Metal-on-metal total hip arthroplasty: is there still a role in 2016?

The use of metal-on-metal (MoM) bearings in total hip arthroplasty (THA) was popularized due to its enhanced wear profile and the ability to use large femoral heads to reduce post-operative instability. However, enthusiasm for the bearing declined following serious complications encountered at the primary articulation. This review discusses the development of MoM and the subsequent unexpected downstream challenges, most notably elevated serum metal ion levels, aseptic lymphocyte-dominated vasculitis-associated lesions (ALVAL), pseudotumor formation, and subsequent soft tissue and bone destruction.

The effect of viscosity on cement penetration in total knee arthroplasty, an application of the squeeze film effect.

The authors present a prospective randomized blinded cadaver study designed to evaluate the engineering concept of a squeeze film effect and the effect of cement viscosity on cement penetration in total knee arthroplasty. This was done in response to an earlier clinical study demonstrating inferior tibial cement penetration using early, often liquid, phase cement. Paired cadaver tibias were implanted with the tibial component using either liquid or dough phase cement.

Scientific collaboration networks using biomedical text.

The combination of scientific knowledge and experience is the key success for biomedical research. This chapter demonstrates some of the strategies used to help in identifying key opinion leaders with the expertise you need, thus enabling an effort to increase collaborative biomedical research.

Regulation of synaptic Pumilio function by an aggregation-prone domain.

We identified Pumilio (Pum), a Drosophila translational repressor, in a computational search for metazoan proteins whose activities might be regulated by assembly into ordered aggregates. The search algorithm was based on evolutionary sequence conservation patterns observed for yeast prion proteins, which contain aggregation-prone glutamine/asparagine (Q/N)-rich domains attached to functional domains of normal amino acid composition. We examined aggregation of Pum and its nematode ortholog PUF-9 by expression in yeast.

Interaction between a G-patch protein and a spliceosomal DEXD/H-box ATPase that is critical for splicing.

Prp2 is an RNA-dependent ATPase that activates the spliceosome before the first transesterification reaction of pre-mRNA splicing. Prp2 has extensive homology throughout the helicase domain characteristic of DEXD/H-box helicases and a conserved carboxyl-terminal domain also found in the spliceosomal helicases Prp16, Prp22, and Prp43. Despite the extensive homology shared by these helicases, each has a distinct, sequential role in splicing; thus, uncovering the determinants of specificity becomes crucial to the understanding of Prp2 and the other DEAH-splicing helicases.