Gastrointestinal Pseudo-Obstruction: Report of a Patient with Postoperative Pseudo-Obstruction

Postoperative pseudo-obstruction is a rare state of protracted gastrointestinal paresis that may progress to paralysis without the presence of obstructive lesions. Pseudo -obstruction is usually, but not exclusively, associated with an abdominal operative procedure (laparotomy), however, it may occasionally occur following extra-abdominal operations. As differentiated from the usual, \u27physiologic\u27 postoperative paresis, pseudo-obstruction persists for more than 7 days. The pathogenesis of postoperative pseudo-obstruction is complex and as yet partially unknown. Whereas the \u27physiologic\u27 postoperative gastrointestinal paresis includes short-term functional cholinergic depression of the visceral organs, in pseudo-obstruction focal lesions in the region of Auerbach\u27s plexus, manifesting as visceral neuromyopathy, are involved. That is why the \u27physiologic\u27 postoperative paresis never transforms into paralytic ileus, while in pseudo-obstruction such a risk is potentially involved. The treatment for pseudo-obstruction is as a rule conservative. Surgical treatment (cecostomy) is rarely required. Colonoscopic decompresive suction is usually enough to eliminate the risk of colon rupture due to extensive distention by fast growing meteorism. A patient with postoperative pseudo-obstruction is presented

The synthetic antimicrobial peptide 19-2.5 attenuates septic cardiomyopathy and prevents down-regulation of SERCA2 in polymicrobial sepsis

LM has received grants by the Faculty of Medicine at the RWTH Aachen University (START 15/14 and START 46/16) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, MA 7082/1–1). This work was supported by the Immunohistochemistry and Confocal Microscopy Unit, a core facility of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Clinical Research (IZKF) Aachen, within the Faculty of Medicine at the RWTH Aachen University and the RWTH centralized Biomaterial Database (RWTH cBMB) of the University Hospital RWTH Aachen. We are very grateful to Antons Martincuks M.Sc. and Professor Gerhard Müller-Newen for live-cell imaging. This work was supported, in part, by the University of Turin (ex-60% 2015A and B) and by the William Harvey Research Foundation and forms part of the research themes contributing to the translational research portfolio of Barts and the London Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit that is supported and funded by the National Institute for Health Research. This work also contributes to the Organ Protection research theme of the Barts Centre for Trauma Sciences supported by the Barts and The London Charity (Award 753/1722)

Pre-Fibrillar α-Synuclein Mutants Cause Parkinson's Disease-Like Non-Motor Symptoms in Drosophila

Parkinson's disease (PD) is linked to the formation of insoluble fibrillar aggregates of the presynaptic protein α-Synuclein (αS) in neurons. The appearance of such aggregates coincides with severe motor deficits in human patients. These deficits are often preceded by non-motor symptoms such as sleep-related problems in the patients. PD-like motor deficits can be recapitulated in model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster when αS is pan-neurally expressed. Interestingly, both these deficits are more severe when αS mutants with reduced aggregation properties are expressed in flies. This indicates that that αS aggregation is not the primary cause of the PD-like motor symptoms. Here we describe a model for PD in Drosophila which utilizes the targeted expression of αS mutants in a subset of dopadecarboxylase expressing serotonergic and dopaminergic (DA) neurons. Our results show that targeted expression of pre-fibrillar αS mutants not only recapitulates PD-like motor symptoms but also the preceding non-motor symptoms such as an abnormal sleep-like behavior, altered locomotor activity and abnormal circadian periodicity. Further, the results suggest that the observed non-motor symptoms in flies are caused by an early impairment of neuronal functions rather than by the loss of neurons due to cell death

Thaliporphine Preserves Cardiac Function of Endotoxemic Rabbits by Both Directly and Indirectly Attenuating NFκB Signaling Pathway

Cardiac depression in sepsis is associated with the increased morbidity and mortality. Although myofilaments damage, autonomic dysfunction, and apoptosis play roles in sepsis-induced myocardial dysfunction, the underlying mechanism is not clear. All of these possible factors are related to NFκB signaling, which plays the main role in sepsis signaling. Thaliporphine was determined to possess anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective activity by suppressing NFκB signaling in rodents. The purpose of this study is to further prove this protective effect in larger septic animals, and try to find the underlying mechanisms. The systolic and diastolic functions were evaluated in vivo by pressure-volume analysis at different preloads. Both preload-dependent and -independent hemodynamic parameters were performed. Inflammatory factors of whole blood and serum samples were analyzed. Several sepsis-related signaling pathways were also determined at protein level. Changes detected by conductance catheter showed Thaliporphine could recover impaired left ventricular systolic function after 4 hours LPS injection. It could also reverse the LPS induced steeper EDPVR and gentler ESPVR, thus improve Ees, Ea, and PRSW. Thaliporphine may exert this protective effect by decreasing TNFα and caspase3 dependent cell apoptosis, which was consistent with the decreased serum cTnI and LDH concentration. Thaliporphine could protect sepsis-associated myocardial dysfunction in both preload-dependent and -independent ways. It may exert these protective effects by both increase of “good”-PI3K/Akt/mTOR and decrease of “bad”-p38/NFκB pathways, which followed by diminishing TNFα and caspase3 dependent cell apoptosis

Benzene-1,3,5-triyl tribenzoate

The title compound, C27H18O6, commonly known as phloroglucinol tribenzoate, is a standard unit for the family of benzyl ether dendrimers. The central phloroglucinol residue is close to planar, with out-of-plane distances for the three oxygen atoms of up to 0.095 (3) Å, while the three attached benzoate groups are approximately planar. One benzoate group is twisted [C—C—O—C torsion angle = 98.2 (3)°] from the central plane, with its carbonyl O atom 2.226 (4) Å above that plane, while the other two benzoate groups are twisted in the opposite direction [C—C—O—C torsion angles = 24.7 (2) and 54.8 (2)°], so that their carbonyl O atoms are on the other side of, and closer to the central plane, with distances from the plane of 1.743 (4) and 1.206 (4) Å. One benzoate group is disordered between two conformers, with occupancies of 86.9 (3) and 13.1 (3)%, related by a 143 (1)° rotation about the bond to the central benzene ring. The phenyl groups of the two conformers occupy the same space. The molecule packs in the crystal with two of the three benzoate phenyl rings stacked parallel to symmetry-related counterparts, with perpendicular distances of 3.715 (5) and 3.791 (5) Å. The parallel rings are slipped away from each other, however, with centroid–centroid distances of 4.122 (2) and 4.363 (2) Å, respectively