Influence of Medial Osteotomy Height and Hinge Position in Open Wedge High Tibial Osteotomy: A Simulation Study

(1) Background: In treating medial unicompartmental gonarthrosis, medial open wedge high tibial osteotomy (mOWHTO) reduces pain and is intended to delay a possible indication for joint replacement by relieving the affected compartment. This study aimed to investigate the influence of the osteotomy height with different hinge points in HTO in genu varum on the leg axis. (2) Methods: Fifty-five patients with varus lower leg alignment obtained full-weight bearing long-leg radiographs were analyzed. Different simulations were performed: Osteotomy height was selected at 3 and 4 cm distal to the tibial articular surface, and the hinge points were selected at 0.5 cm, 1 cm, and 1.5 cm medial to the fibular head, respectively. The target of each correction was 55% of the tibial plateau measured from the medial. Then, the width of the opening wedge was measured. Intraobserver and interobserver reliability were calculated. (3) Results: Statistically significant differences in wedge width were seen at an osteotomy height of 3 cm below the tibial plateau when the distance of the hinge from the fibular head was 0.5 cm to 1.5 cm (3 cm and 0.5 cm: 8.9 +/− 3.88 vs. 3 cm and 1.5 cm: 11.6 +/− 4.39 p = 0.012). Statistically significant differences were also found concerning the wedge width between the distances 0.5 to 1.5 cm from the fibular head at the osteotomy height of 4 cm below the tibial plateau. (4 cm and 0.5 cm: 9.0 +/− 3.76 vs. 4 cm and 1.5 cm: 11.4 +/− 4.27 p = 0.026). (4) Conclusion: A change of the lateral hinge position of 1 cm results in a change in wedge width of approximately 2 mm. If hinge positions are chosen differently in preoperative planning and intraoperatively, the result can lead to over- or under-correction

Plant functional traits and canopy structure control the relationship between photosynthetic CO2 uptake and far-red sun-induced fluorescence in a Mediterranean grassland under different nutrient availability

Sun-induced fluorescence (SIF) in the far-red region provides a new noninvasive measurement approach that has the potential to quantify dynamic changes in light-use efficiency and gross primary production (GPP). However, the mechanistic link between GPP and SIF is not completely understood. We analyzed the structural and functional factors controlling the emission of SIF at 760 nm (F760) in a Mediterranean grassland manipulated with nutrient addition of nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) or nitrogen¿phosphorous (NP). Using the soil¿canopy observation of photosynthesis and energy (SCOPE) model, we investigated how nutrient-induced changes in canopy structure (i.e. changes in plant forms abundance that influence leaf inclination distribution function, LIDF) and functional traits (e.g. N content in dry mass of leaves, N%, Chlorophyll a+b concentration (Cab) and maximum carboxylation capacity (Vcmax)) affected the observed linear relationship between F760 and GPP. We conclude that the addition of nutrients imposed a change in the abundance of different plant forms and biochemistry of the canopy that controls F760. Changes in canopy structure mainly control the GPP¿F760 relationship, with a secondary effect of Cab and Vcmax. In order to exploit F760 data to model GPP at the global/regional scale, canopy structural variability, biodiversity and functional traits are important factors that have to be considered.The authors acknowledge the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for supporting this research with the Max-Planck Prize to Markus Reichstein, and the EUFAR TA project DEHESHyrE (EU FP7 Program). We acknowledge the Majadas de Tietar city council for its support. The authors acknowledge the Freiland Group and in particular Martin Hertel from MPI-Jena and Ramon Lopez-Jimenez (CEAM) for technical assistance. The authors thank the anonymous referee and the editor for their comments on the work, Alessandro Cescatti for discussions about the results and Silvana Schott for the graphics

miRNA in situ hybridization in formaldehyde and EDC-fixed tissues

MicroRNAs are small regulatory RNAs with many biological functions and disease associations. We showed that in situ hybridization (ISH) using conventional formaldehyde fixation results in substantial microRNA loss from mouse tissue sections, which can be prevented by fixation with 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide that irreversibly immobilizes the microRNA at its 5' phosphate. We determined optimal hybridization parameters for 130 locked nucleic acid probes by recording nucleic acid melting temperature during ISH

Transcriptome-wide identification of RNA-binding protein and microRNA target sites by PAR-CLIP

RNA transcripts are subject to posttranscriptional gene regulation involving hundreds of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and microRNA-containing ribonucleoprotein complexes (miRNPs) expressed in a cell-type dependent fashion. We developed a cell-based crosslinking approach to determine at high resolution and transcriptome-wide the binding sites of cellular RBPs and miRNPs. The crosslinked sites are revealed by thymidine to cytidine transitions in the cDNAs prepared from immunopurified RNPs of 4-thiouridine-treated cells. We determined the binding sites and regulatory consequences for several intensely studied RBPs and miRNPs, including PUM2, QKI, IGF2BP1-3, AGO/EIF2C1-4 and TNRC6A-C. Our study revealed that these factors bind thousands of sites containing defined sequence motifs and have distinct preferences for exonic versus intronic or coding versus untranslated transcript regions. The precise mapping of binding sites across the transcriptome will be critical to the interpretation of the rapidly emerging data on genetic variation between individuals and how these variations contribute to complex genetic diseases

Plant functional traits and canopy structure control the relationship between photosynthetic CO2 uptake and far-red sun-induced fluorescence in a Mediterranean grassland under different nutrient availability

Sun-induced fluorescence (SIF) in the far-red region provides a new noninvasive measurement approach that has the potential to quantify dynamic changes in light-use efficiency and gross primary production (GPP). However, the mechanistic link between GPP and SIF is not completely understood. We analyzed the structural and functional factors controlling the emission of SIF at 760 nm (F760) in a Mediterranean grassland manipulated with nutrient addition of nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) or nitrogen–phosphorous (NP). Using the soil–canopy observation of photosynthesis and energy (SCOPE) model, we investigated how nutrient-induced changes in canopy structure (i.e. changes in plant forms abundance that influence leaf inclination distribution function, LIDF) and functional traits (e.g. N content in dry mass of leaves, N%, Chlorophyll a+b concentration (Cab) and maximum carboxylation capacity (Vcmax)) affected the observed linear relationship between F760 and GPP. We conclude that the addition of nutrients imposed a change in the abundance of different plant forms and biochemistry of the canopy that controls F760. Changes in canopy structure mainly control the GPP–F760 relationship, with a secondary effect of Cab and Vcmax. In order to exploit F760 data to model GPP at the global/regional scale, canopy structural variability, biodiversity and functional traits are important factors that have to be considered