Comparative EPR and fluorescence conformational studies of fully active spin-labeled melanotropic peptides

Similar to melanocyte stimulating hormone (alpha -MSH), its potent and long-acting analogue, [Nle(4), D-Phe(7)]alpha -MSH, when labeled with the paramagnetic amino acid probe 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-N-oxyl-4-amino-4-carboxylic acid (Toac), maintains its full biological potency, thus validating any comparative structural investigations between the two labeled peptides, Correlation times, calculated from tire electron paramagnetic resonance signal of Toac bound to the peptides, and Toac-Trp distances, estimated from the Toac fluorescence quenching of the Trp residue present in the peptides, indicate a more rigid and folded structure for the potent analogue as compared to the hormone, in aqueous medium. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. on behalf of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies.Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biofis, BR-04044020 São Paulo, BrazilUniv São Paulo, Inst Fis, BR-66318 São Paulo, BrazilUniv São Paulo, Inst Biociencias, Dept Fisiol, BR-11176 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biofis, BR-04044020 São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN