Inpatients' information needs about medication:A narrative systematic literature review

OBJECTIVE: To provide an overview of inpatients' information needs about medication, including the best moment to provide this information, how, by whom and what patient characteristics influence these needs.METHODS: A systematic literature review was conducted. Studies that reported the information needs from inpatients about medication were included from Medline and Embase. The Crowe critical appraisal tool (CCAT) was used to assess the quality of the studies.RESULTS: Initially, 710 records were retrieved from Medline and Embase. After the forward search, another 609 records were screened and in total, 26 articles were included. The CCAT scores ranged from 17 to 34 points on a 40 point scale and two articles received 0 points.CONCLUSION: Inpatients main needs about medicine information are information about adverse and beneficial effects of medication, and general rules about how to take medication. Preferably, this information is printed and provided at the time of prescribing by a physician that already has a relationship with the patient. The most recent studies show that patients are open to the use of modern technology.PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: This review provides a starting point for providing medicine information to inpatients. Further research should focus on patient characteristics influencing these information needs.</p

Isomalto/malto-polysaccharides from starch : Reaction pathways and new characterization strategies

The 4,6-α-glucanotransferase (GTFB) enzyme is able to convert starch into isomalto/malto-polysaccharides (IMMPs). Although the proof of principle has been demonstrated that IMMPs can be produced from several starches, the influence of the structural properties of the starch substrate and the role of additionally present sugars during IMMP synthesis has remained unknown. Until now, since this has been the core topic of the research presented in this thesis. In chapter 2 we analyse the influence of the structural properties of starch-based substrates on the final IMMP structure. In chapter 3 we present and demonstrate an enzymatic fingerprinting method specially developed for the analysis of isomalto/malto-polysaccharides. In chapter 4 we investigate the reaction dynamics of the GTFB enzyme by following GTFB modification on two linear substrates with varying chain length distributions. In chapter 5 we demonstrate how the presence of mono- and di-saccharides change the outcome of GTFB modification and demonstrate that we are able to direct the modification of IMMPs. In chapter 6 we discuss potential applications and the future perspectives of isomalto/malto-polysaccharides and the GTFB enzyme.</p

Zinc Finger Artificial Transcription Factor-Mediated Chloroplast Genome Interrogation in Arabidopsis thaliana

The large majority of core photosynthesis proteins in plants are encoded by nuclear genes, but a small portion have been retained in the plastid genome. These plastid-encoded chloroplast proteins fulfill essential roles in the process of photochemistry. Here, we report the use of nuclear-encoded, chloroplast-targeted zinc finger artificial transcription factors (ZF-ATFs) with effector domains of prokaryotic origin to modulate the expression of chloroplast genes, and to enhance the photochemical activity and growth characteristics of Arabidopsis thaliana plants. This technique was named chloroplast genome interrogation. Using this novel approach, we obtained evidence that ZF-ATFs can indeed be translocated to chloroplasts of Arabidopsis plants, can modulate their growth and operating light use efficiency of PSII, and finally can induce statistically significant changes in the expression levels of several chloroplast genes. Our data suggest that the distortion of chloroplast gene expression might be a feasible approach to manipulate the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants

Enhanced targeted integration mediated by translocated I-SceI during the Agrobacterium mediated transformation of yeast.

Agrobacterium mediated transformation (AMT) has been embraced by biotechnologists as the technology of choice to introduce or alter genetic traits of plants. However, in plants it is virtually impossible to predetermine the integration site of the transferred T-strand unless one is able to generate a double stranded break (DSB) in the DNA at the site of interest. In this study, we used the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae to investigate whether the Agrobacterium mediated translocation of site-specific endonucleases via the type IV secretion system (T4SS), concomitantly with T-DNA transfer is possible and whether this can improve the gene targeting efficiency. In addition to that, the effect of different chromatin states on targeted integration, was investigated. It was found that Agrobacterium mediated translocation of the homing endonuclease I-SceI has a positive effect on the integration of T-DNA via the homologous repair (HR) pathway. Furthermore, we obtained evidence that nucleosome removal has a positive effect on I-SceI facilitated T-DNA integration by HR. Reversely; inducing nucleosome formation at the site of integration removes the positive effect of translocated I-SceI on T-DNA integration.Plant science