Characterization of the porcine synovial fluid proteome and a comparison to the plasma proteome

AbstractSynovial fluid is present in all joint cavities, and protects the articular cartilage surfaces in large by lubricating the joint, thus reducing friction. Several studies have described changes in the protein composition of synovial fluid in patients with joint disease. However, the protein concentration, content, and synovial fluid volume change dramatically during active joint diseases and inflammation, and the proteome composition of healthy synovial fluid is incompletely characterized.We performed a normative proteomics analysis of porcine synovial fluid, and report data from optimizing proteomic methods to investigate the proteome of healthy porcine synovial fluid (Bennike et al., 2014 [1]). We included an evaluation of different proteolytic sample preparation techniques, and an analysis of posttranslational modifications with a focus on glycosylation. We used pig (Sus Scrofa) as a model organism, as the porcine immune system is highly similar to human and the pig genome is sequenced. Furthermore, porcine model systems are commonly used large animal models to study several human diseases.In addition, we analyzed the proteome of human plasma, and compared the proteomes to the obtained porcine synovial fluid proteome. The proteome of the two body fluids were found highly similar, underlining the detected plasma derived nature of many synovial fluid components. The healthy porcine synovial fluid proteomics data, human rheumatoid arthritis synovial fluid proteomics data used in the method optimization, human plasma proteomics data, and search results, have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository with the dataset identifier http://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride/archive/projects/PXD000935

How to Improve University Orientation: Seven Good Practice Strategies for South Africa

There is a great deal of variability in the practice of orientation across the country at South Africa’s universities, and there is limited knowledge of what exactly constitutes good practice in orientation.  Many areas of enquiry remain unexplored, and remain blind spots for South Africa’s higher education sector. The article addresses this central question: What constitutes good practice for orientation programmes in South Africa? The article argues that a structured and informed orientation strategy is critical in terms of matters of student retention and, in fact, may serve as the key linchpin of students’ decision to stay or exit the higher education system. Accordingly, seven strategies to improve nationalorientation practice are proposed in this article