48 research outputs found
Age-of-onset-dependent influence of NOD2 gene variants on disease behaviour and treatment in Crohnâs disease
Potential value of a rapid syndromic multiplex PCR for the diagnosis of native and prosthetic joint infections: a real-world evidence study
Introduction: The BIOFIRE Joint Infection (JI) Panel is a diagnostic tool that uses multiplex-PCR testing to detect microorganisms in synovial fluid specimens from patients suspected of having septic arthritis (SA) on native joints or prosthetic joint infections (PJIs). Methods: A study was conducted across 34 clinical sites in 19 European and Middle Eastern countries from March 2021 to June 2022 to assess the effectiveness of the BIOFIRE JI Panel. Results: A total of 1527 samples were collected from patients suspected of SA or PJI, with an overall agreement of 88.4â% and 85â% respectively between the JI Panel and synovial fluid cultures (SFCs). The JI Panel detected more positive samples and microorganisms than SFC, with a notable difference on Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus species, Enterococcus faecalis, Kingella kingae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and anaerobic bacteria. The study found that the BIOFIRE JI Panel has a high utility in the real-world clinical setting for suspected SA and PJI, providing diagnostic results in approximately 1âh. The user experience was positive, implying a potential benefit of rapidity of results' turnover in optimising patient management strategies. Conclusion: The study suggests that the BIOFIRE JI Panel could potentially optimise patient management and antimicrobial therapy, thus highlighting its importance in the clinical setting
Genetic determinants of risk in pulmonary arterial hypertension: international genome-wide association studies and meta-analysis
Background Rare genetic variants cause pulmonary arterial hypertension, but the contribution of common genetic
variation to disease risk and natural history is poorly characterised. We tested for genome-wide association for pulmonary
arterial hypertension in large international cohorts and assessed the contribution of associated regions to outcomes.
Methods We did two separate genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and a meta-analysis of pulmonary arterial
hypertension. These GWAS used data from four international case-control studies across 11744 individuals with
European ancestry (including 2085 patients). One GWAS used genotypes from 5895 whole-genome sequences and
the other GWAS used genotyping array data from an additional 5849 individuals. Cross-validation of loci reaching
genome-wide significance was sought by meta-analysis. Conditional analysis corrected for the most significant variants
at each locus was used to resolve signals for multiple associations. We functionally annotated associated variants and
tested associations with duration of survival. All-cause mortality was the primary endpoint in survival analyses.
Findings A locus near SOX17 (rs10103692, odds ratio 1·80 [95% CI 1·55â2·08], p=5·13Ă10â
Âčâ”) and a second locus in
HLA-DPA1 and HLA-DPB1 (collectively referred to as HLA-DPA1/DPB1 here; rs2856830, 1·56 [1·42â1·71],
p=7·65Ă10â
ÂČâ°) within the class II MHC region were associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension. The SOX17 locus
had two independent signals associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension (rs13266183, 1·36 [1·25â1·48],
p=1·69Ă10â
ÂčÂČ; and rs10103692). Functional and epigenomic data indicate that the risk variants near SOX17 alter gene
regulation via an enhancer active in endothelial cells. Pulmonary arterial hypertension risk variants determined
haplotype-specific enhancer activity, and CRISPR-mediated inhibition of the enhancer reduced SOX17 expression. The
HLA-DPA1/DPB1 rs2856830 genotype was strongly associated with survival. Median survival from diagnosis in
patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension with the C/C homozygous genotype was double (13·50 years [95% CI
12·07 to >13·50]) that of those with the T/T genotype (6·97 years [6·02â8·05]), despite similar baseline disease severity.
Interpretation This is the first study to report that common genetic variation at loci in an enhancer near SOX17 and in
HLA-DPA1/DPB1 is associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Impairment of SOX17 function might be more
common in pulmonary arterial hypertension than suggested by rare mutations in SOX17. Further studies are needed
to confirm the association between HLA typing or rs2856830 genotyping and survival, and to determine whether HLA
typing or rs2856830 genotyping improves risk stratification in clinical practice or trials.
Funding UK NIHR, BHF, UK MRC, Dinosaur Trust, NIH/NHLBI, ERS, EMBO, Wellcome Trust, EU, AHA,
ACClinPharm, Netherlands CVRI, Dutch Heart Foundation, Dutch Federation of UMC, Netherlands OHRD and
RNAS, German DFG, German BMBF, APH Paris, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud, and French ANR
Traffic safety versus traffic flow on freeways â an empirical analysis
For freeways, there is a well-known relationship between traffic flow and traffic safety. Roughly independent of the geographical location, traffic is fairly safe (measured in accidents per million miles) for intermediate traffic flows, while it is getting worse for very small or very high traffic flows close to congestion. Furthermore, the very nature of the accident type changes with traffic flow: while the peak at small traffic flow is due to accidents with one or with two vehicles, the peak at large traffic flow is from accidents where almost always two vehicles are involved.
Being known for a very long time (already in 1937 the work of Veh [3] demonstrates a weak relationship), there seems to be little effort required to find this effect also in surrogate safety measures (SSM). This will be dealt with in the paper. By analysing single vehicle data from a German freeway, some of the commonly used SSMs will be computed and their distribution analysed. Not surprisingly, these distributions seem to belong to the family of Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) type. Furthermore, by analysing the number of critical situations defined as the 97%-percentile of the corresponding distribution, at least the peak at small traffic flows can be reproduced with the SSMâs analysed so far
Anti-neutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody-Enriched IgG Induces Adhesion of Human T Lymphocytes to Extracellular Matrix Proteins
Laboratory diagnosis of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia type II after clearance of platelet factor 4/heparin complex
Determination of serotonin release from platelets by enzyme immunoassay in the diagnosis of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia
Stereoselectivity of the radical reductive alkylation of enamines - importance of the allylic 1,3-strain model
Radical addition to enamines using Bu3SnH as reducing agent are reported (Schemes 2 and 4). The diastereoselectivity of these reactions was examined in different systems (Tables 1 and 2). Enamines derived from cyclic ketones such as cyclohexanone were alkylated with high diastereoselectivity with preferential formation of the cis-disubstituted cycloalkanes. In acyclic systems such as enamines derived from propiophenone and diethyl ketone, moderate to high stereoselectivities were observed in the H-abstraction step. A model based principally on minimization of allylic 1,3-strain (A1,3 strain) was deduced from the experimental results and semi-empirical (AM1) calculation