Molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Taipei

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The control of tuberculosis in densely populated cities is complicated by close human-to-human contacts and potential transmission of pathogens from multiple sources. We conducted a molecular epidemiologic analysis of 356 <it>Mycobacterium tuberculosis </it>(MTB) isolates from patients presenting pulmonary tuberculosis in metropolitan Taipei. Classical antibiogram studies and genetic characterization, using mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem-repeat (MIRU-VNTR) typing and spoligotyping, were applied after culture.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 356 isolates were genotyped by standard spoligotyping and the strains were compared with in the international spoligotyping database (SpolDB4). All isolates were also categorized using the 15 loci MIRU-VNTR typing method and combin with <it>NTF </it>locus and RD deletion analyses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 356 isolates spoligotyped, 290 (81.4%) displayed known spoligotypes and 66 were not identified in the database. Major spoligotypes found were Beijing lineages (52.5%), followed by Haarlem lineages (13.5%) and EAI plus EAI-like lineages (11%). When MIRU-VNTR was employed, 140 patterns were identified, including 36 clusters by 252 isolates and 104 unique patterns, and the largest cluster comprised 95 isolates from the Beijing family. The combination of spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR revealed that 236 (67%) of the 356 isolates were clustered in 43 genotypes. Strains of the Beijing family was more likely to be of modern strain and a higher percentage of multiple drug resistance than other families combined (P = 0.08). Patients infected with Beijing strains were younger than those with other strains (mean 58.7 vs. 64.2, p = 0.02). Moreover, 85.3% of infected persons younger than 25 years had Beijing modern strain, suggesting a possible recent spread in the young population by this family of TB strain in Taipei.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data on MTB genotype in Taipei suggest that MTB infection has not been optimally controlled. Control efforts should be reinforced in view of the high prevalence of the Beijing strain in young population and association with drug resistance.</p

Anticancer drugs for the modulation of endoplasmic reticulum stress and oxidative stress

Prior research has demonstrated how the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) functions as a multifunctional organelle and as a well-orchestrated protein-folding unit. It consists of sensors which detect stress-induced unfolded/misfolded proteins and it is the place where protein folding is catalyzed with chaperones. During this folding process, an immaculate disulfide bond formation requires an oxidized environment provided by the ER. Protein folding and the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a protein oxidative byproduct in ER are crosslinked. An ER stress-induced response also mediates the expression of the apoptosis-associated gene C/EBP-homologous protein (CHOP) and death receptor 5 (DR5). ER stress induces the upregulation of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) receptor and opening new horizons for therapeutic research. These findings can be used to maximize TRAIL-induced apoptosis in xenografted mice. This review summarizes the current understanding of the interplay between ER stress and ROS. We also discuss how damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) function as modulators of immunogenic cell death and how natural products and drugs have shown potential in regulating ER stress and ROS in different cancer cell lines. Drugs as inducers and inhibitors of ROS modulation may respectively exert inducible and inhibitory effects on ER stress and unfolded protein response (UPR). Reconceptualization of the molecular crosstalk among ROS modulating effectors, ER stress, and DAMPs will lead to advances in anticancer therapy

On greedy construction of connected dominating sets in wireless networks

Since no fixed infrastructure and no cen-tralized management present in wireless net-works, a Connected Dominating Set (CDS) of the graph representing the network is widely used as a virtual backbone. Con-structing a minimum CDS is NP-hard. I

Supplementary_TablesR2 – Supplemental material for Constructive, illusory, and distressed posttraumatic growth among survivors of breast cancer: A 7-year growth trajectory study

<p>Supplemental material, Supplementary_TablesR2 for Constructive, illusory, and distressed posttraumatic growth among survivors of breast cancer: A 7-year growth trajectory study by Chih-Tao Cheng, Samuel MY Ho, Yi-Chen Hou, Yihuan Lai and Ging-Long Wang in Journal of Health Psychology</p

Orbital ordering and ultrafast carrier dynamics anisotropies in orientation-engineered orthorhombic YMnO3 films

The rich physical properties unveiled in a plethora of transition and rare-earth metal oxides have been attributed to the intricate interplays between the orbital, charge, and spin degrees of freedom. Among them, rare-earth manganites (RMnO3) have been attracting tremendous attention owing to the ionic size-induced lattice distortion dictated by the Goldschmidt tolerance factor and the substantial Jahn–Teller distortion unique to Mn3+ ions, which evidently have resulted in a variety of emergent characteristics in electronic, magnetic, and orbital ordering. In this work, we deliberately engineered the orientation of a series of orthorhombic YMnO3 (o-YMO) films grown on SrTiO3(100) [STO(100)] and SrTiO3(110) [STO(110)] substrates by means of pulsed laser deposition. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) and reciprocal space mapping revealed that o-YMO/STO(100) is c-axis-oriented and o-YMO/STO(110) is a-axis-oriented, respectively. The XRD ϕ-scans further indicate that both films have excellent in-plane crystallinity, allowing the exploration of anisotropies along the respective crystallographic orientations. Indeed, the x-ray absorption linear dichroism spectroscopy taken along the respective crystallographic orientations evidently exhibited substantial anisotropy. Theoretical fitting with configuration interaction cluster calculations suggests that the d3z2−r2 orbitals are parallel to YMO[001]/(100), leading to stronger electron scattering along the c-axis. Independent polarization-dependent Δ R/R spectra obtained using the femtosecond pump–probe method exhibited substantial anisotropic behaviors in carrier relaxation dynamics when probing along different crystallographic orientations, presumably due to orbital ordering anisotropies