Utility of hepatic or total body iron burden in the assessment of advanced hepatic fibrosis in HFE hemochromatosis

Development of advanced hepatic fibrosis in HFE Hemochromatosis (HH) is influenced by hepatic iron concentration (HIC) and age. In patients with HH, it is important to assess the likelihood of cirrhosis and thus the need for confirmatory liver biopsy. Therapeutic phlebotomy also provides an estimate of mobilisable iron stores. We determined whether mobilisable iron stores may predict the presence of advanced fibrosis. Retrospective analysis of 137 male and 65 female HH subjects was undertaken. Biochemical, histological and phlebotomy data were available on all subjects. The mean values of HIC, HIC × [age], mobilisable iron, mobilisable iron × [age] and serum ferritin in the cohort were higher in the group with advanced fibrosis. HIC had an optimum sensitivity and specificity of 73% for the diagnosis of advanced liver fibrosis, with a cut-off HIC level of 200 µmol/g (AUROC 0.83, p \u3c 0.0001). AUROC for HIC was greater in females (0.93) than males (0.79). Mobilisable iron had an optimum sensitivity and specificity both of 83% at a cut-off of 9.6 g for the prediction of advanced fibrosis in all subjects (AUROC 0.92, p \u3c 0.0001). Mobilisable iron stores provide a simple, clinically useful indication of the risk of advanced fibrosis and should routinely be considered

Software Implementation of Optimized Bicubic Interpolated Scan Conversion in Echocardiography

This paper presents the image-quality-guided strategy for optimization of bicubic interpolation and interpolated scan conversion algorithms. This strategy uses feature selection through line chart data visualization technique and first index of the minimum absolute difference between computed scores and ideal scores to determine the image quality guided coefficient k that changes all sixteen BIC coefficients to new coefficients on which the OBIC interpolation algorithm is based. Perceptual evaluations of cropped sectored images from Matlab software implementation of interpolated scan conversion algorithms are presented. Also, IQA metrics-based evaluation is presented and demonstrates that the overall performance of the OBIC algorithm is 92.22% when compared with BIC alone, but becomes 57.22% with all other methods mentioned.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 6 table

Mass-sensitive particle tracking to elucidate the membrane-associated MinDE reaction cycle

An iSCAT image processing and analysis strategy enables mass-sensitive particle tracking (MSPT) of single unlabeled biomolecules on a supported lipid bilayer. MSPT was used to observe the (dis-)assembly of membrane complexes in real-time. In spite of their great importance in biology, methods providing access to spontaneous molecular interactions with and on biological membranes have been sparse. The recent advent of mass photometry to quantify mass distributions of unlabeled biomolecules landing on surfaces raised hopes that this approach could be transferred to membranes. Here, by introducing a new interferometric scattering (iSCAT) image processing and analysis strategy adapted to diffusing particles, we enable mass-sensitive particle tracking (MSPT) of single unlabeled biomolecules on a supported lipid bilayer. We applied this approach to the highly nonlinear reaction cycles underlying MinDE protein self-organization. MSPT allowed us to determine the stoichiometry and turnover of individual membrane-bound MinD/MinDE protein complexes and to quantify their size-dependent diffusion. This study demonstrates the potential of MSPT to enhance our quantitative understanding of membrane-associated biological systems.We thank D. Bollschweiler (Cryo-EM MPIB Core Facility) for the initial introduction to the commercial Refeyn OneMP mass photometer, the MPIB Biochemistry Core Facility (Recombinant Protein Production)

High frequency limit of the Transport Cross Section and boundedness of the Total Cross Section in scattering by an obstacle with impedance boundary conditions

The scalar scattering of the plane wave by a strictly convex obstacle with impedance boundary conditions is considered. The uniform boundedness of the Total Cross Section for all values of frequencies is proved. The high frequency limit of the Transport Cross Section is founded and presented as a classical functional of the variational theory

Resonance regimes of scattering by small bodies with impedance boundary conditions

The paper concerns scattering of plane waves by a bounded obstacle with complex valued impedance boundary conditions. We study the spectrum of the Neumann-to-Dirichlet operator for small wave numbers and long wave asymptotic behavior of the solutions of the scattering problem. The study includes the case when $k=0$ is an eigenvalue or a resonance. The transformation from the impedance to the Dirichlet boundary condition as impedance grows is described. A relation between poles and zeroes of the scattering matrix in the non-self adjoint case is established. The results are applied to a problem of scattering by an obstacle with a springy coating. The paper describes the dependence of the impedance on the properties of the material, that is on forces due to the deviation of the boundary of the obstacle from the equilibrium position

Sperm competition-induced plasticity in the speed of spermatogenesis

Background: Sperm competition between rival ejaculates over the fertilization of ova typically selects for the production of large numbers of sperm. An obvious way to increase sperm production is to increase testis size, and most empirical work has focussed on this parameter. Adaptive plasticity in sperm production rate could also arise due to variation in the speed with which each spermatozoon is produced, but whether animals can respond to relevant environmental conditions by modulating the kinetics of spermatogenesis in this way has not been experimentally investigated. Results: Here we demonstrate that the simultaneously hermaphroditic flatworm Macrostomum lignano exhibits substantial plasticity in the speed of spermatogenesis, depending on the social context: worms raised under higher levels of sperm competition produce sperm faster. Conclusions: Our findings overturn the prevailing view that the speed of spermatogenesis is a static property of a genotype, and demonstrate the profound impact that social environmental conditions can exert upon a key developmental process. We thus identify, to our knowledge, a novel mechanism through which sperm production rate is maximised under sperm competition