High prevalence of porcine Hokovirus in German wild boar populations

Porcine Hokovirus (PHoV) was recently discovered in Hong Kong. This new Parvovirus of pigs is closely related to the human Parvoviruses 4 and 5 (PARV4/5) and bovine Hokovirus (BHoV). So far, nothing is known about the presence and prevalence of PHoV in regions of the world other than Hong Kong. A study was initiated to investigate PHoV in German wild boars from five different geographical regions, using a newly established quantitative real-time PCR assay. Analysis of collected liver and serum samples revealed high overall prevalence (32.7%; 51/156) of PHoV in wild boars. The prevalence differed between the regions and increased with age. Two near full-length genomes and a large fragment for three additional isolates from different regions were sequenced and used for phylogenetic analysis. The German PHoV sequences from wild boars showed a close relationship with sequences of isolates from Hong Kong

Increased expression of transketolase-like-1 in papillary thyroid carcinomas smaller than 1.5 cm in diameter is associated with lymph-node metastases.

BACKGROUND: Patients with small papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) may have a high incidence of regional lymph-node (LN) metastases at presentation, and these are considered to be an independent risk factor for tumor recurrence. A mutated transketolase transcript (TKTL1) has been found up-regulated in different human malignancies, and strong TKTL1 protein expression has been associated with aggressiveness and poor patient survival in several epithelial cancers. METHODS: TKTL1 protein expression was analyzed in 256 consecutive cases of PTCs <or=1.5 cm by immunohistochemistry with a specific anti-TKTL1 antibody. RNA analysis was performed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in all cases for which frozen material was available, which resulted in 55 fragments of PTC. RESULTS: Increased levels of TKTL1 transcript were detected in 50 of 55 analyzed tumors compared with their corresponding normal tissues. Significant differences in TKTL1 transcript levels were found between cases of PTC with and without LN metastases. In primary tumors, immunoreactivity for TKTL1 was detected in the majority of cases, ranging from 0% to 95.0% (mean, 50.11% +/- 27.75%). A significant association was found between TKTL1 protein expression and the presence of multifocality, bilaterality, extrathyroidal extension, vascular invasion, sclerosis, and LN metastases. In cases with LN metastases, a positive correlation was found between the TKTL1 protein expression in primary tumors and the number of metastatic LNs as well as the diameter of the largest metastatic area in LNs. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that TKTL1 overexpression in PTC <or=1.5 cm may be considered a factor that facilitates tumor growth and progression. (c) 2008 American Cancer Society

Iatrogenic Subtotal Stenosis of the Right Subclavian Artery Treated With Percutaneous Transluminal Angioplasty

This report describes a rare vascular complication of surgical placement of a marking clip and a possible approach to problem solving. A 55-year-old patient presented with loss of sensation in the fingers and loss of peripheral pulsations in the right arm 4 days after right upper lobectomy for a pT2N1 moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma of the lung. Duplex examination and computed tomography were performed the same day and showed a subtotal stenosis of the right subclavian artery, which was caused by the surgical placement of a metal clip to mark the surgical boundary. Selective angiography was subsequently performed. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) successfully dilated the stenosis and pushed the clip off. Flow in the right subclavian artery (RSA) was completely restored as were neurology and peripheral pulses. In conclusion, arterial stenosis by a surgical (marking) clip may be feasibly treated with PTA

Using zeta-potential measurements to quantify peptide partition to lipid membranes

© The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com.Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.Many cellular phenomena occur on the biomembranes. There are plenty of molecules (natural or xenobiotics) that interact directly or partially with the cell membrane. Biomolecules, such as several peptides (e.g., antimicrobial peptides) and proteins, exert their effects at the cell membrane level. This feature makes necessary investigating their interactions with lipids to clarify their mechanisms of action and side effects necessary. The determination of molecular lipid/water partition constants (Kp) is frequently used to quantify the extension of the interaction. The determination of this parameter has been achieved by using different methodologies, such as UV-Vis absorption spectrophotometry, fluorescence spectroscopy and ζ-potential measurements. In this work, we derived and tested a mathematical model to determine the Kp from ζ-potential data. The values obtained with this method were compared with those obtained by fluorescence spectroscopy, which is a regular technique used to quantify the interaction of intrinsically fluorescent peptides with selected biomembrane model systems. Two antimicrobial peptides (BP100 and pepR) were evaluated by this new method. The results obtained by this new methodology show that ζ-potential is a powerful technique to quantify peptide/lipid interactions of a wide variety of charged molecules, overcoming some of the limitations inherent to other techniques, such as the need for fluorescent labeling.This work was partially supported by project PTDC/QUI/ 69937/2006 from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia-Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (FCT-MCTES, Portugal), and by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Portugal). JMF and MMD also thank FCT-MCTES for grants IMM/BT/37-2010 and SFRH/BD/41750/2007, respectively

Minimal Flavour Violation with hierarchical squark masses

In a supersymmetric model with hierarchical squark masses we analyze a pattern of flavour symmetry breaking centered on the special role of the top Yukawa coupling and, by extension, of the full Yukawa couplings for the up-type quarks. For sufficiently heavy squarks of the first and second generation this leads to effective Minimal Flavour Violation of the Flavour Changing Neutral Current amplitudes. For this to happen we determine the bounds on the masses of the heavy squarks with QCD corrections taken into account, properly including previously neglected effects. We believe that the view presented in this paper altogether strengthens the case for hierarchical sfermions.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure. v2: an equation correcte

Effect of parasympathetic stimulation on brain activity during appraisal of fearful expressions

Autonomic nervous system activity is an important component of human emotion. Mental processes influence bodily physiology, which in turn feeds back to influence thoughts and feelings. Afferent cardiovascular signals from arterial baroreceptors in the carotid sinuses are processed within the brain and contribute to this two-way communication with the body. These carotid baroreceptors can be stimulated non-invasively by externally applying focal negative pressure bilaterally to the neck. In an experiment combining functional neuroimaging (fMRI) with carotid stimulation in healthy participants, we tested the hypothesis that manipulating afferent cardiovascular signals alters the central processing of emotional information (fearful and neutral facial expressions). Carotid stimulation, compared with sham stimulation, broadly attenuated activity across cortical and brainstem regions. Modulation of emotional processing was apparent as a significant expression-by-stimulation interaction within left amygdala, where responses during appraisal of fearful faces were selectively reduced by carotid stimulation. Moreover, activity reductions within insula, amygdala, and hippocampus correlated with the degree of stimulation-evoked change in the explicit emotional ratings of fearful faces. Across participants, individual differences in autonomic state (heart rate variability, a proxy measure of autonomic balance toward parasympathetic activity) predicted the extent to which carotid stimulation influenced neural (amygdala) responses during appraisal and subjective rating of fearful faces. Together our results provide mechanistic insight into the visceral component of emotion by identifying the neural substrates mediating cardiovascular influences on the processing of fear signals, potentially implicating central baroreflex mechanisms for anxiolytic treatment targets

Cognitive reserve in granulin-related frontotemporal dementia: from preclinical to clinical stages

OBJECTIVE Consistent with the cognitive reserve hypothesis, higher education and occupation attainments may help persons with neurodegenerative dementias to better withstand neuropathology before developing cognitive impairment. We tested here the cognitive reserve hypothesis in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), with or without pathogenetic granulin mutations (GRN+ and GRN-), and in presymptomatic GRN mutation carriers (aGRN+). METHODS Education and occupation attainments were assessed and combined to define Reserve Index (RI) in 32 FTD patients, i.e. 12 GRN+ and 20 GRN-, and in 17 aGRN+. Changes in functional connectivity were estimated by resting state fMRI, focusing on the salience network (SN), executive network (EN) and bilateral frontoparietal networks (FPNs). Cognitive status was measured by FTD-modified Clinical Dementia Rating Scale. RESULTS In FTD patients higher level of premorbid cognitive reserve was associated with reduced connectivity within the SN and the EN. EN was more involved in FTD patients without GRN mutations, while SN was more affected in GRN pathology. In aGRN+, cognitive reserve was associated with reduced SN. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that cognitive reserve modulates functional connectivity in patients with FTD, even in monogenic disease. In GRN inherited FTD, cognitive reserve mechanisms operate even in presymptomatic to clinical stages

Ram pressure feeding super-massive black holes

When supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies accrete matter (usually gas), they give rise to highly energetic phenomena named Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). A number of physical processes have been proposed to account for the funneling of gas towards the galaxy centers to feed the AGN. There are also several physical processes that can strip gas from a galaxy, and one of them is ram pressure stripping in galaxy clusters due to the hot and dense gas filling the space between galaxies. We report the discovery of a strong connection between severe ram pressure stripping and the presence of AGN activity. Searching in galaxy clusters at low redshift, we have selected the most extreme examples of jellyfish galaxies, which are galaxies with long tentacles of material extending for dozens of kpc beyond the galaxy disk. Using the MUSE spectrograph on the ESO Very Large Telescope, we find that 6 out of the 7 galaxies of this sample host a central AGN, and two of them also have galactic-scale AGN ionization cones. The high incidence of AGN among the most striking jellyfishes may be due to ram pressure causing gas to flow towards the center and triggering the AGN activity, or to an enhancement of the stripping caused by AGN energy injection, or both. Our analysis of the galaxy position and velocity relative to the cluster strongly supports the first hypothesis, and puts forward ram pressure as another, yet unforeseen, possible mechanism for feeding the central supermassive black hole with gas.Comment: published in Nature, Vol.548, Number 7667, pag.30