Genome-Based Construction of the Metabolic Pathways of Orientia tsutsugamushi and Comparative Analysis within the Rickettsiales Order

Orientia tsutsugamushi, the causative agent of scrub typhus, is an obligate intracellular bacterium that belongs to the order of Rickettsiales. Recently, we have reported that O. tsutsugamushi has a unique genomic structure, consisting of highly repetitive sequences, and suggested that it may provide valuable insight into the evolution of intracellular bacteria. Here, we have used genomic information to construct the major metabolic pathways of O. tsutsugamushi and performed a comparative analysis of the metabolic genes and pathways of O. tsutsugamushi with other members of the Rickettsiales order. While O. tsutsugamushi has the largest genome among the members of this order, mainly due to the presence of repeated sequences, its metabolic pathways have been highly streamlined. Overall, the metabolic pathways of O. tsutsugamushi were similar to Rickettsia but there were notable differences in several pathways including carbohydrate metabolism, the TCA cycle, and the synthesis of cell wall components as well as in the transport systems. Our results will provide a useful guide to the postgenomic analysis of O. tsutsugamushi and lead to a better understanding of the virulence and physiology of this intracellular pathogen

Novel Natural Polymer/Medicinal Plant Extract Electrospun Nanofiber for Cosmeceutical Application

Zein produced from maize is a hydrophobic protein, which holds great potential for a number of industrial applications, for example, food packaging, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and biomedical industry. Sorghum, known as important cereal crop worldwide, is a good source of various phytochemicals such as tannins, phenolic acids, anthocyanins, phytosterols, and policosanols, and these phytochemicals have great impact on human health. Poria cocos, a well‐known traditional East‐Asian medicinal plant, is found around the roots of pine trees in Korea and China. As a rapid and efficient process, electrospinning has drawn huge interest among scientists to produce nanostructured polymer materials with excellent properties. In this work, we studied the influence of co‐solvent ratio and concentration of zein/medicinal plant extract on the morphologies of nanostructured zein/medicinal plant extract nanomaterials prepared by electrospinning technique from ethanol/water solution. The zein/medicinal extract nanofibers were characterized by field‐emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and differential scanning calorimetric technique. And we were to incorporate medicinal plant resources into the electro‐spun zein nanofibers by electrospinning technique to investigate the effect of medicinal extract on the morphologies, antibacterial, antioxidant, and other properties. Zein/medicinal plant extract might have a practical use as a new preservative for cosmeceutical applications

Surgical outcomes of strabismus after iatrogenic ophthalmic artery occlusion caused by cosmetic filler injections

Background To investigate the surgical outcomes of strabismus related to iatrogenic occlusion of the ophthalmic artery and its branches from cosmetic facial filler injection. Methods A retrospective study was performed on 6 patients who underwent strabismus surgery among 23 patients who had suffered occlusion of the ophthalmic artery and its branches after cosmetic facial filler injection. Initial, preoperative and final ocular motility examinations, the type of surgery and surgical outcomes were evaluated. Results At initial presentation, visual acuity was no light perception in 5 patients and hand motion in one patient. Five out of 6 patients showed initial ophthalmoplegia. Among these 5 patients, eye motility fully recovered in 3 patients although sensory strabismus developed during follow-up, while the remaining 2 patients had persistent ocular motility limitations. Strabismus surgery was performed at 2.2 ± 1.5 years after iatrogenic ophthalmic artery occlusion. Preoperatively, 5 of the 6 patients showed exotropia, and one patient had esotropia. Vertical deviation was found in 3 out of 6 patients in addition to the horizontal deviation. Successful outcome was achieved only in the 4 patients without persistent ophthalmoplegia after 1.4 ± 1.0 years from surgery. The other two patients with persistent ocular motility limitations failed to achieve successful alignment after surgery, and one patient eventually underwent evisceration due to phthisis bulbi. Conclusions In our study, surgical outcomes of strabismus caused by cosmetic facial filler injection were successful only in patients without persistent ophthalmoplegia at the time of surgery.This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (No.2017R1A2B4011450). The funding organization had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Predictive Scale for Amyloid PET Positivity Based on Clinical and MRI Variables in Patients with Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

The presence of amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition is considered important in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), since they can progress to Alzheimer's disease dementia. Amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) has been used for detecting Aβ deposition, but its high cost is a significant barrier for clinical usage. Therefore, we aimed to develop a new predictive scale for amyloid PET positivity using easily accessible tools. Overall, 161 aMCI patients were recruited from six memory clinics and underwent neuropsychological tests, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype testing, and amyloid PET. Among the potential predictors, verbal and visual memory tests, medial temporal lobe atrophy, APOE genotype, and age showed significant differences between the Aβ-positive and Aβ-negative groups and were combined to make a model for predicting amyloid PET positivity with the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.856. Based on the best model, we developed the new predictive scale comprising integers, which had an optimal cutoff score ≥ 3. The new predictive scale was validated in another cohort of 98 participants and showed a good performance with AUC of 0.835. This new predictive scale with accessible variables may be useful for predicting Aβ positivity in aMCI patients in clinical practice

Excited State Dynamics of Curcumin and Solvent Hydrogen Bonding

Curcumin is a natural product with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and antifungal functions. As it is known that the excited state intramolecular hydrogen transfer of curcumin are related to its medicinal antioxidant mechanism, we investigated its excited state dynamics by using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy in an effort to understand the molecule's therapeutic effect in terms of its photophysics and photochemistry. We found that stronger intermolecular hydrogen bonding with solvents weakens the intramolecular hydrogen bonding and decelerates the dynamical process of the enolic hydrogen. Exceptions are found in methanol and ethylene glycol due to their nature as simultaneous hydrogen bonding donor-acceptor and high viscosity solvent, respectively

Comparative Genomic Analysis of the 2016 Vibrio cholerae Outbreak in South Korea

In August 2016, South Korea experienced a cholera outbreak that caused acute watery diarrhea in three patients. This outbreak was the first time in 15 years that an outbreak was not linked to an overseas source. To identify the cause and to study the epidemiological implications of this outbreak, we sequenced the whole genome of Vibrio cholerae isolates; three from each patient and one from a seawater sample. Herein we present comparative genomic data which reveals that the genome sequences of these four isolates are very similar. Interestingly, these isolates form a monophyletic Glade with V. cholerae strains that caused an outbreak in the Philippines in 2011. The V. cholerae strains responsible for the Korean and Philippines outbreaks have almost identical genomes in which two unique genomic islands are shared, and they both lack SXT elements. Furthermore, we confirm that seawater is the likely source of this outbreak, which suggests the necessity for future routine surveillance of South Korea's seashore.

Role of Amphipathic Helix of a Herpesviral Protein in Membrane Deformation and T Cell Receptor Downregulation

Lipid rafts are membrane microdomains that function as platforms for signal transduction and membrane trafficking. Tyrosine kinase interacting protein (Tip) of T lymphotropic Herpesvirus saimiri (HVS) is targeted to lipid rafts in T cells and downregulates TCR and CD4 surface expression. Here, we report that the membrane-proximal amphipathic helix preceding Tip's transmembrane (TM) domain mediates lipid raft localization and membrane deformation. In turn, this motif directs Tip's lysosomal trafficking and selective TCR downregulation. The amphipathic helix binds to the negatively charged lipids and induces liposome tubulation, the TM domain mediates oligomerization, and cooperation of the membrane-proximal helix with the TM domain is sufficient for localization to lipid rafts and lysosomal compartments, especially the mutivesicular bodies. These findings suggest that the membrane-proximal amphipathic helix and TM domain provide HVS Tip with the unique ability to deform the cellular membranes in lipid rafts and to downregulate TCRs potentially through MVB formation

Development and Validation of an Arterial Pressure-Based Cardiac Output Algorithm Using a Convolutional Neural Network: Retrospective Study Based on Prospective Registry Data

Background: Arterial pressure-based cardiac output (APCO) is a less invasive method for estimating cardiac output without concerns about complications from the pulmonary artery catheter (PAC). However, inaccuracies of currently available APCO devices have been reported. Improvements to the algorithm by researchers are impossible, as only a subset of the algorithm has been released. Objective: In this study, an open-source algorithm was developed and validated using a convolutional neural network and a transfer learning technique. Methods: A retrospective study was performed using data from a prospective cohort registry of intraoperative bio-signal data from a university hospital. The convolutional neural network model was trained using the arterial pressure waveform as input and the stroke volume (SV) value as the output. The model parameters were pretrained using the SV values from a commercial APCO device (Vigileo or EV1000 with the FloTrac algorithm) and adjusted with a transfer learning technique using SV values from the PAC. The performance of the model was evaluated using absolute error for the PAC on the testing dataset from separate periods. Finally, we compared the performance of the deep learning model and the FloTrac with the SV values from the PAC. Results: A total of 2057 surgical cases (1958 training and 99 testing cases) were used in the registry. In the deep learning model, the absolute errors of SV were 14.5 (SD 13.4) mL (10.2 [SD 8.4] mL in cardiac surgery and 17.4 [SD 15.3] mL in liver transplantation). Compared with FloTrac, the absolute errors of the deep learning model were significantly smaller (16.5 [SD 15.4] and 18.3 [SD 15.1], P<.001). Conclusions: The deep learning-based APCO algorithm showed better performance than the commercial APCO device. Further improvement of the algorithm developed in this study may be helpful for estimating cardiac output accurately in clinical practice and optimizing high-risk patient care. © Hyun-Lim Yang, Chul-Woo Jung, Seong Mi Yang, Min-Soo Kim, Sungho Shim, Kook Hyun Lee, Hyung-Chul Lee. Originally published in JMIR Medical Informatics (https://medinform.jmir.org), 16.08.2021. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Medical Informatics, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://medinform.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.1