Treatment trends in allergic rhinitis and asthma: a British ENT survey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Allergic Rhinitis is a common Ear, Nose and Throat disorder. Asthma and Allergic Rhinitis are diseases with similar underlying mechanism and pathogenesis. The aim of this survey was to highlight current treatment trends for Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>A questionnaire was emailed to all registered consultant members of the British Association of Otorhinolaryngologists - Head and Neck Surgeons regarding the management of patients with Allergic Rhinitis and related disorders.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Survey response rate was 56%. The results indicate a various approach in the investigation and management of Allergic Rhinitis compatible with recommendations from the Allergic Rhinitis and Its Impact on Asthma guidelines in collaboration with the World Health Organisation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A combined management approach for patients with Allergic Rhinitis and concomitant Asthma may reduce medical treatment costs for these conditions and improve symptom control and quality of life.</p

Functional discrimination of membrane proteins using machine learning techniques

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Discriminating membrane proteins based on their functions is an important task in genome annotation. In this work, we have analyzed the characteristic features of amino acid residues in membrane proteins that perform major functions, such as channels/pores, electrochemical potential-driven transporters and primary active transporters.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We observed that the residues Asp, Asn and Tyr are dominant in channels/pores whereas the composition of hydrophobic residues, Phe, Gly, Ile, Leu and Val is high in electrochemical potential-driven transporters. The composition of all the amino acids in primary active transporters lies in between other two classes of proteins. We have utilized different machine learning algorithms, such as, Bayes rule, Logistic function, Neural network, Support vector machine, Decision tree etc. for discriminating these classes of proteins. We observed that most of the algorithms have discriminated them with similar accuracy. The neural network method discriminated the channels/pores, electrochemical potential-driven transporters and active transporters with the 5-fold cross validation accuracy of 64% in a data set of 1718 membrane proteins. The application of amino acid occurrence improved the overall accuracy to 68%. In addition, we have discriminated transporters from other α-helical and β-barrel membrane proteins with the accuracy of 85% using k-nearest neighbor method. The classification of transporters and all other proteins (globular and membrane) showed the accuracy of 82%.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The performance of discrimination with amino acid occurrence is better than that with amino acid composition. We suggest that this method could be effectively used to discriminate transporters from all other globular and membrane proteins, and classify them into channels/pores, electrochemical and active transporters.</p

Desempenho produtivo de tambacus alimentados com dietas suplementadas com vitamina E

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar os efeitos da suplementação da dieta de tambacus com concentrações de vitamina E sobre variáveis de desempenho e hematológicas, bem como determinar a relação da atividade da glutationa peroxidase com a inclusão de vitamina E e selênio na dieta. Foram utilizados 250 juvenis de tambacu, divididos em 25 aquários. A dieta basal constituiu-se de ração peletizada com 32% de proteína bruta e 3.300 kcal kg-1 de energia digestível, e inclusão de 0,40 mg kg-1 de Se. As dietas-teste - isoprotéicas e isoenergéticas - foram compostas da dieta basal com diferentes concentrações de vitamina E (0, 100, 200, 300, 400 mg kg-1), em delineamento inteiramente ao acaso, com cinco tratamentos e cinco repetições. Não foi observado efeito significativo da suplementação com vitamina E sobre o comprimento total, volume corpuscular médio, concentração de hemoglobina corpuscular média e número de eritrócitos, nem sobre a atividade da glutationa peroxidase. Peso final e conversão alimentar aparente, no entanto, sofreram efeito dos tratamentos suplementados. O teor de 400 mg kg-1 de vitamina E melhorou o comprimento padrão e ganho de peso. A suplementação da dieta com vitamina E resulta em melhor desempenho produtivo de tambacus

Differential profiling of lacrimal cytokines in patients suffering from thyroid-associated orbitopathy.

The aim was to investigate the levels of cytokines and soluble IL-6R in the tears of patients with thyroid-associated orbitopathy (TAO) disease. Schirmer's test was adopted to collect tears from TAO patients (N = 20, 17 women, mean age (±SD): 46.0 years (±13.4)) and healthy subjects (N = 18, 10 women, 45.4 years (±18.7)). Lacrimal cytokines and soluble IL-6R (sIL-6R) were measured using a 10-plex panel (Meso Scale Discovery Company) and Invitrogen Human sIL-6R Elisa kit, respectively. Tear levels of IL-10, IL-12p70, IL-13, IL-6 and TNF-α appeared significantly higher in TAO patients than in healthy subjects. Interestingly, IL-10, IL-12p70 and IL-8 levels increased in tears whatever the form of TAO whereas IL-13, IL-6 and TNF-α levels were significantly elevated in inflammatory TAO patients, meaning with a clinical score activity (CAS) ≥ 3, compared to controls. Furthermore, only 3 cytokines were strongly positively correlated with CAS (IL-13 Spearman coeff. r: 0.703, p = 0.0005; IL-6 r: 0.553, p = 0.011; IL-8 r: 0.618, p = 0.004, respectively). Finally, tobacco use disturbed the levels of several cytokines, especially in patient suffering of TAO. The differential profile of lacrimal cytokines could be useful for the diagnosis of TAO patients. Nevertheless, the tobacco use of these patients should be taken into account in the interpretation of the cytokine levels