High diagnostic yield of endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) in the diagnosis of adolescent pulmonary tuberculosis.

Background: The microbiological diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (Tb) in a pediatric population is hampered by both low pathogen burden and noncompliance with sputum sampling. Although endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) has been found useful for the evaluation of mediastinal pathologies in adults, for children, sparse data are available. Here, we have evaluated EBUS-TBNA as a diagnostic procedure in children and adolescents with suspected pulmonary Tb.

An integrated functional approach to dissect systemic responses in maize to arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis.

Most terrestrial plants benefit from the symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) mainly under nutrient-limited conditions. Here the crop plant Zea mays was grown with and without AMF in a bi-compartmented system separating plant and phosphate (Pi) source by a hyphae-permeable membrane. Thus, Pi was preferentially taken up via the mycorrhizal Pi uptake pathway while other nutrients were ubiquitously available.

Adaptation of maize source leaf metabolism to stress related disturbances in carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus balance.

Background: Abiotic stress causes disturbances in the cellular homeostasis. Re-adjustment of balance in carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus metabolism therefore plays a central role in stress adaptation. However, it is currently unknown which parts of the primary cell metabolism follow common patterns under different stress conditions and which represent specific responses.

OPTIMAS-DW: a comprehensive transcriptomics, metabolomics, ionomics, proteomics and phenomics data resource for maize.

Background: Maize is a major crop plant, grown for human and animal nutrition, as well as a renewable resource for bioenergy. When looking at the problems of limited fossil fuels, the growth of the world's population or the world's climate change, it is important to find ways to increase the yield and biomass of maize and to study how it reacts to specific abiotic and biotic stress situations. Within the OPTIMAS systems biology project maize plants were grown under a large set of controlled stress conditions, phenotypically characterised and plant material was harvested to analyse the effect of specific environmental conditions or developmental stages.

Maize source leaf adaptation to nitrogen deficiency affects not only nitrogen and carbon metabolism but also control of phosphate homeostasis.

Crop plant development is strongly dependent on the availability of nitrogen (N) in the soil and the efficiency of N utilization for biomass production and yield. However, knowledge about molecular responses to N deprivation derives mainly from the study of model species. In this article, the metabolic adaptation of source leaves to low N was analyzed in maize (Zea mays) seedlings by parallel measurements of transcriptome and metabolome profiling.

Transgenic Introduction of a Glycolate Oxidative Cycle into A. thaliana Chloroplasts Leads to Growth Improvement.

The photorespiratory pathway helps illuminated C(3)-plants under conditions of limited CO(2) availability by effectively exporting reducing equivalents in form of glycolate out of the chloroplast and regenerating glycerate-3-P as substrate for RubisCO. On the other hand, this pathway is considered as probably futile because previously assimilated CO(2) is released in mitochondria. Consequently, a lot of effort has been made to reduce this CO(2) loss either by reducing fluxes via engineering RubisCO or circumventing mitochondrial CO(2) release by the introduction of new enzyme activities.

Systems analysis of a maize leaf developmental gradient redefines the current C4 model and provides candidates for regulation.

We systematically analyzed a developmental gradient of the third maize (Zea mays) leaf from the point of emergence into the light to the tip in 10 continuous leaf slices to study organ development and physiological and biochemical functions. Transcriptome analysis, oxygen sensitivity of photosynthesis, and photosynthetic rate measurements showed that the maize leaf undergoes a sink-to-source transition without an intermediate phase of C(3) photosynthesis or operation of a photorespiratory carbon pump. Metabolome and transcriptome analysis, chlorophyll and protein measurements, as well as dry weight determination, showed continuous gradients for all analyzed items.

Analysis of Arabidopsis with highly reduced levels of malate and fumarate sheds light on the role of these organic acids as storage carbon molecules.

While malate and fumarate participate in a multiplicity of pathways in plant metabolism, the function of these organic acids as carbon stores in C(3) plants has not been deeply addressed. Here, Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants overexpressing a maize (Zea mays) plastidic NADP-malic enzyme (MEm plants) were used to analyze the consequences of sustained low malate and fumarate levels on the physiology of this C(3) plant. When grown in short days (sd), MEm plants developed a pale-green phenotype with decreased biomass and increased specific leaf area, with thin leaves having lower photosynthetic performance.

Congenital hyperinsulinism with hyperammonaemia.

Congenital hyperinsulinism is considered to be the most frequent cause of persistent recurrent hypoglycaemia in infants. The clinical presentation and response to pharmacological treatment may vary significantly depending on the underlying pathology. We report a case of a female infant with mild but early onset of recurrent hypoglycaemia.

Arabidopsis thaliana overexpressing glycolate oxidase in chloroplasts: H(2)O(2)-induced changes in primary metabolic pathways.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) represent both toxic by-products of aerobic metabolism as well as signaling molecules in processes like growth regulation and defense pathways. The study of signaling and oxidative-damage effects can be separated in plants expressing glycolate oxidase in the plastids (GO plants), where the production of H(2)O(2) in the chloroplasts is inducible and sustained perturbations can reproducibly be provoked by exposing the plants to different ambient conditions. Thus, GO plants represent an ideal non-invasive model to study events related to the perception and responses to H(2)O(2) accumulation.

[Significance of CSF levels of tau protein and beta42-amyloid for diagnosis and differential diagnosis of dementia diseases in a specialized geriatric hospital].

Considering the incidence of dementia, the development of procedures that allow correct differential diagnosis is gaining increasing importance. The analysis of spinal fluid from 632 patients, who were admitted with suspected dementia, diagnosed dementia or dementia of unclear etiology, showed that there was high differential diagnostic power for tau protein, but not for beta-amyloid.

Generation of hydrogen peroxide in chloroplasts of Arabidopsis overexpressing glycolate oxidase as an inducible system to study oxidative stress.

Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) overexpressing glycolate oxidase (GO) in chloroplasts accumulates both hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) and glyoxylate. GO-overexpressing lines (GO plants) grown at 75 micromol quanta m(-2) s(-1) show retarded development, yellowish rosettes, and impaired photosynthetic performance, while at 30 micromol quanta m(-2) s(-1), this phenotype virtually disappears. The GO plants develop oxidative stress lesions under photorespiratory conditions but grow like wild-type plants under nonphotorespiratory conditions.

Arabidopsis NAD-malic enzyme functions as a homodimer and heterodimer and has a major impact on nocturnal metabolism.

Although the nonphotosynthetic NAD-malic enzyme (NAD-ME) was assumed to play a central role in the metabolite flux through the tricarboxylic acid cycle, the knowledge on this enzyme is still limited. Here, we report on the identification and characterization of two genes encoding mitochondrial NAD-MEs from Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), AtNAD-ME1 and AtNAD-ME2. The encoded proteins can be grouped into the two clades found in the plant NAD-ME phylogenetic tree.

Alteration of organic acid metabolism in Arabidopsis overexpressing the maize C4 NADP-malic enzyme causes accelerated senescence during extended darkness.

The full-length cDNA encoding the maize (Zea mays) C(4) NADP-malic enzyme was expressed in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) under the control of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter. Homozygous transgenic plants (MEm) were isolated with activities ranging from 6- to 33-fold of those found in the wild type. The transformants did not show any differences in morphology and development when grown in long days; however, dark-induced senescence progressed more rapidly in MEm plants compared to the wild type.

Methylphenidate-induced changes in cerebral hemodynamics measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

The aim of the present preliminary study was to evaluate the feasibility of measuring cerebral hemodynamic effects of a clinical dose of methylphenidate by near-infrared spectroscopy in 10 boys (median age, 10.7 years; range, 8.6-11.

Apnoea and bradycardia in preterm infants following immunisation with pentavalent or hexavalent vaccines.

Unlabelled: There is a lack of data regarding the incidence and clinical significance of apnoea or bradycardia (AB) following immunisation with combination vaccines containing an acellular pertussis (Pa) component in respiratory stable preterm infants. Medical records of respiratory stable preterm infants who received a first dose of a combined diphtheria (D) and tetanus (T) toxoids, Pa, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), inactivated poliovirus (IPV) vaccine with or without hepatitis B virus (HBV) in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the University Children's Hospital Basel between January 2000 and June 2003 were analysed. For each infant, clinical data were recorded for a 72 h period before and after immunisation.

Incidence and diagnosis of unilateral arterial cerebral infarction in newborn infants.

Aims: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is accepted as the gold standard for the diagnosis of arterial cerebral infarction (ACI), but few studies have reported the incidence of neonatal ACI based on MRI findings. We provide new population-based epidemiologic and diagnostic data on all infants diagnosed between 1997 and 2002 in our center with an MRI-confirmed diagnosis of unilateral neonatal ACI.

Results: Nine patients were identified, giving an incidence of 1:2300 unilateral ACIs in our inborn population.

Cerebral hemodynamic changes in response to an executive function task in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder measured by near-infrared spectroscopy.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the hemodynamic changes in both prefrontal regions induced by a cognitive task in children with a developmental attention-deficit disorder in comparison to normal controls using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). A total of 11 boys with a mean age of 10.4 (+/-1.

Attention-induced frontal brain activation measured by near-infrared spectroscopy.

In eight right-handed healthy males aged 9.6-12.9 years, changes in the frontal cerebral concentrations of oxygenated, deoxygenated, and total hemoglobin, as well as in tissue oxygenation index and cytochrome oxidase aa(3) were measured by near-infrared spectroscopy.

Longitudinal data for intrauterine levels of fetal IGF-I and IGF-II.

Objective: An increasing body of evidence supports a major role for the insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) in the control of human fetal growth. Individual data at various times of pregnancy suggest that IGF-I and IGF-II levels remain stable up to the 33rd week of pregnancy. Thereafter, both increase to reach values 2-3 times higher at term.

Posthemorrhagic unilateral hydrocephalus: fenestration of septum pellucidum as an alternative to shunt implantation.

Unilateral hydrocephalus caused by occlusion of the foramen of Monro is rare. We report two cases in neonates caused by prenatal hemorrhage, their radiographic findings, and surgical treatment. With posthemorrhagic progressive unilateral hydrocephalus, early intervention with fenestration of septum pellucidum should be considered.

The significance of gastric residuals in the early enteral feeding advancement of extremely low birth weight infants.

Objective: To evaluate whether the mean gastric residual volume (GRV) and green gastric residuals (GR) themselves are significant predictors of feeding intolerance in the early enteral feeding advancement in extremely low birth weight (ELBW; <1000 g) infants.

Design: Ninety-nine ELBW infants were fed following a standardized protocol (day 3--14). At 48 hours of age, milk feeding was started (12 mL/kg/d increments, 12 meals per day).