Placental vascularity and markers of angiogenesis in relation to prenatal growth status in overnourished adolescent ewes.

INTRODUCTION: Placental vascularity may be important in the development of fetal growth restriction (FGR). The overnourished adolescent ewe is a robust model of the condition, with ∼50% of offspring demonstrating FGR (birthweight >2 standard deviations below optimally-fed control mean). We studied whether placental vascularity, angiogenesis and glucose transport reflect FGR severity. METHODS: Singleton pregnancies were established in adolescent ewes either overnourished to putatively restrict fetoplacental growth (n = 27) or control-fed (n = 12). At 131d (term = 145d) pregnancies were interrupted and fetuses classified as FGR (n = 17,  Non-FGR > FGR and fetal:placental weight ratios were higher in overnourished versus Control groups. COT vascular indices were Non-FGR > FGR > Control. COT-CAD, CSD and APC were significantly greater in Non-FGR overnourished versus Control and intermediate in FGR groups. CAR vascularity did not differ. CAR-VEGFA/FLT1/KDR/ANGPT1/ANGPT2/SLC2A1/SLC2A3 mRNA was lower and COT-ANGPT2 higher in overnourished versus Control groups. DISCUSSION: Relative to control-intake pregnancy, overnourished pregnancies are characterised by higher COT vascularity, potentially a compensatory response to reduced nutrient supply, reflected by higher fetal:placental weight ratios. Compared with overnourished pregnancies where fetal growth is relatively preserved, overnourished pregnancies culminating in marked FGR have less placental vascularity, suggesting incomplete adaptation to the prenatal insult

The 2018 Lake Louise Acute Mountain Sickness Score.

Roach, Robert C., Peter H. Hackett, Oswald Oelz, Peter Bärtsch, Andrew M. Luks, Martin J. MacInnis, J. Kenneth Baillie, and The Lake Louise AMS Score Consensus Committee. The 2018 Lake Louise Acute Mountain Sickness Score. High Alt Med Biol 19:1-4, 2018.- The Lake Louise Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) scoring system has been a useful research tool since first published in 1991. Recent studies have shown that disturbed sleep at altitude, one of the five symptoms scored for AMS, is more likely due to altitude hypoxia per se, and is not closely related to AMS. To address this issue, and also to evaluate the Lake Louise AMS score in light of decades of experience, experts in high altitude research undertook to revise the score. We here present an international consensus statement resulting from online discussions and meetings at the International Society of Mountain Medicine World Congress in Bolzano, Italy, in May 2014 and at the International Hypoxia Symposium in Lake Louise, Canada, in February 2015. The consensus group has revised the score to eliminate disturbed sleep as a questionnaire item, and has updated instructions for use of the score

Metabolomics of Oxidative Stress in Recent Studies of Endogenous and Exogenously Administered Intermediate Metabolites

Aerobic metabolism occurs in a background of oxygen radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) that originate from the incomplete reduction of molecular oxygen in electron transfer reactions. The essential role of aerobic metabolism, the generation and consumption of ATP and other high energy phosphates, sustains a balance of approximately 3000 essential human metabolites that serve not only as nutrients, but also as antioxidants, neurotransmitters, osmolytes, and participants in ligand-based and other cellular signaling. In hypoxia, ischemia, and oxidative stress, where pathological circumstances cause oxygen radicals to form at a rate greater than is possible for their consumption, changes in the composition of metabolite ensembles, or metabolomes, can be associated with physiological changes. Metabolomics and metabonomics are a scientific disciplines that focuse on quantifying dynamic metabolome responses, using multivariate analytical approaches derived from methods within genomics, a discipline that consolidated innovative analysis techniques for situations where the number of biomarkers (metabolites in our case) greatly exceeds the number of subjects. This review focuses on the behavior of cytosolic, mitochondrial, and redox metabolites in ameliorating or exacerbating oxidative stress. After reviewing work regarding a small number of metabolites—pyruvate, ethyl pyruvate, and fructose-1,6-bisphosphate—whose exogenous administration was found to ameliorate oxidative stress, a subsequent section reviews basic multivariate statistical methods common in metabolomics research, and their application in human and preclinical studies emphasizing oxidative stress. Particular attention is paid to new NMR spectroscopy methods in metabolomics and metabonomics. Because complex relationships connect oxidative stress to so many physiological processes, studies from different disciplines were reviewed. All, however, shared the common goal of ultimately developing “omics”-based, diagnostic tests to help influence therapies

Low-Wage Work in Germany - Edited by Gerhard Bosch and Claudia Weinkopf

ABSTRACT For insects, the prevalence of numerous vertically transmitted viruses can be high in their host populations. These viruses often have few, if any, pathological effects on their hosts, and consequently, many of them can remain unnoticed for long periods, despite their potential role in the evolution of the host phenotype. Some females of Leptopilina boulardi , a solitary parasitoid of Drosophila larvae, are infected by an inherited virus (LbFV) that manipulates the behavior of the wasp by increasing its tendency to lay eggs in a host that is already parasitized (superparasitism). This behavioral alteration allows horizontal transmission of the virus within superparasitized Drosophila larvae. Using suppressive subtractive hybridization with infected and uninfected lines, we identified one putative viral sequence. Based on this sequence, we developed a simple PCR test. We tested the correlation between the superparasitism phenotype and PCR amplification of the putative viral marker using several experimental conditions (including horizontal transfers) and several parasitoid genotypes. All of the results revealed that there was a perfect match between the superparasitism phenotype and the amplification profile, which validated use of the molecular marker as a tool to track the presence of the virus and provided the first genomic data for this fascinating virus. The results also show that there was very efficient horizontal and vertical transmission of LbFV, which probably explains its high prevalence in the French populations that we sampled (67 and 70% of infected females). This manipulative virus is likely to play a major role in the ecology and evolution of its parasitoid host