Liver transplantation

Purpose of review: Long-term survival of liver transplant recipients is threatened by increased rates of de-novo malignancy and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), both events tightly related to immunosuppression. Recent findings: There is accumulating evidence linking increased exposure to immunosuppressants and carcinogenesis, particularly concerning calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs), azathioprine and antilymphocyte agents. A recent study including 219 HCC transplanted patients showed that HCC recurrence rates were halved if a minimization of CNIs was applied within the first month after liver transplant. With mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors as approved immunosuppressants for liver transplant patients, pooled data from several retrospective studies have suggested their possible benefit for reducing HCC recurrence. Summary: Randomized controlled trials with sufficiently long follow-up are needed to evaluate the influence of different immunosuppression protocols in preventing malignancy after LT. Currently, early minimization of CNIs with or without mTOR inhibitors or mycophenolate seems a rational strategy for patients with risk factors for de-novo malignancy or recurrence of HCC after liver transplant. A deeper understanding of the immunological pathways of rejection and cancer would allow for designing more specific and safer drugs, and thus to prevent cancer after liver transplant

Pre and post processing using the IBM 3277 display station graphics attachment (RPQ7H0284)

A graphical interactive procedure operating under TSO and utilizing two CRT display terminals is shown to be an effective means of accomplishing mesh generation, establishing boundary conditions, and reviewing graphic output for finite element analysis activity

A new method of making engine oil emulsions

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Sr. Rebecca: The True Value of Women

This paper includes part of an interview with Sister Rebecca, a Salesian who has worked in education for the last 10 years, and her views on the roles that women religious play in the lives of peopl

The role of dispositional aggressiveness and organizational injustice on deviant workplace behavior

A field study of 262 hospital employees examined the relationship between dispositional aggressiveness, three types of organizational injustice perceptions, (distributive, procedural, interactional), and two forms of workplace deviance (interpersonal, organizational). Dispositional aggressiveness was assessed with the conditional reasoning measurement system and organizational injustices were measured via self-report instruments. Deviant workplace behaviors were evaluated with 985 ratings provided by supervisors, coworkers, subordinates, and customers. Theoretical and methodological concerns related to past research are addressed. Findings indicated, as hypothesized, that perceptions of distributive, procedural, and interactional injustice were positively related to workplace deviance. Furthermore, dispositional aggressiveness was positively related to all forms of organizational injustice and workplace deviance. Results also show that dispositional aggressiveness maintained a relationship with workplace deviance after controlling for injustice perceptions, and that the aggressiveness-interpersonal deviance relationship is partially mediated by perceptions of distributive injustice. Overall, employees with aggressive personalities perceived more injustices and engaged in more deviant behaviors at work than nonaggressive employees. These findings specify the important role that individual differences play in the appraisal of workplace events as unfair and in choices of behavioral responses. A discussion of the current findings as well as limitations, future research avenues, and practical implications is provided

The Royal Free Hospital score: a calibrated prognostic model for patients with cirrhosis admitted to intensive care unit. Comparison with current models and CLIF-SOFA score

Prognosis for patients with cirrhosis admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) is poor. ICU prognostic models are more accurate than liver-specific models. We identified predictors of mortality, developed a novel prognostic score (Royal Free Hospital (RFH) score), and tested it against established prognostic models and the yet unvalidated Chronic Liver Failure-Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (CLIF-SOFA) model

Picking, handling and exhibiting fruit

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Unraveling the biochemistry and provenance of pupylation: a prokaryotic analog of ubiquitination

Recently Mycobacterium tuberculosis was shown to possess a novel protein modification, in which a small protein Pup is conjugated to the epsilon-amino groups of lysines in target proteins. Analogous to ubiquitin modification in eukaryotes, this remarkable modification recruits proteins for degradation via archaeal-type proteasomes found in mycobacteria and allied actinobacteria. While a mycobacterial protein named PafA was found to be required for this conjugation reaction, its biochemical mechanism has not been elucidated. Using sensitive sequence profile comparison methods we establish that the PafA family proteins are related to the γ-glutamyl-cysteine synthetase and glutamine synthetase. Hence, we predict that PafA is the Pup ligase, which catalyzes the ATP-dependent ligation of the terminal γ-carboxylate of glutamate to lysines, similar to the above enzymes. We further discovered that an ortholog of the eukaryotic PAC2 (e.g. cg2106) is often present in the vicinity of the actinobacterial Pup-proteasome gene neighborhoods and is likely to represent the ancestral proteasomal chaperone. Pup-conjugation is sporadically present outside the actinobacteria in certain lineages, such as verrucomicrobia, nitrospirae, deltaproteobacteria and planctomycetes, and in the latter two lineages it might modify membrane proteins

Evidence for the intense exchange of MazG in marine cyanophages by horizontal gene transfer

Background: S-PM2 is a phage capable of infecting strains of unicellular cyanobacteria belonging to the genus Synechococcus. S-PM2, like other myoviruses infecting marine cyanobacteria, encodes a number of bacterial-like genes. Amongst these genes is one encoding a MazG homologue that is hypothesized to be involved in the adaption of the infected host for production of progeny phage. Methodology/Principal Findings: This study focuses on establishing the occurrence of mazG homologues in other cyanophages isolated from different oceanic locations. Degenerate PCR primers were designed using the mazG gene of S-PM2. The mazG gene was found to be widely distributed and highly conserved among Synechococcus myoviruses and podoviruses from diverse oceanic provinces. Conclusions/Significance: This study provides evidence of a globally connected cyanophage gene pool, the cyanophage mazG gene having a small effective population size indicative of rapid lateral gene transfer despite being present in a substantial fraction of cyanophage. The Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus phage mazG genes do not cluster with the host mazG gene, suggesting that their primary hosts are not the source of the mazG gene