As endpoints of watersheds, bays concentrate erosion- and human-derived substances such as dissolved inorganic nutrients and pollutants. We investigated the water movement and biogeochemistry of two bays in Curaçao: Piscadera Bay and Spaanse Water, during the dry (May 2022 and 2023) and wet seasons (November 2021 and 2023). Bay-ocean exchange was limited during the dry season, enhancing nutrient concentrations in the bays.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlgal blooms impact trophic interactions, community structure and element fluxes. Despite playing an important role in the demise of phytoplankton blooms, only few viruses infecting diatoms have been cultured. Pseudo-nitzschia is a widespread diatom genus that commonly blooms in coastal waters and contains toxin-producing species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Southern Ocean microbial ecosystem, with its pronounced seasonal shifts, is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Since viruses are key modulators of microbial abundance, diversity, and evolution, we need a better understanding of the effects of seasonality on the viruses in this region. Our comprehensive exploration of DNA viral diversity in the Southern Ocean reveals a unique and largely uncharted viral landscape, of which 75% was previously unidentified in other oceanic areas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLatency is a common strategy in a wide range of viral lineages, but its prevalence in giant viruses remains unknown. Here we describe the activity and viral production from a 617 kbp integrated giant viral element in the model green alga . We resolve the integrated viral region using long-read sequencing and show that viral particles are produced and released in otherwise healthy cultures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Assessment of malnutrition-related muscle depletion with computed tomography (CT) using skeletal muscle index (SMI) and muscle radiation attenuation (MRA) at the third lumbar vertebra is well validated. However, SMI and MRA values at other vertebral locations and interchangeability as parameters in different types of cancer are less known. We aimed to investigate whether adult patients with different types of cancer show differences in SMI and MRA at all vertebral levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComplex virus-virus interactions can arise when multiple viruses coinfect the same host, impacting infection outcomes with broader ecological and evolutionary significance for viruses and host. Yet, our knowledge regarding virus competition is still limited, especially for single-celled eukaryotic host-virus systems. Here, we report on mutual interference of two dsDNA viruses, MpoV-45T and MpoV-46T, competing for their Arctic algal host Micromonas polaris.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a genetic disease caused by pathogenetic variants in either the or genes. Consequently, the mechanistic target of the rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) pathway, a regulator of cell growth, metabolism, and survival, becomes inappropriately activated, leading to the development of benign tumors in multiple organs. The role of mTORC1 in lipid metabolism and liver steatosis in TSC patients has not been well-studied, and clinical data on liver involvement in this population are scarce.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: As most viruses remain uncultivated, metagenomics is currently the main method for virus discovery. Detecting viruses in metagenomic data is not trivial. In the past few years, many bioinformatic virus identification tools have been developed for this task, making it challenging to choose the right tools, parameters, and cutoffs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Metastatic melanoma lymph nodes (MMLns) might be challenging to detect on MR-WBI, as both MMLns and normal lymph nodes (NLns) can show restricted water diffusion. Our purpose is to assess the potential contribution of the DIXON sequence in differentiating MMLns from NLns.
Material And Methods: We followed a cohort of 107 patients with stage IIIb/c and IV skin melanoma for 32 months using MR-WBI with DIXON, STIR, and DWI/ADC sequences.
The field of aquatic viral ecology has continued to evolve rapidly over the last three decades [...
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLarge DNA viruses in the phylum Nucleocytoviricota, sometimes referred to as "giant viruses" owing to their large genomes and virions, have been the subject of burgeoning interest over the last decade. Here, we describe recently adopted taxonomic updates for giant viruses within the order Imitervirales. The families Allomimiviridae, Mesomimiviridae, and Schizomimiviridae have been created to accommodate the increasing diversity of mimivirus relatives that have sometimes been referred to in the literature as "extended Mimiviridae".
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChylothorax is the accumulation of lymphatic fluid in the pleural space. It is a rare condition with potentially life-threatening disorders. In children, the etiology of chylothorax can be mainly attributed to idiopathic factors, congenital, miscellaneous, trauma and malignancies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The medial gastrocnemius (GN) muscle flap is a historical reconstructive option in lower limb reconstruction. The flap is proximally based on the medial sural artery, and it is assumed not possible to harvest a distally based flap because of the absence of other minor pedicles. The aim of this study is to investigate the presence and the anatomy of a distal secondary pedicle given off by the posterior tibial artery (PTA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: In patients with cancer, low muscle mass has been associated with a higher risk of fatigue, poorer treatment outcomes, and mortality. To determine body composition with computed tomography (CT), measuring the muscle quantity at the level of lumbar 3 (L3) is suggested. However, in patients with cancer, CT imaging of the L3 level is not always available.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVirophages are small double stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses that can only replicate in a host by co-infecting with another virus. Marine algae are commonly associated with virophage-like elements such as Polinton-like viruses (PLVs) that remain largely uncharacterized. Here we isolated a PLV that co-infects the alga Phaeocystis globosa with the Phaeocystis globosa virus-14T (PgV-14T), a close relative of the "Phaeocystis globosa virus-virophage" genomic sequence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis a large family of icosahedral viruses that are usually regarded as non-enveloped with segmented (9-12 linear segments) dsRNA genomes of 23-29 kbp. Spinareovirids have a broad host range, infecting animals, fungi and plants. Some have important pathogenic potential for humans (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhether phytoplankton mortality is caused by grazing or viral lysis has important implications for phytoplankton dynamics and biogeochemical cycling. The ecological relevance of viral lysis for Antarctic phytoplankton is still under-studied. The Amundsen Sea is highly productive in spring and summer, especially in the Amundsen Sea Polynya (ASP), and very sensitive to global warming-induced ice-melt.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis a large family of icosahedral viruses that are usually regarded as non-enveloped with segmented (10-12 linear segments) dsRNA genomes of 18-26 kbp. Sedoreovirids have a broad host range, infecting mammals, birds, crustaceans, arthropods, algae and plants. Some of them have important pathogenic potential for humans (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhaeocystis is a globally widespread marine phytoplankton genus, best known for its colony-forming species that can form large blooms and odorous foam during bloom decline. In the North Sea, Phaeocystis globosa typically becomes abundant towards the end of the spring bloom, when nutrients are depleted and the share of mixotrophic protists increases. Although mixotrophy is widespread across the eukaryotic tree of life and is also found amongst haptophytes, a mixotrophic nutrition has not yet been demonstrated in Phaeocystis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolar seas are under threat of enhanced UV-radiation as well as increasing shipping activities. Considering the ecological importance of marine viruses, it is timely to study the impact of UV-AB on Arctic phytoplankton host-virus interactions and also test the efficacy of ballast water (BW) UV-C treatment on virus infectivity. This study examined the effects of: (i) ecologically relevant doses of UV-AB radiation on RCC2258 and its virus MpoV-45T, and (ii) UV-C radiation (doses 25-800 mJ cm) on MpoV-45T and other temperate algal viruses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The profunda artery perforator (PAP) flap is a well-known free flap for breast reconstruction. However, a reproducible perforator mapping system has yet to be developed.
Methods: The PAP perforators were localized by CTA using a novel X-Y axis system.
Eukaryotic phytoplankton are responsible for at least 20% of annual global carbon fixation. Their diversity and activity are shaped by interactions with prokaryotes as part of complex microbiomes. Although differences in their local species diversity have been estimated, we still have a limited understanding of environmental conditions responsible for compositional differences between local species communities on a large scale from pole to pole.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor nearly a century, phytoplankton spring blooms have largely been explained in the context of abiotic factors regulating cellular division rates (e.g., mixed-layer light levels).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFApplying low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (HO) to lakes is an emerging method to mitigate harmful cyanobacterial blooms. While cyanobacteria are very sensitive to HO, little is known about the impacts of these HO treatments on other members of the microbial community. In this study, we investigated changes in microbial community composition during two lake treatments with low HO concentrations (target: 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF