Metabolomics Workbench: An International Repository for Metabolomics Data and Metadata, Metabolite Standards, Protocols, Tutorials and Training, and Analysis Tools

The Metabolomics Workbench, available at www.metabolomicsworkbench.org, is a public repository for metabolomics metadata and experimental data spanning various species and experimental platforms, metabolite standards, metabolite structures, protocols, tutorials, and training material and other educational resources. It provides a computational platform to integrate, analyze, track, deposit and disseminate large volumes of heterogeneous data from a wide variety of metabolomics studies including mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry (NMR) data spanning over 20 different species covering all the major taxonomic categories including humans and other mammals, plants, insects, invertebrates and microorganisms. Additionally, a number of protocols are provided for a range of metabolite classes, sample types, and both MS and NMR-based studies, along with a metabolite structure database. The metabolites characterized in the studies available on the Metabolomics Workbench are linked to chemical structures in the metabolite structure database to facilitate comparative analysis across studies. The Metabolomics Workbench, part of the data coordinating effort of the National Institute of Health (NIH) Common Fund\u27s Metabolomics Program, provides data from the Common Fund\u27s Metabolomics Resource Cores, metabolite standards, and analysis tools to the wider metabolomics community and seeks data depositions from metabolomics researchers across the world

Mycoplasma non-coding RNA: identification of small RNAs and targets

Background: Bacterial non-coding RNAs act by base-pairing as regulatory elements in crucial biological processes. We performed the identification of trans-encoded small RNAs (sRNA) from the genomes of Mycoplama hyopneumoniae, Mycoplasma flocculare and Mycoplasma hyorhinis, which are Mycoplasma species that have been identified in the porcine respiratory system. Results: A total of 47, 15 and 11 putative sRNAs were predicted in M. hyopneumoniae, M. flocculare and M. hyorhinis, respectively. A comparative genomic analysis revealed the presence of species or lineage specific sRNA candidates. Furthermore, the expression profile of some M. hyopneumoniae sRNAs was determined by a reverse transcription amplification approach, in three different culture conditions. All tested sRNAs were transcribed in at least one condition. A detailed investigation revealed a differential expression profile for two M. hyopneumoniae sRNAs in response to oxidative and heat shock stress conditions, suggesting that their expression is influenced by environmental signals. Moreover, we analyzed sRNA-mRNA hybrids and accessed putative target genes for the novel sRNA candidates. The majority of the sRNAs showed interaction with multiple target genes, some of which could be linked to pathogenesis and cell homeostasis activity. Conclusion: This study contributes to our knowledge of Mycoplasma sRNAs and their response to environmental changes. Furthermore, the mRNA target prediction provides a perspective for the characterization and comprehension of the function of the sRNA regulatory mechanisms

Multimorbidity in younger deprived patients: An exploratory study of research and service implications in general practice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multimorbidity has been defined as the co-existence of two or more chronic conditions. It has a profound impact on both the individuals affected and on their use of healthcare services. The limited research to date has focused on its epidemiology rather than the development of interventions to improve outcomes in multimorbidity patients, particularly for patients aged less than 65 years. Potential barriers to such research relate to methods of disease recording and coding and examination of the process of care. We aimed to assess the feasibility of identifying younger individuals with multimorbidity at general practice level and to explore the effect of multimorbidity on the type and volume of health care delivered. We also describe the barriers encountered in attempting to carry out this exploratory research.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cross sectional survey of GP records in two large urban general practices in Dublin focusing on poorer individuals with at least three chronic conditions and aged between 45 and 64 years.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>92 patients with multimorbidity were identified. The median number of conditions was 4 per patient. Individuals received a mean number of 7.5 medications and attended a mean number of GP visits of 11.3 in the 12 months preceding the survey. Barriers to research into multimorbidity at practice level were identified including difficulties relating to GP clinical software; variation in disease coding; assessment of specialist sector activity through the GP-specialist communications and assessment of the full scale of primary care activity in relation to other disciplines and other types of GP contacts such as home visits and telephone contacts.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study highlights the importance of multimorbidity in general practice and indicates that it is feasible to identify younger patients with multimorbidity through their GP records. This is a first step towards planning a clinical intervention to improve outcomes for such patients in primary care.</p

Análise da Competitividade da Bovino Cultura de Corte em Mato Grosso do Sul

O objetivo deste artigo consiste em avaliar a competitividade da carne bovina de Mato Grosso do Sul, no período entre 2005 a 2012. Para mostrar se há competitividade foram utilizados os índices de vantagem comparativa revelada e o de contribuição ao saldo comercial. Para o cálculo foi utilizado os dados referentes às exportações e às importações de carne sul matogrossenses, o PIB estadual, as exportações de carne e as exportações totais brasileiras. De tal modo, foi possível constatar que o estado de Mato Grosso do Sul é competitivo, no que se refere ao mercado de carne bovina. Isso foi evidenciado em relação a todos os anos analisados. Os índices ajustados também mostraram vantagem comparativa revelada, com exceção do ano de 2005, mostrando desvantagem para o setor em nível nacional. Portanto, conclui-se que a cadeia de pecuária de corte exerce grande importância no âmbito econômico sul mato-grossense

Chest Radiograph Scoring Alone or Combined with Other Risk Scores for Predicting Outcomes in COVID-19

Background Radiographic severity may help predict patient deterioration and outcomes from COVID-19 pneumonia. Purpose To assess the reliability and reproducibility of three chest radiograph reporting systems (radiographic assessment of lung edema [RALE], Brixia, and percentage opacification) in patients with proven SARS-CoV-2 infection and examine the ability of these scores to predict adverse outcomes both alone and in conjunction with two clinical scoring systems, National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS2) and International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium: Coronavirus Clinical Characterization Consortium (ISARIC-4C) mortality. Materials and Methods This retrospective cohort study used routinely collected clinical data of patients with polymerase chain reaction-positive SARS-CoV-2 infection admitted to a single center from February 2020 through July 2020. Initial chest radiographs were scored for RALE, Brixia, and percentage opacification by one of three radiologists. Intra- and interreader agreement were assessed with intraclass correlation coefficients. The rate of admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) or death up to 60 days after scored chest radiograph was estimated. NEWS2 and ISARIC-4C mortality at hospital admission were calculated. Daily risk for admission to ICU or death was modeled with Cox proportional hazards models that incorporated the chest radiograph scores adjusted for NEWS2 or ISARIC-4C mortality. Results Admission chest radiographs of 50 patients (mean age, 74 years ± 16 [standard deviation]; 28 men) were scored by all three radiologists, with good interreader reliability for all scores, as follows: intraclass correlation coefficients were 0.87 for RALE (95% CI: 0.80, 0.92), 0.86 for Brixia (95% CI: 0.76, 0.92), and 0.72 for percentage opacification (95% CI: 0.48, 0.85). Of 751 patients with a chest radiograph, those with greater than 75% opacification had a median time to ICU admission or death of just 1-2 days. Among 628 patients for whom data were available (median age, 76 years [interquartile range, 61-84 years]; 344 men), opacification of 51%-75% increased risk for ICU admission or death by twofold (hazard ratio, 2.2; 95% CI: 1.6, 2.8), and opacification greater than 75% increased ICU risk by fourfold (hazard ratio, 4.0; 95% CI: 3.4, 4.7) compared with opacification of 0%-25%, when adjusted for NEWS2 score. Conclusion Brixia, radiographic assessment of lung edema, and percentage opacification scores all reliably helped predict adverse outcomes in SARS-CoV-2 infection. © RSNA, 2021 Online supplemental material is available for this article. See also the editorial by Little in this issue

Isolated communities of Epsilonproteobacteria in hydrothermal vent fluids of the Mariana Arc seamounts

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology 73 (2010): 538-549, doi:10.1111/j.1574-6941.2010.00910.x.Low-temperature hydrothermal vent fluids represent access points to diverse microbial communities living in oceanic crust. This study examined the distribution, relative abundance, and diversity of Epsilonproteobacteria in 14 low-temperature vent fluids from 5 volcanically active seamounts of the Mariana Arc using a 454 tag sequencing approach. Most vent fluids were enriched in cell concentrations compared to background seawater, and quantitative PCR results indicated all fluids were dominated by bacteria. Operational taxonomic unit (OTU)-based statistical tools applied to 454 data show that all vents from the northern end of the Marian Arc grouped together, to the exclusion of southern arc seamounts, which were as distinct from one another as they were from northern seamounts. Statistical analysis also showed a significant relationship between seamount and individual vent groupings, suggesting that community membership may be linked to geographical isolation and not geochemical parameters. However, while there may be large-scale geographic differences, distance is not the distinguishing factor in microbial community composition. At the local scale, most vents host a distinct population of Epsilonprotoebacteria, regardless of seamount location. This suggests there may be barriers to exchange and dispersal for these vent endemic microorganisms at hydrothermal seamounts of the Mariana Arc.This work was supported by a National Research Council Research Associateship Award and L’Oréal USA Fellowship (J.A.H.), NASA Astrobiology Institute Cooperative Agreement NNA04CC04A (M.L.S.), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s ICoMM field project, and the W. M. Keck Foundation. This publication is [partially] funded by the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) under NOAA Cooperative Agreement No. NA17RJ1232, Contribution #1814

Energy applications of ionic liquids

Ionic liquids offer a unique suite of properties that make them important candidates for a number of energy related applications. Cation–anion combinations that exhibit low volatility coupled with high electrochemical and thermal stability, as well as ionic conductivity, create the possibility of designing ideal electrolytes for batteries, super-capacitors, actuators, dye sensitised solar cells and thermoelectrochemical cells. In the field of water splitting to produce hydrogen they have been used to synthesize some of the best performing water oxidation catalysts and some members of the protic ionic liquid family co-catalyse an unusual, very high energy efficiency water oxidation process. As fuel cell electrolytes, the high proton conductivity of some of the protic ionic liquid family offers the potential of fuel cells operating in the optimum temperature region above 100 °C. Beyond electrochemical applications, the low vapour pressure of these liquids, along with their ability to offer tuneable functionality, also makes them ideal as CO2 absorbents for post-combustion CO2 capture. Similarly, the tuneable phase properties of the many members of this large family of salts are also allowing the creation of phase-change thermal energy storage materials having melting points tuned to the application. This perspective article provides an overview of these developing energy related applications of ionic liquids and offers some thoughts on the emerging challenges and opportunities

The development of descending projections from the brainstem to the spinal cord in the fetal sheep

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although the fetal sheep is a favoured model for studying the ontogeny of physiological control systems, there are no descriptions of the timing of arrival of the projections of supraspinal origin that regulate somatic and visceral function. In the early development of birds and mammals, spontaneous motor activity is generated within spinal circuits, but as development proceeds, a distinct change occurs in spontaneous motor patterns that is dependent on the presence of intact, descending inputs to the spinal cord. In the fetal sheep, this change occurs at approximately 65 days gestation (G65), so we therefore hypothesised that spinally-projecting axons from the neurons responsible for transforming fetal behaviour must arrive at the spinal cord level shortly before G65. Accordingly we aimed to identify the brainstem neurons that send projections to the spinal cord in the mature sheep fetus at G140 (term = G147) with retrograde tracing, and thus to establish whether any projections from the brainstem were absent from the spinal cord at G55, an age prior to the marked change in fetal motor activity has occurred.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>At G140, CTB labelled cells were found within and around nuclei in the reticular formation of the medulla and pons, within the vestibular nucleus, raphe complex, red nucleus, and the nucleus of the solitary tract. This pattern of labelling is similar to that previously reported in other species. The distribution of CTB labelled neurons in the G55 fetus was similar to that of the G140 fetus.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The brainstem nuclei that contain neurons which project axons to the spinal cord in the fetal sheep are the same as in other mammalian species. All projections present in the mature fetus at G140 have already arrived at the spinal cord by approximately one third of the way through gestation. The demonstration that the neurons responsible for transforming fetal behaviour in early ontogeny have already reached the spinal cord by G55, an age well before the change in motor behaviour occurs, suggests that the projections do not become fully functional until well after their arrival at the spinal cord.</p

Altered Trabecular Bone Structure and Delayed Cartilage Degeneration in the Knees of Collagen VI Null Mice

Mutation or loss of collagen VI has been linked to a variety of musculoskeletal abnormalities, particularly muscular dystrophies, tissue ossification and/or fibrosis, and hip osteoarthritis. However, the role of collagen VI in bone and cartilage structure and function in the knee is unknown. In this study, we examined the role of collagen VI in the morphology and physical properties of bone and cartilage in the knee joint of Col6a1−/− mice by micro-computed tomography (microCT), histology, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning microphotolysis (SCAMP). Col6a1−/− mice showed significant differences in trabecular bone structure, with lower bone volume, connectivity density, trabecular number, and trabecular thickness but higher structure model index and trabecular separation compared to Col6a1+/+ mice. Subchondral bone thickness and mineral content increased significantly with age in Col6a1+/+ mice, but not in Col6a1−/− mice. Col6a1−/− mice had lower cartilage degradation scores, but developed early, severe osteophytes compared to Col6a1+/+mice. In both groups, cartilage roughness increased with age, but neither the frictional coefficient nor compressive modulus of the cartilage changed with age or genotype, as measured by AFM. Cartilage diffusivity, measured via SCAMP, varied minimally with age or genotype. The absence of type VI collagen has profound effects on knee joint structure and morphometry, yet minimal influences on the physical properties of the cartilage. Together with previous studies showing accelerated hip osteoarthritis in Col6a1−/− mice, these findings suggest different roles for collagen VI at different sites in the body, consistent with clinical data

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049