Neuropsychological Functioning in Patients with Cushing's Disease and Cushing's Syndrome.

Purpose: To present a systematic review of the presence and severity of neuropsychological impairment in the six main neuropsychological domains (attention, executive function, language, visuospatial processing, intelligence, and memory) in patients with Cushing's disease (CD) and/or Cushing's Syndrome (CS) at various stages of the illness. The work aims to identify neuropsychological leverage points for focused diagnosis and rehabilitation in CS/CD patients.

Methods: A pubmed literature search was performed and augmented by searching the reference lists of review articles identified by this search strategy.

Probing teichoic acid genetics with bioactive molecules reveals new interactions among diverse processes in bacterial cell wall biogenesis.

The bacterial cell wall has been a celebrated target for antibiotics and holds real promise for the discovery of new antibacterial chemical matter. In addition to peptidoglycan, the walls of Gram-positive bacteria contain large amounts of the polymer teichoic acid, covalently attached to peptidoglycan. Recently, wall teichoic acid was shown to be essential to the proper morphology of Bacillus subtilis and an important virulence factor for Staphylococcus aureus.

Quality of life and psychiatric sequelae following aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: does neuroendocrine dysfunction play a role?

Objective: Patients who have sustained aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) often suffer persistent impairments in their quality of life (QoL) and psychological disturbances despite a good neurological outcome. In the light of the high prevalence of partial hypopituitarism in SAH survivors demonstrated in recent investigations, we aimed to determine whether neuroendocrine dysfunction has an impact on QoL and neurobehavioural symptoms in these patients.

Design/patients: QoL, depression and psychological distress were assessed in 40 SAH survivors who had undergone endocrine function testing at least 1 year after the haemorrhage.

Prevalence of pituitary deficiency in patients after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

After aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), patients frequently present with persistent bodily, psychosocial, and cognitive impairments that resemble those of patients with untreated partial or complete pituitary insufficiency. Because of these similarities, the authors hypothesized that aneurysmal SAH may cause pituitary dysfunction. Pituitary function testing was performed in 40 aneurysmal SAH patients between 12 and 72 months after the SAH.

Prediction of mechanisms of action of antibacterial compounds by gene expression profiling.

We have generated a database of expression profiles carrying the transcriptional responses of the model organism Bacillus subtilis following treatment with 37 well-characterized antibacterial compounds of different classes. The database was used to build a predictor for the assignment of the mechanisms of action (MoAs) of antibacterial compounds by the use of support vector machines. This predictor was able to correctly classify the MoA class for most compounds tested.

Panel of Bacillus subtilis reporter strains indicative of various modes of action.

In a recent project, we collected the transcriptional profiles of Bacillus subtilis 168 after treatment with a large set of diverse antibacterial agents. One result of the data analysis was the identification of marker genes that are indicative of certain compounds or compound classes. We cloned these promoter regions in front of a luciferase reporter gene and reintroduced the constructs individually into the B.

Evaluation of OxoPlate for real-time assessment of antibacterial activities.

We have evaluated the OxoPlate OP96F for its usefulness in the characterization of antibacterial compounds. Each well of the plate carries two different fluorescent dyes, an oxygen-sensitive indicator dye and a reference dye. Fluorescence intensity is proportional to the amount of dissolved oxygen in the medium.