New Insight into the Effects of Small Heat Shock Proteins on Callipyge Lamb Meat Tenderness

Callipyge lambs are a type of sheep that are genetically known to produce tough meat. High expression of calpastatin, which inhibits proteolytic activity of µ-calpain, has been identified as the main factor behind the toughness of callipyge lamb meat. Another group of proteins called small heat shock proteins (sHSP) has recently been suggested for its possible involvement in tenderness development of meat, where up-regulation of sHSP may be associated with toughness. However, the role of sHSP in meat tenderization of callipyge lambs has never been investigated; therefore, the objective of this study is to determine possible involvement of sHSP in myofibrillar protein degradation of callipyge lambs during post-mortem aging. A total of 17 lambs from four different genotypes were slaughtered. Muscle samples from M. longissmus dorsi were collected at 3, 6, and 9 days post-mortem for protein extraction. Western blots were performed to determine the extent of degradation of myofibrillar proteins, such as desmin and troponin-T, µ-calpain autolysis, and sHSP 20, 27, and 70. The qualitative results showed that meat samples from callipyge lambs had less myofibrillar protein degradation and µ-calpain autolysis than samples from normal lambs. Furthermore, more intact sHSP were found in the samples from callipyge lambs throughout whole-aging periods than the samples in normal lambs. These observations suggest that up-regulation of sHSP could be related to less extent of myofibrillar protein degradation of muscles from callipyge lambs. Future studies to determine the exact mechanisms by which sHSP protect muscle structure from proteolysis should be warranted

OVERFLOW Simulations of Space Shuttle Orbiter Reentry Based on As-Built Geometry

The Space Shuttle Orbiters Discovery and Endeavor have been digitally scanned to obtain outer mold line surfaces. Using these scans, the existing overset computational fluid dynamics (CFD) grid system will be modified by projecting the grid points to the scanned geometry. Simulations will be performed using the OVERFLOW solver and the results compared to previous OVERFLOW results on the theoretical geometry and the aerodynamic databook. The "bent airframe" term will be compared between the aerodynamic databook and the computations over a range of reentry conditions

N-Acetylcysteine prevents congenital heart defects induced by pregestational diabetes

Background: Pregestational diabetes is a major risk factor of congenital heart defects (CHDs). Glutathione is depleted and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production is elevated in diabetes. In the present study, we aimed to examine whether treatment with N-acetylcysteine (NAC), which increases glutathione synthesis and inhibits ROS production, prevents CHDs induced by pregestational diabetes.Methods: Female mice were treated with streptozotocin (STZ) to induce pregestational diabetes prior to breeding with normal males to produce offspring. Some diabetic mice were treated with N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in drinking water from E0.5 to the end of gestation or harvesting of the embryos. CHDs were identified by histology. ROS levels, cell proliferation and gene expression in the fetal heart were analyzed.Results: Our data show that pregestational diabetes resulted in CHDs in 58% of the offspring, including ventricular septal defect (VSD), atrial septal defect (ASD), atrioventricular septal defects (AVSD), transposition of great arteries (TGA), double outlet right ventricle (DORV) and tetralogy of Fallot (TOF). Treatment with NAC in drinking water in pregestational diabetic mice completely eliminated the incidence of AVSD, TGA, TOF and significantly diminished the incidence of ASD and VSD. Furthermore, pregestational diabetes increased ROS, impaired cell proliferation, and altered Gata4, Gata5 and Vegf-a expression in the fetal heart of diabetic offspring, which were all prevented by NAC treatment.Conclusions: Treatment with NAC increases GSH levels, decreases ROS levels in the fetal heart and prevents the development of CHDs in the offspring of pregestational diabetes. Our study suggests that NAC may have therapeutic potential in the prevention of CHDs induced by pregestational diabetes. © 2014 Moazzen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

EPW: A program for calculating the electron-phonon coupling using maximally localized Wannier functions

EPW (Electron-Phonon coupling using Wannier functions) is a program written in FORTRAN90 for calculating the electron-phonon coupling in periodic systems using density-functional perturbation theory and maximally-localized Wannier functions. EPW can calculate electron-phonon interaction self-energies, electron-phonon spectral functions, and total as well as mode-resolved electron-phonon coupling strengths. The calculation of the electron-phonon coupling requires a very accurate sampling of electron-phonon scattering processes throughout the Brillouin zone, hence reliable calculations can be prohibitively time-consuming. EPW combines the Kohn-Sham electronic eigenstates and the vibrational eigenmodes provided by the Quantum-ESPRESSO package [1] with the maximally localized Wannier functions provided by the wannier90 package [2] in order to generate electron-phonon matrix elements on arbitrarily dense Brillouin zone grids using a generalized Fourier interpolation. This feature of EPW leads to fast and accurate calculations of the electron-phonon coupling, and enables the study of the electron-phonon coupling in large and complex systems.Comment: 6 figure

Modulation of Muscle Regeneration, Myogenesis, and Adipogenesis by the Rho Family Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor GEFT

Rho family guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) regulate diverse cellular processes including cytoskeletal reorganization, cell adhesion, and differentiation via activation of the Rho GTPases. However, no studies have yet implicated Rho-GEFs as molecular regulators of the mesenchymal cell fate decisions which occur during development and repair of tissue damage. In this study, we demonstrate that the steady-state protein level of the Rho-specific GEF GEFT is modulated during skeletal muscle regeneration and that gene transfer of GEFT into cardiotoxin-injured mouse tibialis anterior muscle exerts a powerful promotion of skeletal muscle regeneration in vivo. In order to molecularly characterize this regenerative effect, we extrapolate the mechanism of action by examining the consequence of GEFT expression in multipotent cell lines capable of differentiating into a number of cell types, including muscle and adipocyte lineages. Our data demonstrate that endogenous GEFT is transcriptionally upregulated during myogenic differentiation and downregulated during adipogenic differentiation. Exogenous expression of GEFT promotes myogenesis of C2C12 cells via activation of RhoA, Rac1, and Cdc42 and their downstream effector proteins, while a dominant-negative mutant of GEFT inhibits this process. Moreover, we show that GEFT inhibits insulin-induced adipogenesis in 3T3L1 preadipocytes. In summary, we provide the first evidence that the Rho family signaling pathways act as potential regulators of skeletal muscle regeneration and provide the first reported molecular mechanism illustrating how a mammalian Rho family GEF controls this process by modulating mesenchymal cell fate decisions

Climate Change and invasibility of the Antarctic benthos

Benthic communities living in shallow-shelf habitats in Antarctica (<100-m depth) are archaic in their structure and function. Modern predators, including fast-moving, durophagous (skeleton-crushing) bony fish, sharks, and crabs, are rare or absent; slow-moving invertebrates are the top predators; and epifaunal suspension feeders dominate many soft substratum communities. Cooling temperatures beginning in the late Eocene excluded durophagous predators, ultimately resulting in the endemic living fauna and its unique food-web structure. Although the Southern Ocean is oceanographically isolated, the barriers to biological invasion are primarily physiological rather than geographic. Cold temperatures impose limits to performance that exclude modern predators. Global warming is now removing those physiological barriers, and crabs are reinvading Antarctica. As sea temperatures continue to rise, the invasion of durophagous predators will modernize the shelf benthos and erode the indigenous character of marine life in Antarctica

Epidemiology, Species Distribution, Antifungal Susceptibility and Outcome of Nosocomial Candidemia in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Italy

Candida is an important cause of bloodstream infections (BSI), causing significant mortality and morbidity in health care settings. From January 2008 to December 2010 all consecutive patients who developed candidemia at San Martino University Hospital, Italy were enrolled in the study. A total of 348 episodes of candidaemia were identified during the study period (January 2008–December 2010), with an incidence of 1,73 episodes/1000 admissions. Globally, albicans and non-albicans species caused around 50% of the cases each. Non-albicans included Candida parapsilosis (28.4%), Candida glabrata (9.5%), Candida tropicalis (6.6%), and Candida krusei (2.6%). Out of 324 evaluable patients, 141 (43.5%) died within 30 days from the onset of candidemia. C. parapsilosis candidemia was associated with the lowest mortality rate (36.2%). In contrast, patients with C. krusei BSI had the highest mortality rate (55.5%) in this cohort. Regarding the crude mortality in the different units, patients in Internal Medicine wards had the highest mortality rate (54.1%), followed by patients in ICU and Hemato-Oncology wards (47.6%)

Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Weight Loss Treatment Outcome Among Adults With Metabolic Syndrome

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine whether adults with obesity and metabolic syndrome who screen as high risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) lose less weight as part of a weight loss intervention than those who screen as low risk. METHOD: We conducted a secondary analysis of a randomized trial comparing 2 weight loss interventions consisting of dietary counseling for adults with obesity and metabolic syndrome. Participants were screened for sleep apnea using a validated screening questionnaire. Percent weight loss was calculated from weight measured at baseline and intervention end (12 months). Weight loss of 5% or greater was considered clinically significant. Multivariate linear and logistic regression models estimated the association between OSA screening status (high vs. low risk) and percent weight loss and clinically significant weight loss, adjusting for relevant covariates including body mass index and sleep duration. RESULTS: Nearly half of participants (45.8%) screened as high risk for OSA. Participants who screened as high risk for OSA lost less weight (1.2% +/- 4.2% vs. 4.2% +/- 5.3%) and were less likely to lose 5% or greater (24.4% vs. 75.6%) than participants without OSA. CONCLUSION: Among adults with obesity and metabolic syndrome, those at high risk for OSA lost less weight in response to a dietary counseling intervention than adults with low risk of OSA. Routine OSA screening should be considered as part of weight loss treatment programs. Additional research is needed to determine how to tailor weight loss treatment for those with high risk for OSA. (PsycINFO Database Recor

Seeking Clarity within Cloudy Effluents: Differentiating Fungal from Bacterial Peritonitis in Peritoneal Dialysis Patients

Fungal peritonitis is a serious complication of peritoneal dialysis (PD) therapy with the majority of patients ceasing PD permanently. The aims of this study were to identify risk factors and clinical associations that may discriminate between fungal from bacterial peritonitis.We retrospectively identified episodes of fungal peritonitis from 2001-2010 in PD patients at Liverpool and Westmead Hospitals (Australia). Fungal peritonitis cases were matched in a 1:2 ratio with patients with bacterial peritonitis from each institution's dialysis registry, occurring closest in time to the fungal episode. Patient demographic, clinical and outcome data were obtained from the medical records.Thirty-nine episodes of fungal peritonitis (rate of 0.02 episodes per patient-year of dialysis) were matched with 78 episodes of bacterial peritonitis. Candida species were the commonest pathogens (35/39; 90% episodes) with Candida albicans (37%), Candida parapsilosis (32%) and Candida glabrata (13%) the most frequently isolated species. Compared to bacterial peritonitis, fungal peritonitis patients had received PD for significantly longer (1133 vs. 775 catheter-days; p = 0.016), were more likely to have had previous episodes of bacterial peritonitis (51% vs. 10%; p = 0.01), and to have received prior antibacterial therapy (51% vs. 10%; p = 0.01). Patients with fungal peritonitis were less likely to have fever and abdominal pain on presentation, but had higher rates of PD catheter removal (79% vs. 22%; p<0.005), and permanent transfer to haemodialysis (87% vs. 24%; p<0.005). Hospital length of stay was significantly longer in patients with fungal peritonitis (26.1 days vs. 12.6 days; p = 0.017), but the all-cause 30-day mortality rate was similar in both groups. Fluconazole was a suitable empiric antifungal agent; with no Candida resistance detected.Prompt recognition of clinical risk factors, initiation of antifungal therapy and removal of PD catheters are key considerations in optimising outcomes

Concurrent Validity of the Child Behavior Checklist DSM-Oriented Scales: Correspondence with DSM Diagnoses and Comparison to Syndrome Scales

This study used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) methodology and discriminative analyses to examine the correspondence of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) rationally-derived DSM-oriented scales and empirically-derived syndrome scales with clinical diagnoses in a clinic-referred sample of children and adolescents (N = 476). Although results demonstrated that the CBCL Anxiety, Affective, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity, Oppositional and Conduct Problems DSM-oriented scales corresponded significantly with related clinical diagnoses derived from parent-based structured interviews, these DSM-oriented scales did not evidence significantly greater correspondence with clinical diagnoses than the syndrome scales in all cases but one. The DSM-oriented Anxiety Problems scale was the only scale that evidenced significantly greater correspondence with diagnoses above its syndrome scale counterpart —the Anxious/Depressed scale. The recently developed and rationally-derived DSM-oriented scales thus generally do not add incremental clinical utility above that already afforded by the syndrome scales with respect to corresponding with diagnoses. Implications of these findings are discussed