Prognostic value of mitral valve prolapse and mild mitral regurgitation in competitive athletes

Mitral valve prolapse (MVP) and mild mitral regurgitation (MR) are ones of the most common structural changes of the heart and affect many young individuals, who aspire to partake in competitive sport or high intensity recreational exercise. These two conditions are associated with a different prognosis and possible omplications such as heart failure (HF), malignant arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death (SCD). Therefore it is essential to determine the risk factors predicting these complications and to define a follow-up algorithm. The objective is to present a literature review of consensus recommendations addressing criteria for eligibility and disqualification from organized competitive sports for the purpose of ensuring the health and safety of young athletes

B and Th cell response to Ag in vivo: Implications for vaccine development and diseases

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156140/2/imr12899_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156140/1/imr12899.pd

Analysis of phagoand antibiotic sensitivity of Enterobacteriaceae bacteria isolated from women of reproductive age

Pelvic inflammatory diseases occupy a special place in the structure of general morbidity, and are polymicrobial in nature with dominance of opportunistic microorganisms, in particular bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. The aim was to study the composition of the vaginal microbiota in women of reproductive age with pelvic inflammatory diseases, as well as to determine the sensitivity of isolated microorganisms to antibiotics and bacteriophages. The study included 70 women of reproductive age, among them 37 were diagnosed with colpitis and cervicitis, 33 women in the comparison group (women screened for a diagnosis). Isolated microorganisms were identified by abdominoperineal methods, including the disk diffusion method to determine the sensitivity of microorganism cultures of Enterobacteriaceae family to antibiotics, and the method of crosses (evaluation of lytic activity of bacteriophages by the number of crosses) to determine the sensitivity to specific therapeutic bacteriophages. Vaginal biocenosis was characterized by deficit of lactobacilli (< 106 CFU/ml in 100 %), the presence of conditionally pathogenic microflora: bacteria of Enterobacteriaceae family, coccal flora and Candida fungi. From 60.0 to 89.3 % of Enterobacteria strains were resistant to aminoglycosides and quinolones, but also had a low level of sensitivity to therapeutic bacteriophages. The obtained data indicate the reduction of colonization resistance of vaginal mucosa in pelvic inflammatory diseases and specify the need to use medicinal drugs only under medical supervision to prevent clinically significant drug resistance

Eicosapentaenoic acid provokes stronger in vitro antiadipogenic effect than docosahexaenoic acid in differentiated 3T3-L1 cells

The comparative studies of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) effects on the amount of lipid droplets (LD) and within adipocytes are limited. In this study, 3T3-L1 mouse embryo fibroblasts (ATCC® CL-173™) were expanded up to fifth passage. At the stage of growth arrest, the cells were treated with EPA and DHA separately and in combination at 100 μg/mL for 2 days. Oil Red O staining protocol, subsequent extraction with isopropanol and spectrophotometric determination of absorbed dye were used to establish the amount of intracellular lipid droplets depo-sition. While DHA administration had no significant effect on reduction of LD intracellular deposi-tion, the EPA treatment decreased optical density (OD) significantly (P<0.05). Furthermore, a syner-gic effect of combined application of both PUFAs was not observed. In conclusion, EPA provoked stronger antiadipogenic effect than DHA suggesting that EPA administration would be more effective in already existing obesity

Haplotype Structure of FSHB, the Beta-Subunit Gene for Fertility-Associated Follicle-Stimulating Hormone: Possible Influence of Balancing Selection

Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) is essential for human reproduction. The unique functions of this hormone are provided by the FSH receptor-binding beta-subunit encoded by the FSHB gene. Resequencing and genotyping of FSHB in three European, two Asian and one African population, as well as in the great apes (chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan), revealed low diversity and significant excess of polymorphisms with intermediate frequency alleles. Statistical tests for FSHB showed deviations from neutrality in all populations suggesting a possible effect of balancing selection. Two core haplotypes were identified (carried by 76-96.6% of each population's sample), the sequences of which are clearly separated from each other. As fertility most directly affects an organism's fitness, the carriers of these haplotypes have apparently had more success in human history to contribute to the next generation. There is a preliminary observation suggesting that the second most frequent FSHB haplotype may be associated with rapid conception success in females. Interestingly, the same haplotype is related to an ancestral FSHB variant shared with the ancestor of the great apes. The determination of the functional consequence of the two core FSHB variants may have implications for understanding and regulating human fertility, as well as in assisting infertility treatments

Discovering study-specific gene regulatory networks

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Microarrays are commonly used in biology because of their ability to simultaneously measure thousands of genes under different conditions. Due to their structure, typically containing a high amount of variables but far fewer samples, scalable network analysis techniques are often employed. In particular, consensus approaches have been recently used that combine multiple microarray studies in order to find networks that are more robust. The purpose of this paper, however, is to combine multiple microarray studies to automatically identify subnetworks that are distinctive to specific experimental conditions rather than common to them all. To better understand key regulatory mechanisms and how they change under different conditions, we derive unique networks from multiple independent networks built using glasso which goes beyond standard correlations. This involves calculating cluster prediction accuracies to detect the most predictive genes for a specific set of conditions. We differentiate between accuracies calculated using cross-validation within a selected cluster of studies (the intra prediction accuracy) and those calculated on a set of independent studies belonging to different study clusters (inter prediction accuracy). Finally, we compare our method's results to related state-of-the art techniques. We explore how the proposed pipeline performs on both synthetic data and real data (wheat and Fusarium). Our results show that subnetworks can be identified reliably that are specific to subsets of studies and that these networks reflect key mechanisms that are fundamental to the experimental conditions in each of those subsets

Genome-wide association study with 1000 genomes imputation identifies signals for nine sex hormone-related phenotypes.

Genetic factors contribute strongly to sex hormone levels, yet knowledge of the regulatory mechanisms remains incomplete. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified only a small number of loci associated with sex hormone levels, with several reproductive hormones yet to be assessed. The aim of the study was to identify novel genetic variants contributing to the regulation of sex hormones. We performed GWAS using genotypes imputed from the 1000 Genomes reference panel. The study used genotype and phenotype data from a UK twin register. We included 2913 individuals (up to 294 males) from the Twins UK study, excluding individuals receiving hormone treatment. Phenotypes were standardised for age, sex, BMI, stage of menstrual cycle and menopausal status. We tested 7,879,351 autosomal SNPs for association with levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), oestradiol, free androgen index (FAI), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), prolactin, progesterone, sex hormone-binding globulin and testosterone. Eight independent genetic variants reached genome-wide significance (P<5 × 10(-8)), with minor allele frequencies of 1.3-23.9%. Novel signals included variants for progesterone (P=7.68 × 10(-12)), oestradiol (P=1.63 × 10(-8)) and FAI (P=1.50 × 10(-8)). A genetic variant near the FSHB gene was identified which influenced both FSH (P=1.74 × 10(-8)) and LH (P=3.94 × 10(-9)) levels. A separate locus on chromosome 7 was associated with both DHEAS (P=1.82 × 10(-14)) and progesterone (P=6.09 × 10(-14)). This study highlights loci that are relevant to reproductive function and suggests overlap in the genetic basis of hormone regulation.We thank Roche Diagnostics Australia Pty Limited, Castle Hill, Australia, who provided support for the analysis of the hormones. We thank the volunteer twins for their participation in the study. Twins UK received funding support from NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (grant to Guys’ and St. Thomas’ Hospitals and King’s College London); the Chronic Disease Research Foundation; Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé Québec, The Lady Davis Institute, the Jewish General Hospital and Ministère du Développement économique, de l'Innovation et de l'Exportation du Quebec. The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC project grants 1010494, 1048216), and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Research (grant PP2009/028). This work was supported by funding from the Wellcome Trust (092447/Z/10/Z) and Medical Research Council (MC_U106179472).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from NPG via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ejhg.2015.10

CCL3 Promotes Germinal Center B Cells Sampling by Follicular Regulatory T Cells in Murine Lymph Nodes

Previous studies and our findings suggest upregulated expression of proinflammatory chemokines CCL3/4 in germinal center (GC) centrocytes. However, the role of CCL3/4 for centrocyte interactions with follicular T cells and regulation of humoral immunity is poorly understood. We found that CCL3 promotes chemotaxis of Tfr cells ex vivo. Two-photon imaging revealed that B cells-intrinsic production of CCL3 promotes their probing by follicular regulatory T cells (Tfr) within GCs of murine lymph nodes. Overall this study suggests that CCL3 facilitates direct interactions of foreign antigen-specific GC B cells and their negative regulation with Tfr cells in vivo

Regularities of disorders in large intestine microbiocenosis under the influence of Klebsiella oxytoca in children 6-12 months old with functional gastrointestinal disorders

Background. Functional disorders of the gastrointestinal tract represent one of the most urgent problems among children in the first year of life. Aim: to determine the peculiarities of microbiocenosis of large intestine in children with varying degrees of dysbiotic conditions of the gastrointestinal tract. Materials and methods. Material for the study included 354 coprological samples isolated from children with functional disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Depending on the degree of dysbiotic disorders of the colon, the children were divided into comparison groups: group 1 - children with grade 1 dysbiosis (n = 15), group 2 - 45 children with grade 2 dysbiosis, group 3 consisted of 149 children with grade 3, and group 4 consisted of 145 children with grade 3 of dysbiotic disturbances and K. оxytoca vegetation. Identification was performed by standard methods. Results. All four groups were characterized with changes in the qualitative composition of the indigenous biota with predominance of E. coli with atypical properties (haemolytic (up to 26,7 %) and labourmigration activity (to 33,3 %)). Groups with grade 3 dysbiosis were characterized by the presence of aggressive symbiotes in diagnostically significant concentration of S. aureus, Clostridium spp., Candida spp., Enterobacter spp., Proteusspp., P. aeruginosa. Conclusion. The emergence of Klebsiella oxytoca in the colon of children is an evidence of the violation of compensatory-adaptive reactions of the organism, which in turn is characterized by a decrease and a change in the qualitative composition of the indigenous biota by connecting the more aggressive representatives of the bacterial agents