Ahmed glaucoma valves in refractory glaucoma: A 7-year audit

Purpose: To present the long-term results of Ahmed glaucoma valve (AGV) implantation. Methods: Consecutive case series of 94 eyes with AGV implantation over 7 years. Temporary tube ligation with C3F8 gas fill was used in high-risk eyes (group G&L) and compared with standard implantation in both phakic (group A) and pseudophakic/aphakic eyes (group B). Success was intraocular pressure (IOP) of 6 mm Hg or greater and 21 mm Hg or less and/or IOP reduction of 20% or greater. Results: Average follow-up was 28.9±20.3 months. The mean preoperative IOP changed from 30.8±8.2 to 19.7±7.6 mm Hg and mean preoperative medications changed from 3.3±1.2 to 1.2±1.1 at the final visit. Cumulative probability of survival at 1 and 4 years was 89.1% and 72.9%. There was no statistically significant difference in success between the three groups, but complications due to postoperative hypotony (six eyes) only occurred in group B. Other complications were corneal decompensation (three eyes), tube erosion (six eyes) and aqueous misdirection (four eyes). Conclusions: AGV implantation offered good long-term IOP control with a success rate of 78.7%. The authors recommend C3F8 gas fill and temporary tube ligation in eyes at high risk of postoperative hypotony and the use of donor sclera or human pericardial patch to prevent tube erosion.published_or_final_versio

Artificial intelligence in biological activity prediction

Artificial intelligence has become an indispensable resource in chemoinformatics. Numerous machine learning algorithms for activity prediction recently emerged, becoming an indispensable approach to mine chemical information from large compound datasets. These approaches enable the automation of compound discovery to find biologically active molecules with important properties. Here, we present a review of some of the main machine learning studies in biological activity prediction of compounds, in particular for sweetness prediction. We discuss some of the most used compound featurization techniques and the major databases of chemical compounds relevant to these tasks.This study was supported by the European Commission through project SHIKIFACTORY100 - Modular cell factories for the production of 100 compounds from the shikimate pathway (Reference 814408), and by the Portuguese FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2019 unit and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Probing the urea dependence of residual structure in denatured human α-lactalbumin

Backbone 15N relaxation parameters and 15N–1HN residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) have been measured for a variant of human α-lactalbumin (α-LA) in 4, 6, 8 and 10 M urea. In the α-LA variant, the eight cysteine residues in the protein have been replaced by alanines (all-Ala α-LA). This protein is a partially folded molten globule at pH 2 and has been shown previously to unfold in a stepwise non-cooperative manner on the addition of urea. 15N R2 values in some regions of all-Ala α-LA show significant exchange broadening which is reduced as the urea concentration is increased. Experimental RDC data are compared with RDCs predicted from a statistical coil model and with bulkiness, average area buried upon folding and hydrophobicity profiles in order to identify regions of non-random structure. Residues in the regions corresponding to the B, D and C-terminal 310 helices in native α-LA show R2 values and RDC data consistent with some non-random structural propensities even at high urea concentrations. Indeed, for residues 101–106 the residual structure persists in 10 M urea and the RDC data suggest that this might include the formation of a turn-like structure. The data presented here allow a detailed characterization of the non-cooperative unfolding of all-Ala α-LA at higher concentrations of denaturant and complement previous studies which focused on structural features of the molten globule which is populated at lower concentrations of denaturant

Efficacy of neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser iridotomies in primary angle-closure diseases: superior peripheral iridotomy versus inferior peripheral iridotomy

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of superior peripheral iridotomy versus inferior peripheral iridotomy in the treatment of primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) in phakic patients. Methods: In this randomized, prospective, paired-eye comparative study, patients with primary angle closure or primary angle-closure suspects were recruited and randomized to receive neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) laser peripheral iridotomy (LPI) superiorly in one eye and inferiorly in the other eye. Patients were masked to the location of treatment in each eye. The main outcome measures were patency of iridotomy, intraocular pressure (IOP), complications and visual symptoms at each postoperative visit during a 1 year follow-up. Results: A total of 164 patients were recruited, of whom 150 (91.46%) completed the study. The mean age was 58.85 ± 6.4 years. Average IOP measurements before LPI was 22.85 ± 7.53 and 23.62 ± 8.32 in superior LPI and inferior LPI eyes respectively. After LPI, average IOP was 25.14 ± 2.73 and 20.97 ± 2.72 in superior LPI and inferior LPI eyes respectively. Inferior LPIs required less use of mean total laser energy to perforate the tissue (p =.05) and resulted in a significantly lower incidence of iris bleeding at the time of treatment (p =.004), lower IOP elevation following treatment (p =.002), lower incidence of focal corneal damage (p =.002) and a lower post-laser iritis (p =.04). All the 300 iridotomies were patent at 12 month follow up. Conclusion: The inferior LPI appeared to be an efficient method of preventing pupil block with fewer complications. Visual symptoms following inferior LPI are similar to superior LPI. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group