Mammalian expression of the human sex steroid-binding protein of plasma (SBP or SHBG) and testis (ABP) Characterization of the recombinant protein

AbstractA full-length 1,209 bp cDNA encoding the human sex steroid-binding protein of plasma (SBP or SHBG) and testis (ABP) was constructed and expressed in BHK-21 cells. The sequence agrees with the published gene and protein sequences. The cells were found to secrete SBP following transfection and G418r selection. The recombinant protein binds 5α-dihydrotestosterone with a Kd of 0.28 nM. It also binds testosterone and 17β-estradiol but not progesterone, estrone or cortisol revealing a steroid-binding specificity identical to that of human SBP, SDS-PAGE patterns are less complex than human SBP and show a monomeric molecular weight of about 43 kDa

Comparative genetic and physiological characterisation of Pectinatus species reveals shared tolerance to beer-associated stressors but halotolerance specific to pickle-associated strains

This work was supported by Heineken Supply Chain B.V. PL, SD & HJF receive support from the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Sciences and Analytical Services (RESAS). We would like to express thanks to Nicola Smith for her help formatting Fig. 1, Dr Paul Sheridan for bioinformatics-based advice and help with troubleshooting scripts, Dr Kenneth Forbes for his advice on core and pan genome analysis, Sandro Cocuzza for providing the hop extract and Marine Freyereisen for supplying Lactobacillus brevis MB521.Peer reviewedPostprin

Prognostic and therapeutic significance of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 as tumor marker in patients with pancreatic cancer

In pancreatic cancer ( PC) accurate determination of treatment response by imaging often remains difficult. Various efforts have been undertaken to investigate new factors which may serve as more appropriate surrogate parameters of treatment efficacy. This review focuses on the role of carbohydrate antigen 19- 9 ( CA 19- 9) as a prognostic tumor marker in PC and summarizes its contribution to monitoring treatment efficacy. We undertook a Medline/ PubMed literature search to identify relevant trials that had analyzed the prognostic impact of CA 19- 9 in patients treated with surgery, chemoradiotherapy and chemotherapy for PC. Additionally, relevant abstract publications from scientific meetings were included. In advanced PC, pretreatment CA 19- 9 levels have a prognostic impact regarding overall survival. Also a CA 19- 9 decline under chemotherapy can provide prognostic information for median survival. A 20% reduction of CA 19- 9 baseline levels within the first 8 weeks of chemotherapy appears to be sufficient to define a prognostic relevant subgroup of patients ('CA 19- 9 responder'). It still remains to be defined whether the CA 19- 9 response is a more reliable method for evaluating treatment efficacy compared to conventional imaging. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel

EANM guideline on quality risk management for radiopharmaceuticals

This document is intended as a supplement to the EANM "Guidelines on current Good Radiopharmacy Practice (cGRPP)" issued by the Radiopharmacy Committee of the EANM (Gillings et al. in EJNMMI Radiopharm Chem. 6:8, 2021). The aim of the EANM Radiopharmacy Committee is to provide a document that describes how to manage risks associated with small-scale "in-house" preparation of radiopharmaceuticals, not intended for commercial purposes or distribution

Effects of general practitioner training and family support services on the care of home-dwelling dementia patients - Results of a controlled cluster-randomized study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>More than 90% of dementia patients are cared for by their general practitioners, who are decisively involved in the diagnosis, therapy and recommendation of support services. <it>Objective: </it>To test whether special training of general practitioners alters the care of dementia patients through their systematic recommendation of caregiver counseling and support groups.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>129 general practitioners enrolled 390 dementia patients and their informal caregivers in a prospective, three-arm cluster-randomized 2-year study. Arm A constituted usual care, in Arm B and C support groups and caregiver counseling (in Arm B one year after baseline, in Arm C at baseline) were recommended by the general practitioners. The general practitioners received arm-specific training. Diagnostic and therapeutic behavior of physicians was recorded at baseline. Informal caregivers were questioned in follow-up after 2 years about the utilization of support services.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The diagnostic behavior of the general practitioners conforms to relevant guidelines. The procedure in newly-diagnosed patients does not differ from previously diagnosed patients with the exception of the rate of referral to a specialist. About one-third of the newly-diagnosed dementia patients are given an anti-dementia drug. The utilization of support groups and counseling increased five- and fourfold, respectively. Utilization of other support services remained low (< 10%), with the exception of home nursing and institutional short-term nursing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Trained general practitioners usually act in conformity with guidelines with respect to diagnosing dementia, and partly in conformity with the guidelines with respect to recommended drug therapy. Recommendations of support services for informal caregivers by the general practitioner are successful. They result in a marked increase in the utilization rate for the recommended services compared to offers which are not recommended by the general practitioner.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>ISRCTN68329593</p

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Patents and Industrialisation. An Historical Overview of the British Case, 1624-1907

A Report to the Strategic Advisory Board on Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP), U

Joint assessment of white matter integrity, cortical and subcortical atrophy to distinguish AD from behavioral variant FTD: A two-center study

We investigated the ability of cortical and subcortical gray matter (GM) atrophy in combination with white matter (WM) integrity to distinguish behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) from Alzheimer's disease (AD) and from controls using voxel-based morphometry, subcortical structure segmentation, and tract-based spatial statistics. To determine which combination of MR markers differentiated the three groups with the highest accuracy, we conducted discriminant function analyses. Adjusted for age, sex and center, both types of dementia had more GM atrophy, lower fractional anisotropy (FA) and higher mean (MD), axial (L1) and radial diffusivity (L23) values than controls. BvFTD patients had more GM atrophy in orbitofrontal and inferior frontal areas than AD patients. In addition, caudate nucleus and nucleus accumbens were smaller in bvFTD than in AD. FA values were lower; MD, L1 and L23 values were higher, especially in frontal areas of the brain for bvFTD compared to AD patients. The combination of cortical GM, hippocampal volume and WM integrity measurements, classified 97-100% of controls, 81-100% of AD and 67-75% of bvFTD patients correctly. Our results suggest that WM integrity measures add complementary information to measures of GM atrophy, thereby improving the classification between AD and bvFTD

EURECCA colorectal: multidisciplinary mission statement on better care for patients with colon and rectal cancer in Europe

Background: Care for patients with colon and rectal cancer has improved in the last twenty years however still considerable variation exists in cancer management and outcome between European countries. Therefore, EURECCA, which is the acronym of European Registration of cancer care, is aiming at defining core treatment strategies and developing a European audit structure in order to improve the quality of care for all patients with colon and rectal cancer. In December 2012 the first multidisciplinary consensus conference about colon and rectum was held looking for multidisciplinary consensus. The expert panel consisted of representatives of European scientific organisations involved in cancer care of patients with colon and rectal cancer and representatives of national colorectal registries. Methods: The expert panel had delegates of the European Society of Surgical Oncology (ESSO), European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology (ESTRO), European Society of Pathology (ESP), European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), European Society of Radiology (ESR), European Society of Coloproctology (ESCP), European CanCer Organisation (ECCO), European Oncology Nursing Society (EONS) and the European Colorectal Cancer Patient Organisation (EuropaColon), as well as delegates from national registries or audits. Experts commented and voted on the two web-based online voting rounds before the meeting (between 4th and 25th October and between the 20th November and 3rd December 2012) as well as one online round after the meeting (4th-20th March 2013) and were invited to lecture on the subjects during the meeting (13th-15th December 2012). The sentences in the consensus document were available during the meeting and a televoting round during the conference by all participants was performed. All sentences that were voted on are available on the EURECCA website www.canceraudit.eu. The consensus document was divided in sections describing evidence based algorithms of diagnostics, pathology, surgery, medical oncology, radiotherapy, and follow-up where applicable for treatment of colon cancer, rectal cancer and stage IV separately. Consensus was achieved using the Delphi method. Results: The total number of the voted sentences was 465. All chapters were voted on by at least 75% of the experts. Of the 465 sentences, 84% achieved large consensus, 6% achieved moderate consensus, and 7% resulted in minimum consensus. Only 3% was disagreed by more than 50% of the members. Conclusions: It is feasible to achieve European Consensus on key diagnostic and treatment issues using the Delphi method. This consensus embodies the expertise of professionals from all disciplines involved in the care for patients with colon and rectal cancer. Diagnostic and treatment algorithms were developed to implement the current evidence and to define core treatment guidance for multidisciplinary team management of colon and rectal cancer throughout Europe

Low dose cranial irradiation-induced cerebrovascular damage is reversible in mice

BACKGROUND: High-dose radiation-induced blood-brain barrier breakdown contributes to acute radiation toxicity syndrome and delayed brain injury, but there are few data on the effects of low dose cranial irradiation. Our goal was to measure blood-brain barrier changes after low (0.1 Gy), moderate (2 Gy) and high (10 Gy) dose irradiation under in vivo and in vitro conditions. METHODOLOGY: Cranial irradiation was performed on 10-day-old and 10-week-old mice. Blood-brain barrier permeability for Evans blue, body weight and number of peripheral mononuclear and circulating endothelial progenitor cells were evaluated 1, 4 and 26 weeks postirradiation. Barrier properties of primary mouse brain endothelial cells co-cultured with glial cells were determined by measurement of resistance and permeability for marker molecules and staining for interendothelial junctions. Endothelial senescence was determined by senescence associated β-galactosidase staining. PRINCIPLE FINDINGS: Extravasation of Evans blue increased in cerebrum and cerebellum in adult mice 1 week and in infant mice 4 weeks postirradiation at all treatment doses. Head irradiation with 10 Gy decreased body weight. The number of circulating endothelial progenitor cells in blood was decreased 1 day after irradiation with 0.1 and 2 Gy. Increase in the permeability of cultured brain endothelial monolayers for fluorescein and albumin was time- and radiation dose dependent and accompanied by changes in junctional immunostaining for claudin-5, ZO-1 and β-catenin. The number of cultured brain endothelial and glial cells decreased from third day of postirradiation and senescence in endothelial cells increased at 2 and 10 Gy. CONCLUSION: Not only high but low and moderate doses of cranial irradiation increase permeability of cerebral vessels in mice, but this effect is reversible by 6 months. In-vitro experiments suggest that irradiation changes junctional morphology, decreases cell number and causes senescence in brain endothelial cells