Choledochal cyst as a diagnostic pitfall: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Choledochal cysts are rare congenital anomalies. Their diagnosis is difficult, particulary in adults.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>This case report demonstrates the diagnostic and therapeutic pitfalls.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>To prevent cost-intensive and potentially life-threating complications, a choledochal cyst must be considered in the differential diagnosis whenever the rather common diagnosis of a hepatic cyst is considered.</p

A Novel System of Cytoskeletal Elements in the Human Pathogen Helicobacter pylori

Pathogenicity of the human pathogen Helicobacter pylori relies upon its capacity to adapt to a hostile environment and to escape from the host response. Therefore, cell shape, motility, and pH homeostasis of these bacteria are specifically adapted to the gastric mucus. We have found that the helical shape of H. pylori depends on coiled coil rich proteins (Ccrp), which form extended filamentous structures in vitro and in vivo, and are differentially required for the maintenance of cell morphology. We have developed an in vivo localization system for this pathogen. Consistent with a cytoskeleton-like structure, Ccrp proteins localized in a regular punctuate and static pattern within H. pylori cells. Ccrp genes show a high degree of sequence variation, which could be the reason for the morphological diversity between H. pylori strains. In contrast to other bacteria, the actin-like MreB protein is dispensable for viability in H. pylori, and does not affect cell shape, but cell length and chromosome segregation. In addition, mreB mutant cells displayed significantly reduced urease activity, and thus compromise a major pathogenicity factor of H. pylori. Our findings reveal that Ccrp proteins, but not MreB, affect cell morphology, while both cytoskeletal components affect the development of pathogenicity factors and/or cell cycle progression

Service and Protocol Architecture for the MAFTIA Middleware

This document describes the specification of the MAFTIA middleware architecture. This specification focusses on the models, building blocks and services. It describes the tradeoffs made in terms of models, the choices of building blocks and their topology, and the portfolio of services to be offered by the MAFTIA middleware to applications and high-level services. In particular, regarding the system model, it presents a detailed discussion on the fault, synchrony, topological, and group models, which were used to guide the overall architecture. The architecture was divided into two main levels, the site part which connects to the network and handles all inter-host operations, and a participant part which takes care of all distributed activities and relies on the services provided by the site-part component

Role of lipid apheresis in changing times

During the last decades, LDL-apheresis was established as an extracorporeal treatment option for patients with severe heterozygous or homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) that is resistant to conventional treatment strategies such as diet, drugs, and changes in lifestyle. Nearly half a century ago, the first LDL-apheresis treatment was performed by plasma exchange in a child with homozygous FH

Diverse Arrangement of Photosynthetic Gene Clusters in Aerobic Anoxygenic Phototrophic Bacteria

BACKGROUND: Aerobic anoxygenic photototrophic (AAP) bacteria represent an important group of marine microorganisms inhabiting the euphotic zone of the ocean. They harvest light using bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) a and are thought to be important players in carbon cycling in the ocean. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic (AAP) bacteria represent an important part of marine microbial communities. Their photosynthetic apparatus is encoded by a number of genes organized in a so-called photosynthetic gene cluster (PGC). In this study, the organization of PGCs was analyzed in ten AAP species belonging to the orders Rhodobacterales, Sphingomonadales and the NOR5/OM60 clade. Sphingomonadales contained comparatively smaller PGCs with an approximately size of 39 kb whereas the average size of PGCs in Rhodobacterales and NOR5/OM60 clade was about 45 kb. The distribution of four arrangements, based on the permutation and combination of the two conserved regions bchFNBHLM-LhaA-puhABC and crtF-bchCXYZ, does not correspond to the phylogenetic affiliation of individual AAP bacterial species. While PGCs of all analyzed species contained the same set of genes for bacteriochlorophyll synthesis and assembly of photosynthetic centers, they differed largely in the carotenoid biosynthetic genes. Spheroidenone, spirilloxanthin, and zeaxanthin biosynthetic pathways were found in each clade respectively. All of the carotenoid biosynthetic genes were found in the PGCs of Rhodobacterales, however Sphingomonadales and NOR5/OM60 strains contained some of the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway genes outside of the PGC. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our investigations shed light on the evolution and functional implications in PGCs of marine aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs, and support the notion that AAP are a heterogenous physiological group phylogenetically scattered among Proteobacteria

and Design Deliverable D10 of ACTS Project AC026 Public Specification

SEMPER is part of the European Commission&apos;s ACTS Programme (Advanced Communications Technologies and Services). Funding is provided by the partner organisations, the European Union, and the Swiss Federal Department for Education and Science. The members of the SEMPER consortium are Commerzbank (D)

Basic Services, Architecture and Design

This report is the first publicly available technical deliverable of SEMPER, &quot;Secure Electronic Marketplace for Europe.&quot; It describes the main results on the security architecture of the first year (September 1995- August 1996). The main objective of SEMPER is to develop, implement, trial and evaluate an open security architecture for electronic commerce over open networks (e.g., the Internet). This will be done in several steps starting with a trial of basic services after the first year followed by the implementation and evaluation of more advanced trials in the following two years. This report describes the initial version of the SEMPER architecture, the initial design and how it will be implemented. Details on the integration of this implementation in the trials can be found in Deliverable D04 (&quot;Basic Services, Prototype and Internet Trial&quot;), while more information on the trials can be found in Deliverable D05 (&quot;First Year Surveys and Evaluation&quot;). The architecture of SEMPER defines a set of service layers. The lowest layer contains supporting services (archiving, cryptographic functions, communication, user interface). On top of this, a transfer layer provides services for electronic payment and secure transfer of documents. The next layer, the exchange layer, combines transfers into fair exchanges, e.g., contract signing, certified mail. These services are used by the commerce layer to provide more complex business primitives, e.g., &quot;send order&quot; for filling in a pre-defined order template, signing it, and sending it to the business partner. The architecture is open: New service modules can be integrated via generic API&apos;s (e.g., new payment systems by adapting them to a generic payment API). New business applications (e.g., an on-line auction) can be supported via ..