Acute necrotizing eosinophilic myocarditis in a young woman

Abstract Eosinophilic myocarditis is recognized by severe heart failure and marked eosinophilia infiltration resulting from different etiologies. Acute necrotizing eosinophilic myocarditis, the initial presentation of the disease, is rare and often fatal, with unique echocardiographic pictures, and followed by endocardial thrombosis and chronic endomyocardial fibrosis. We report a young female with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who presented fever and acute heart failure syndrome. The echocardiography showed severe left ventricle diastolic dysfunction with preserved ejection fraction. Systemic eosinophilia and the unique echocardiographic images made the diagnosis of acute necrotizing eosinophilic myocarditis. The patient survived after intensive cytotoxic chemotherapy including high-dose steroid

MetaSquare: An integrated metadatabase of 16S rRNA gene amplicon for microbiome taxonomic classification

MOTIVATION: Taxonomic classification of 16S ribosomal RNA gene amplicon is an efficient and economic approach in microbiome analysis. 16S rRNA sequence databases like SILVA, RDP, EzBioCloud and HOMD used in downstream bioinformatic pipelines have limitations on either the sequence redundancy or the delay on new sequence recruitment. To improve the 16S rRNA gene-based taxonomic classification, we merged these widely used databases and a collection of novel sequences systemically into an integrated resource. RESULTS: MetaSquare version 1.0 is an integrated 16S rRNA sequence database. It is composed of more than 6 million sequences and improves taxonomic classification resolution on both long-read and short-read methods. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Accessible at https://hub.docker.com/r/lsbnb/metasquare_db and https://github.com/lsbnb/MetaSquare. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

Ventricular divergence correlates with epicardial wavebreaks and predicts ventricular arrhythmia in isolated rabbit hearts during therapeutic hypothermia

INTRODUCTION: High beat-to-beat morphological variation (divergence) on the ventricular electrogram during programmed ventricular stimulation (PVS) is associated with increased risk of ventricular fibrillation (VF), with unclear mechanisms. We hypothesized that ventricular divergence is associated with epicardial wavebreaks during PVS, and that it predicts VF occurrence. METHOD AND RESULTS: Langendorff-perfused rabbit hearts (n = 10) underwent 30-min therapeutic hypothermia (TH, 30°C), followed by a 20-min treatment with rotigaptide (300 nM), a gap junction modifier. VF inducibility was tested using burst ventricular pacing at the shortest pacing cycle length achieving 1:1 ventricular capture. Pseudo-ECG (p-ECG) and epicardial activation maps were simultaneously recorded for divergence and wavebreaks analysis, respectively. A total of 112 optical and p-ECG recordings (62 at TH, 50 at TH treated with rotigaptide) were analyzed. Adding rotigaptide reduced ventricular divergence, from 0.13±0.10 at TH to 0.09±0.07 (p = 0.018). Similarly, rotigaptide reduced the number of epicardial wavebreaks, from 0.59±0.73 at TH to 0.30±0.49 (p = 0.036). VF inducibility decreased, from 48±31% at TH to 22±32% after rotigaptide infusion (p = 0.032). Linear regression models showed that ventricular divergence correlated with epicardial wavebreaks during TH (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Ventricular divergence correlated with, and might be predictive of epicardial wavebreaks during PVS at TH. Rotigaptide decreased both the ventricular divergence and epicardial wavebreaks, and reduced the probability of pacing-induced VF during TH

Use of Ceftriaxone in Treating Cognitive and Neuronal Deficits Associated With Dementia With Lewy Bodies

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is caused by accumulation of Lewy bodies, destruction of mitochondria, and excess of glutamate in synapses, which eventually leads to excitotoxicity, neurodegeneration, and cognitive impairments. Ceftriaxone (CEF) reduces excitotoxicity by increasing glutamate transporter 1 expression and glutamate reuptake. We investigated whether CEF can prevent cognitive decline and neurological deficits and increase neurogenesis in DLB rats. Male Wistar rats infused with viral vector containing human alpha-synuclein (α-syn) gene, SNCA, in the lateral ventricle were used as a rat model of DLB. CEF (100 mg/kg/day, i.p.) was injected in these rats for 27 days. The active avoidance test and object recognition test was performed. Finally, the brains of all the rats were immunohistochemically stained to measure α-syn, neuronal density, and newborn cells in the hippocampus and substantia nigra. The results revealed that DLB rats had learning and object recognition impairments and exhibited cell loss in the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system, and hippocampal CA1, and dentate gyrus (DG). Additionally, DLB rats had fewer newborn cells in the DG and substantia nigra pars reticulata and more α-syn immune-positive cells in the DG. Treatment with CEF improved cognitive function, reduced cell loss, and increased the number of newborn cells in the brain. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing that CEF prevents loss of neurogenesis in the brain of DLB rats. CEF may therefore has clinical potential for treating DLB

Diversity in gut bacterial community of school-age children in Asia

10.1038/srep08397Scientific Reports

Wolfberry genomes and the evolution of Lycium (Solanaceae)

AbstractWolfberry Lycium, an economically important genus of the Solanaceae family, contains approximately 80 species and shows a fragmented distribution pattern among the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Although several herbaceous species of Solanaceae have been subjected to genome sequencing, thus far, no genome sequences of woody representatives have been available. Here, we sequenced the genomes of 13 perennial woody species of Lycium, with a focus on Lycium barbarum. Integration with other genomes provides clear evidence supporting a whole-genome triplication (WGT) event shared by all hitherto sequenced solanaceous plants, which occurred shortly after the divergence of Solanaceae and Convolvulaceae. We identified new gene families and gene family expansions and contractions that first appeared in Solanaceae. Based on the identification of self-incompatibility related-gene families, we inferred that hybridization hotspots are enriched for genes that might be functioning in gametophytic self-incompatibility pathways in wolfberry. Extremely low expression of LOCULE NUBER (LC) and COLORLESS NON-RIPENING (CNR) orthologous genes during Lycium fruit development and ripening processes suggests functional diversification of these two genes between Lycium and tomato. The existence of additional flowering locus C-like MADS-box genes might correlate with the perennial flowering cycle of Lycium. Differential gene expression involved in the lignin biosynthetic pathway between Lycium and tomato likely illustrates woody and herbaceous differentiation. We also provide evidence that Lycium migrated from Africa into Asia, and subsequently from Asia into North America. Our results provide functional insights into Solanaceae origins, evolution and diversification.</jats:p

Analysis of Epitopes on Dengue Virus Envelope Protein Recognized by Monoclonal Antibodies and Polyclonal Human Sera by a High Throughput Assay

Dengue virus is the leading cause of arboviral diseases worldwide. The envelope protein is the major target of neutralizing antibodies and vaccine development. While previous studies have reported several epitopes on envelope protein, the possibility of interdomain epitopes and the relationship of epitopes to neutralizing potency remain unexplored. We developed a high throughput dot blot assay by using 67 alanine mutants of surface-exposed envelope residues as a systematic approach to identify epitopes recognized by mouse monoclonal antibodies and polyclonal human sera. Our results suggested the presence of interdomain epitopes more frequent than previously appreciated. Compared with monoclonal antibodies generated by traditional protocol, the potent neutralizing monoclonal antibodies generated by a new protocol showed several unique features of their epitopes. Moreover, the predominant epitopes of antibodies against envelope protein in polyclonal sera can be identified by this assay. These findings have implications for future development of epitope-specific diagnostics and epitope-based dengue vaccine, and add to our understanding of humoral immune responses to dengue virus at the epitope level

Combined searches for the production of supersymmetric top quark partners in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A combination of searches for top squark pair production using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb(-1) collected by the CMS experiment, is presented. Signatures with at least 2 jets and large missing transverse momentum are categorized into events with 0, 1, or 2 leptons. New results for regions of parameter space where the kinematical properties of top squark pair production and top quark pair production are very similar are presented. Depending on themodel, the combined result excludes a top squarkmass up to 1325 GeV for amassless neutralino, and a neutralinomass up to 700 GeV for a top squarkmass of 1150 GeV. Top squarks with masses from 145 to 295 GeV, for neutralino masses from 0 to 100 GeV, with a mass difference between the top squark and the neutralino in a window of 30 GeV around the mass of the top quark, are excluded for the first time with CMS data. The results of theses searches are also interpreted in an alternative signal model of dark matter production via a spin-0 mediator in association with a top quark pair. Upper limits are set on the cross section for mediator particle masses of up to 420 GeV