Performance Evaluation of Molecular Detection of Enteroviruses: Results of 18 Years of Quality Control for Molecular Diagnostics (QCMD) External Quality Assessment Program, 2005-2022.

The gold standard for enterovirus (EV) detection is the polymerase chain reaction based on the detection of the 5' untranslated region of the virus. Correct detection of EV is crucial for patient and public health purposes. The performance of diagnostic and public health laboratories on molecular EV-detection was analyzed using data from the external quality assessment program distributed by Quality Control for Molecular Diagnostics (QCMD) between 2005 and 2022.

Label-Free Biophysical Markers from Whole Blood Microfluidic Immune Profiling Reveal Severe Immune Response Signatures.

Disease manifestation and severity from acute infections are often due to hyper-aggressive host immune responses which change within minutes. Current methods for early diagnosis of infections focus on detecting low abundance pathogens, which are time-consuming, of low sensitivity, and do not reflect the severity of the pathophysiology appropriately. The approach here focuses on profiling the rapidly changing host inflammatory response, which in its over-exuberant state, leads to sepsis and death.

The MARVEL trial: a phase 2b randomised placebo-controlled trial of oral MitoQ in moderate ulcerative colitis.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory disease of the large bowel which is characterised by dysregulated immunity and death to epithelial cells in the bowel, leading to prolonged inflammation. This can ultimately lead to surgery to remove the large bowel, with a risk of cancer developing if inflammation persists. Current therapies - which target the incoming immune cells or the cytokines they produce - are improving significantly but they are expensive and are immunosuppressive, leading to risk of infection.

Acute ethanol inhibits extracellular signal-regulated kinase, protein kinase B, and adenosine 3':5'-cyclic monophosphate response element binding protein activity in an age- and brain region-specific manner.

Background: As little as a single episode of exposure of the developing brain to ethanol can result in developmental neuropathology and mental retardation. Extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs), protein kinase B (PKB), and adenosine 3':5'-cyclic monophosphate response element binding protein (CREB) are messenger molecules that play important roles in neuronal plasticity and survival. This study was undertaken to examine the effects of acute ethanol on ERK, PKB, and CREB activation in the brain.

Activity-dependent NMDA receptor-mediated activation of protein kinase B/Akt in cortical neuronal cultures.

The serine/threonine protein kinase B (PKB)/Akt is a phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) effector that is thought to play an important roll in a wide variety of cellular events. The present study examined whether PKB activation in cortical neuronal cultures is coupled with synaptic activity. A 1-h incubation of neuronal cultures with tetrodotoxin (TTX), the PI3K inhibitor wortmannin, the NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 or removal of extracellular calcium significantly reduced basal levels of phospho(Ser473)-PKB, indicating that activity-dependent glutamate release maintains PKB activation through an NMDA receptor-PI3K pathway.

Radula-centric and odontophore-centric kinematic models of swallowing in Aplysia californica.

Two kinematic models of the radula/odontophore of the marine mollusc Aplysia californica were created to characterize the movement of structures inside the buccal mass during the feeding cycle in vivo. Both models produce a continuous range of three-dimensional shape changes in the radula/odontophore, but they are fundamentally different in construction. The radulacentric model treats the radular halves as rigid bodies that can pitch, yaw and roll relative to a fixed radular stalk, thus creating a three-dimensional shape.