostrada en ensayos in vitro e in vivo .En los ensayos se observaron efectos antiproliferativos dosis dependiente, de car\ue1cter exponencial, se obtuvieron las concentraciones m\uednimas inhibitorias (CMI), la concentraci\uf3n que produce el 50% del efecto m\ue1ximo (C150) y los porcentajes de inhibici\uf3n para los CMI de cada droga y sobre cada aislado. Los resultados sugirieron el posible incremento del arsenal farmac\ue9utico contra Ci. carrionii y apoyaron los estudios de actividad antif\ufangica in vitro