Clinical evaluation of the C-MAC D-Blade videolaryngoscope in severely obese patients: a pilot study

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Screening and Optimization of Extracellular Alkaline Protease Production from Bacillus Spp

Protease enzyme catalyzes the hydrolysis of protein. Among the various proteases, bacterial proteases are most significant when compared with animal and fungal proteases. In the present study a protease producing bacteria were isolated from soil collected from Govt. Holkar Science College, Indore campus and identified as Bacillus spp. They were grown within a temperature range between 25°C & 45 °C and pH range of 6.0 to 11.0. The optimum condition for protease production obtained was 35 °C at pH 9. The best carbon and organic nitrogen sources for this bacterial strain were fructose and yeast extract, respectively, while the most effective inorganic nitrogen sources was  urea. It is envisaged that the isolate can be a potential source of alkaline protease for use as additive in industrial applications like detergent industry

Apolipoprotein A–I binding to anionic vesicles and lipopolysaccharides: Role for lysine residues in antimicrobial properties

AbstractHuman apolipoprotein A–I (apoA–I) is a 28kDa protein and a major component of high-density lipoproteins, mediating several essential metabolic functions related to heart disease. In the present study the potential protective role against bacterial pathogens was explored. ApoA–I suppressed bacterial growth of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. The protein was able to bind lipopolysaccharides and showed a strong preference for bilayer vesicles made of phosphatidylglycerol over phosphatidylcholine. Lysine side chains of apoA–I were acetylated to evaluate the importance of electrostatic forces in the binding interaction with both membrane components. Electrophoresis properties, dot blot analysis, circular dichroism, and fluorescence spectroscopy to probe for changes in protein structure indicated that the acetylated protein displayed a strongly reduced lipopolysaccharide and phosphatidylglycerol binding. A mutant containing only the N-terminal domain of apoA–I also showed a reduced ability to interact with the membrane components, although to a lesser extent. These results indicate the potential for apoA–I to function as an antimicrobial protein and exerts this function through lysine residues

Immunomodulatory Therapy for MIS-C.

Studies comparing initial therapy for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) provided conflicting results. To compare outcomes in MIS-C patients treated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), glucocorticoids, or the combination thereof. Medline, Embase, CENTRAL and WOS, from January 2020 to February 2022. Randomized or observational comparative studies including MIS-C patients <21 years. Two reviewers independently selected studies and obtained individual participant data. The main outcome was cardiovascular dysfunction (CD), defined as left ventricular ejection fraction < 55% or vasopressor requirement ≥ day 2 of initial therapy, analyzed with a propensity score-matched analysis. Of 2635 studies identified, 3 nonrandomized cohorts were included. The meta-analysis included 958 children. IVIG plus glucocorticoids group as compared with IVIG alone had improved CD (odds ratio [OR] 0.62 [0.42-0.91]). Glucocorticoids alone group as compared with IVIG alone did not have improved CD (OR 0.57 [0.31-1.05]). Glucocorticoids alone group as compared with IVIG plus glucocorticoids did not have improved CD (OR 0.67 [0.24-1.86]). Secondary analyses found better outcomes associated with IVIG plus glucocorticoids compared with glucocorticoids alone (fever ≥ day 2, need for secondary therapies) and better outcomes associated with glucocorticoids alone compared with IVIG alone (left ventricular ejection fraction < 55% ≥ day 2). Nonrandomized nature of included studies. In a meta-analysis of MIS-C patients, IVIG plus glucocorticoids was associated with improved CD compared with IVIG alone. Glucocorticoids alone was not associated with improved CD compared with IVIG alone or IVIG plus glucocorticoids

Clustering of Imperfect Transcripts Using a Novel Similarity Measure

There has been a surge of interest in last several years in methods for automatic generation of content indices for multimedia documents, particularly with respect to video and audio documents. As a result, there is much interest in methods for analyzing transcribed documents from audio and video broadcasts and telephone conversations and messages. The present paper deals with such an analysis by presenting a clustering technique to partition a set of transcribed documents into different meaningful topics. Our method determines the intersection between matching transcripts, evaluates the information contribution by each transcript, assesses the information closeness of overlapping words and calculates similarity based on Chi-square method. The main novelty of our method lies in the proposed similarity measure that is designed to withstand the imperfections of transcribed documents. Preliminary experimental results using an archive of transcribed news broadcasts demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methodology. 1

Genetic and phenotypic characterization of indolent T-cell lymphoproliferative disorders of the gastrointestinal tract.

Indolent T-cell lymphoproliferative disorders of the gastrointestinal tract are rare clonal T-cell diseases that more commonly occur in the intestines and have a protracted clinical course. Different immunophenotypic subsets have been described, but the molecular pathogenesis and cell of origin of these lymphocytic proliferations is poorly understood. Hence, we performed targeted next-generation sequencing and comprehensive immunophenotypic analysis of ten indolent T-cell lymphoproliferative disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, which comprised CD4 <sup>+</sup> (n=4), CD8 <sup>+</sup> (n=4), CD4 <sup>+</sup> /CD8 <sup>+</sup> (n=1) and CD4 <sup>-</sup> /CD8 <sup>-</sup> (n=1) cases. Genetic alterations, including recurrent mutations and novel rearrangements, were identified in 8/10 (80%) of these lymphoproliferative disorders. The CD4 <sup>+</sup> , CD4 <sup>+</sup> /CD8 <sup>+</sup> , and CD4 <sup>-</sup> /CD8 <sup>-</sup> cases harbored frequent alterations of JAK-STAT pathway genes (5/6, 82%); STAT3 mutations (n=3), SOCS1 deletion (n=1) and STAT3-JAK2 rearrangement (n=1), and 4/6 (67%) had concomitant mutations in epigenetic modifier genes (TET2, DNMT3A, KMT2D). Conversely, 2/4 (50%) of the CD8 <sup>+</sup> cases exhibited structural alterations involving the 3' untranslated region of the IL2 gene. Longitudinal genetic analysis revealed stable mutational profiles in 4/5 (80%) cases and acquisition of mutations in one case was a harbinger of disease transformation. The CD4 <sup>+</sup> and CD4 <sup>+</sup> /CD8 <sup>+</sup> lymphoproliferative disorders displayed heterogeneous Th1 (T-bet <sup>+</sup> ), Th2 (GATA3 <sup>+</sup> ) or hybrid Th1/Th2 (T-bet <sup>+</sup> /GATA3 <sup>+</sup> ) profiles, while the majority of CD8 <sup>+</sup> disorders and the CD4 <sup>-</sup> /CD8 <sup>-</sup> disease showed a type-2 polarized (GATA3 <sup>+</sup> ) effector T-cell (Tc2) phenotype. Additionally, CD103 expression was noted in 2/4 CD8 <sup>+</sup> cases. Our findings provide insights into the pathogenetic bases of indolent T-cell lymphoproliferative disorders of the gastrointestinal tract and confirm the heterogeneous nature of these diseases. Detection of shared and distinct genetic alterations of the JAK-STAT pathway in certain immunophenotypic subsets warrants further mechanistic studies to determine whether therapeutic targeting of this signaling cascade is efficacious for a proportion of patients with these recalcitrant diseases