Appropriateness of Proton Pump Inhibitor (PPI) prescription in patients admitted to hospital: Attitudes of general practitioners and hospital physicians in Italy.

Introduction: Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) prescriptions have raised concern for both huge increase of health expenditure and possible long-term adverse effects.

Objective: To evaluate appropriateness of PPI prescription in ambulatory and hospital care.

Design: Observational cohort study.

Hypertension and Other Determinants of White Matter Lesions in Stroke Patients.

Hypertension is the main risk factor for both white matter lesions (WMLs) and stroke, but many stroke patients do not have WMLs. To find specific determinants of WMLs, the authors assessed 321 ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke patients who had undergone echocardiography. The patients with WMLs (n=160) were more often hypertensive and had a higher systolic blood pressure than the patients without WMLs.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity in the Tuber melanosporum brûlé.

The development of the fruiting body (truffle) of the ectomycorrhizal fungus Tuber melanosporum is associated with the production of an area (commonly referred to with the French word brûlé) around its symbiotic plant that has scanty vegetation. As truffles produce metabolites that can mediate fungal-plant interactions, the authors wondered whether the brûlé could affect the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) that colonize the patchy herbaceous plants inside the brûlé. A morphological evaluation of the roots of plants collected in 2009 from a T.

Changes of liver enzymes and bilirubin during ischemic stroke: mechanisms and possible significance.

Background: Small changes of bilirubin and liver enzymes are often detected during the acute phase of stroke, but their origin and significance are still poorly understood.

Methods: On days 0, 3, 7, and 14 after admission, 180 patients with ischemic stroke underwent serial determinations of bilirubin, GOT, GPT, γGT, alkaline phosphatase, C-reactive protein (CRP) and complete blood count. On days 0 and 7 common bile duct diameter was measured by ultrasound, and on day 3 cerebral infarct volume (IV) was calculated from CT scan slices.

Transcriptomics of the interaction between the monopartite phloem-limited geminivirus tomato yellow leaf curl Sardinia virus and Solanum lycopersicum highlights a role for plant hormones, autophagy and plant immune system fine tuning during infection.

Tomato yellow leaf curl Sardinia virus (TYLCSV), a DNA virus belonging to the genus Begomovirus, causes severe losses in tomato crops. It infects only a limited number of cells in the vascular tissues, making difficult to detect changes in host gene expression linked to its presence. Here we present the first microarray study of transcriptional changes induced by the phloem-limited geminivirus TYLCSV infecting tomato, its natural host.

Factors predisposing to small lacunar versus large non-lacunar cerebral infarcts: is left ventricular mass involved?

Objectives: To find some specific determinants of lacunar strokes (LS), this study compared LS and non-LS patients using the size and location of cerebral lesions as discriminant between the two groups.

Methods: The main cardiovascular risk factors and some echocardiographic parameters were assessed in 225 ischemic stroke patients aged 75·1±11·4 (SD) years, including 101 patients with symptoms and lesions of lacunar type (deep hypodensities with diameter ≤ 1·5 cm) and 124 patients with non-lacunar lesions.

Results: LS patients tended to be younger and had a higher prevalence of smokers than non-LS patients.

Development of a new method for detection and identification of Oenococcus oeni bacteriophages based on endolysin gene sequence and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA.

Malolactic fermentation (MLF) is a biochemical transformation conducted by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that occurs in wine at the end of alcoholic fermentation. Oenococcus oeni is the main species responsible for MLF in most wines. As in other fermented foods, where bacteriophages represent a potential risk for the fermentative process, O.

Truffle brûlés have an impact on the diversity of soil bacterial communities.

Background: The development of Tuber melanosporum mycorrhizal symbiosis is associated with the production of an area devoid of vegetation (commonly referred to by the French word 'brûlé') around the symbiotic plants and where the fruiting bodies of T. melanosporum are usually collected. The extent of the ecological impact of such an area is still being discovered.

ITS-1 versus ITS-2 pyrosequencing: a comparison of fungal populations in truffle grounds.

In a recent study pyrosequencing of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer-1 (ITS-1) has validated the effectiveness of such technology in the survey of soil fungal diversity. Here we compare the two ITS regions, ITS-1 and ITS-2, of the fungal populations occurring in Tuber melanosporum/Quercus pubescens truffle grounds and sampled in two areas, one devoid of vegetation ("burned", brulé in French) where T. melanosporum fruiting bodies are usually collected, and outside the brulé.

Tuber melanosporum, when dominant, affects fungal dynamics in truffle grounds.

The fruiting bodies of the ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungus Tuber melanosporum are usually collected in an area devoid of vegetation which is defined as a 'burnt area' (brulé in French). Here, the soil fungal populations of inside and outside brulé were compared in order to understand whether the scanty plant cover was related to a change in fungal biodiversity. Both denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and molecular cloning of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) marker were employed on soil DNA to obtain profiles from nine truffle grounds and fungal sequences from one selected truffle ground sampled in two years.

Two new natural begomovirus recombinants associated with the tomato yellow leaf curl disease co-exist with parental viruses in tomato epidemics in Italy.

Two tomato geminivirus species co-exist in protected crops in Sicily, Tomato yellow leaf curl Sardinia virus (TYLCSV, found in 1989) and Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV, found in 2002), and mixed infections have been detected. In a field survey conducted in 2004, the viral intergenic region (IR) was amplified from infected plants, and molecules apparently hybrid between the two species were found, but only in plants where one or both parental species were also present. Two of these hybrids, named 2/2 and 2/5, were isolated and infectious clones were obtained.