The Back Belief Questionnaire is efficient to assess false beliefs and related fear in low back pain populations: A transcultural adaptation and validation study.

According to the fear avoidance model, beliefs and thoughts can modify the outcome of patient with low back pain. The Back Belief Questionnaire (BBQ)-a 14 items scale-assesses these consequences of low back pain.To test the psychometric properties of the French version of the BBQ.The BBQ was translated using the forward-backward translation process. Throughout three repeated evaluation time points (D1, D7 and D30), various aspects of validity were analysed: acceptability, quality of items, unidimentionality, internal consistency, temporal stability (between D1 and D7), responsiveness (between D7 and D30), and construct validity comparing it to other validated scales.One hundred and thirty-one patients were enrolled and 128 were analyzed. The acceptability and the quality of the items were excellent. The scale was unidimensional and reliable (internal consistency: Cronbach's α = 0.8). The responsiveness was moderate but in line with other scores. The BBQ was, as expected, convergent with day-to-day activities and fear avoidance (FABQ and Tampa), disability (Quebec and Dallas scores), or anxiety and depression (HAD); and not correlated with pain. Best correlations were found with Tampa and FABQ. The temporal stability (test-retest reliability) was poor. However, similar changes were observed in near conceptual score (FABQ), which confirmed that clinical status may have not been stable and suggesting sensitivity to early changes for BBQ.The BBQ showed good psychometric properties to assess false beliefs and related fear in French or English LBP populations and can be used either for evaluation in international trials or as a part of self-care training

Intercropping and weed cover reduce sugarcane roots colonization in plant crops as a result of spatial root distribution and the co-occurrence of neighboring plant species

International audienceAims - Understanding the belowground interactions in multi-species intercropping agroecosystems is critical to improving the cropping system's sustainability. This study aims to assess the sugarcane root colonization of the soil in plant crops when intercropped with legumes or spontaneous weeds in the inter-row. Methods - Roots were studied in the setting of three inter-row conditions: sugarcane with full chemical weed control, sugarcane-jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis) intercropping, and sugarcane with spontaneous weeds in the inter-row. Root mappings were conducted at 3.5, 6, 8, and 11 months after sugarcane planting in two vertical trenches per age and experimental condition (width 1.5 m x depth 1.2 m). Fine root distribution, root length densities, and a soil colonization index were estimated from the root intersects, in relation to plant root co-occurrence. Results - We found that both legumes and weeds in the inter-row decreased the total sugarcane fine root length by 17 to 30% compared to situation of chemical weed control from 6 months onwards. From 3.5 months, legumes or weeds impacted vertical and horizontal sugarcane root distribution, mainly in the topsoil. Consequently, the soil volume colonized by sugarcane roots decreased by 27% in both inter-row conditions throughout the crop cycle. This decrease was due to changes in root distribution and the co-occurrence of multi-species plant roots but not to changes in total root length. Conclusions - Our study pointed out the need to consider how the presence of other plant roots affects sugarcane root extension to understand and simulate the competition processes influencing intercropping performances

A substrate-based approach to convert SerpinB1 into a specific inhibitor of proteinase 3, the Wegener's granulomatosis autoantigen.

International audienceThe physiological and pathological functions of proteinase 3 (PR3) are not well understood due to its close similarity to human neutrophil elastase (HNE) and the lack of a specific inhibitor. Based on structural analysis of the active sites of PR3 and HNE, we generated mutants derived from the polyvalent inhibitor SerpinB1 (monocyte/neutrophil elastase inhibitor) that specifically inhibit PR3 and that differ from wt-SerpinB1 by only 3 or 4 residues in the reactive center loop. The rate constant of association between the best SerpinB1 mutant and PR3 is 1.4 × 10⁷ M⁻¹ * s⁻¹, which is ∼100-fold higher than that observed with wt-SerpinB1 and compares with that of α1-protease inhibitor (α1-PI) toward HNE. SerpinB1(S/DAR) is cleaved by HNE, but due to differences in rate, inhibition of PR3 by SerpinB1(S/DAR) is only minimally affected by the presence of HNE even when the latter is in excess. SerpinB1(S/DAR) inhibits soluble PR3 and also membrane-bound PR3 at the surface of activated neutrophils. Moreover, SerpinB1(S/DAR) clears induced PR3 from the surface of activated neutrophils. Overall, these specific inhibitors of PR3 will be valuable for defining biological functions of the protease and may prove useful as therapeutics for PR3-related inflammatory diseases, such as Wegener's granulomatosis

MetaboRank: network-based recommendation system to interpret and enrich metabolomics results

International audienceMetabolomics has shown great potential to improve the understanding of complex diseases, potentially leading to therapeutic target identification. However, no single analytical method allows monitoring all metabolites in a sample, resulting in incomplete metabolic fingerprints. This incompleteness constitutes a stumbling block to interpretation, raising the need for methods that can enrich those fingerprints. We propose MetaboRank, a new solution inspired by social network recommendation systems for the identification of metabolites potentially related to a metabolic fingerprint. MetaboRank method had been used to enrich metabolomics data obtained on cerebrospinal fluid samples from patients suffering from hepatic encephalopathy. MetaboRank successfully recommended metabolites not present in the original fingerprint. The quality of recommendations was evaluated by using literature automatic search, in order to check that recommended metabolites could be related to the disease. Complementary mass spectrometry experiments and raw data analysis were performed to confirm these suggestions. In particular, MetaboRank recommended the overlooked α-ketoglutaramate as a metabolite which should be added to the metabolic fingerprint of hepatic encephalopathy, thus suggesting that metabolic fingerprints enhancement can provide new insight on complex diseases

Item information curves of the nine items used for scoring the BBQ scale obtained by the parametric IRT model.

<p>Items 1, 8, 12 and 13 have a low power of information over the entire scale. These items contributed very little to the ranking of individuals. Conversely, the strongest informations power were observed for items 6 and 14. The minimal anonymized data set of the present study is available in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0186753#pone.0186753.s002" target="_blank">S2 Appendix</a>.</p

Step-by-step Cronbach α backward procedure according the number of items.

<p>The items were successively removed according the following order: Q8, Q1, Q13, Q12, Q3, Q10, Q2 (remaining Q6 and Q14).</p

Responsiveness of the BBQ compared to different scores before and after the rehabilitation procedure.

<p>Responsiveness of the BBQ compared to different scores before and after the rehabilitation procedure.</p