Cell-derived microvesicles in infective endocarditis: Role in diagnosis and potential for risk stratification at hospital admission

Objectives: To characterize the plasmatic profile of cell-derived microvesicles (MVs) at diagnosis and during the treatment of patients with infective endocarditis (IE). Methods: Blood samples from 57 patients with IE were obtained on 3 consecutive moments: upon admission (T0), at 2 weeks (T1), and at the end of treatment (T2), and were compared with 22 patients with other bacterial infections. MPs were measured by flow cytometry and labeled for specific cell markers of CD45 (leukocytes), CD66b (neutrophils), CD14 (monocytes), CD41a (platelets), CD51 (endothelial cells), CD3 (T lymphocyte) and CD235a (erythrocytes). Results: MVs from platelets (pltMVs), leukocytes (leukMVs), neutrophils (neutMVs), monocytes (monoMVs) and lymphocytes (lymphMVs) were significantly more elevated in the patients with IE, compared to the patients with other bacterial infections, despite comparable age, sex, blood counts and C-reactive protein levels. MVs values revealed a relatively stable pattern over time in IE, except for a significant increase in leukMVs and neutMVs in T1. LeukMVs (p = 0.011), neutMVs (p = 0.010), monoMVs (p = 0.016) and lymphMVs (p = 0.020), measured at admission, were significantly higher in IE patients that died during hospitalization in comparison with those that survived. In a multivariable analyses, the levels of neutMVs remained as an independent factor associated with mortality (odds ratio 2.203; 95% confidence interval 1.217 - 3.988; p = 0.009), adjustment for heart failure during the treatment. Conclusions: Plasma levels of pltMVs, leukMVs, neutMVs, monoMVs and lymphMVs were significantly more elevated in patients with IE than in patients with other bacterial infections at hospital admission. Furthermore, neutMVs at admission have been identified as an independent predictor of mortality in patients with IE. Thus, cell derived MPs may become an important tool in the differential diagnosis and mortality risk assessment early in the course of IE suspected cases

Vegetative development, fruits yield and optimization of pineapple cv. Pérola with different levels of irrigation

Apesar de ser uma planta com necessidades hídricas relativamente baixas, o abacaxizeiro tem demanda permanente de água, variável ao longo do ciclo e dependente do seu estádio de desenvolvimento. Assim, objetivou-se analisar volumes de irrigação no desenvolvimento vegetativo, no rendimento da fruta e na otimização do abacaxizeiro cv. Pérola. O experimento foi realizado na Universidade Federal de Sergipe, município de São Cristóvão (11°01'S, 37°12'W), no delineamento em blocos ao acaso, com quatro tratamentos (lâminas de água) (100% da evaporação do tanque Classe A (523,7mm ano-1); 75% da evaporação do tanque Classe A (392,8mm ano-1), 50% da evaporação do tanque Classe A (261,8mm ano-1) e 0% da evaporação do tanque Classe A, seis repetições e 12 plantas úteis por parcela. O sistema de irrigação foi por aspersão convencional disposto em linha, com pressão de 20mca e vazão de 1,33m3 h-1. A área foliar (cm2) mínima atingida de 4552,6cm2 foi observada no volume de água de 122,9mm ano-1, enquanto a massa seca das folhas (147,6g) foi constatada com 17mm ano-1. O máximo comprimento da folha D (88,9cm) foi estimado com 532,7 mm ano-1. Já o máximo comprimento do fruto (23cm) foi observado na lâmina de 296,9mm ano-1. A massa do fruto máxima estimado de 1.736g foi constatado na lâmina de 356,4mm ano-1. No contexto, a irrigação contribui de forma positiva no desenvolvimento vegetativo e rendimento da fruta do abacaxizeiro. Ressalta-se remuneração mensal líquida de R 1.161,17ha-1, quando se adota lâmina de irrigação de 356,4mm ano-1. _________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT: Regardless a relatively low water needs, pineapple fruit has a variable behavior related to water need throughout its biological cycle depending on the development stage. The objective of this work was to analyze irrigation on the vegetative development and fruits yield in pineapple cv. Pérola. The experiment was conducted at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe Experimental Station, at São Cristóvão - SE (11°01'S, 37°12'W), in a randomized block design, with four water level treatments as follow: 100% of Class-A (523.7mm ano-1) evaporation pan; 75% of Class-A (392.8mm ano-1) evaporation pan, 50% of Class-A (261.8mm ano-1) evaporation pan and 0% of Class-A evaporation pan, in six replications and twelve plants per plot. The splinkler watering system of irrigation was installed in a line, with an operating pression of 20 mca and a sprinkler dischrage of 1.33m3h-1. A minimum leaf area of 4552.6cm2 was observed, considering a water level of 122.9mm year-1, while a leaf dry matter was 147.6 g in 17mmyear-1. The maximum leaf length (D) of 88.9cm was estimated considering 532.7mmyear-1. The maximum fruit length of 23cm was observed, considering a water level of 296.9mmyear-1. The maximum estimated fruit weight was 1.736g in a water level of 356.4mm year-1. The irrigation seems to contribute in a positive way to the vegetative development in the pineapple fruit yield. It is important to mention that it could be observed a net profit of R 1,161.17 ha-1, when a water level of 356.4mm ano-1 of irrigation was adopted

Diving into the vertical dimension of elasmobranch movement ecology

Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date, comparative studies among species at global scales have mostly focused on horizontal movements. Our study addresses the knowledge gap of vertical movements by compiling the first global synthesis of vertical habitat use by elasmobranchs from data obtained by deployment of 989 biotelemetry tags on 38 elasmobranch species. Elasmobranchs displayed high intra- and interspecific variability in vertical movement patterns. Substantial vertical overlap was observed for many epipelagic elasmobranchs, indicating an increased likelihood to display spatial overlap, biologically interact, and share similar risk to anthropogenic threats that vary on a vertical gradient. We highlight the critical next steps toward incorporating vertical movement into global management and monitoring strategies for elasmobranchs, emphasizing the need to address geographic and taxonomic biases in deployments and to concurrently consider both horizontal and vertical movements

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

Interindividual clinical variability in the course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is vast. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies (auto-Abs) against interferon-w (IFN-w) (13 patients), against the 13 types of IFN-a (36), or against both (52) at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 of the 101 were men. A B cell autoimmune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity accounts for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Performance of reconstruction and identification of τ leptons decaying to hadrons and vτ in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV

The algorithm developed by the CMS Collaboration to reconstruct and identify τ leptons produced in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 and 8 TeV, via their decays to hadrons and a neutrino, has been significantly improved. The changes include a revised reconstruction of π⁰ candidates, and improvements in multivariate discriminants to separate τ leptons from jets and electrons. The algorithm is extended to reconstruct τ leptons in highly Lorentz-boosted pair production, and in the high-level trigger. The performance of the algorithm is studied using proton-proton collisions recorded during 2016 at √s=13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb¯¹. The performance is evaluated in terms of the efficiency for a genuine τ lepton to pass the identification criteria and of the probabilities for jets, electrons, and muons to be misidentified as τ leptons. The results are found to be very close to those expected from Monte Carlo simulation