Implementing maternal and newborn health quality of care standards in healthcare facilities to improve the adoption of respectful maternity care in Bangladesh, Ghana and Tanzania: a controlled before and after study.

Introduction: Many women worldwide cannot access respectful maternity care (RMC). We assessed the effect of implementing maternal and newborn health (MNH) quality of care standards on RMC measures.

Methods: We used a facility-based controlled before and after design in 43 healthcare facilities in Bangladesh, Ghana and Tanzania.

The crystal structure of the reduced, Zn2+-bound form of the B. subtilis Hsp33 chaperone and its implications for the activation mechanism.

The bacterial heat shock protein Hsp33 is a redox-regulated chaperone activated by oxidative stress. In response to oxidation, four cysteines within a Zn2+ binding C-terminal domain form two disulfide bonds with concomitant release of the metal. This leads to the formation of the biologically active Hsp33 dimer.

Harvesting the high-hanging fruit: the structure of the YdeN gene product from Bacillus subtilis at 1.8 angstroms resolution.

High-throughput (HT) protein crystallography is severely impeded by the relatively low success rate of protein crystallization. Proteins whose structures are not solved in the HT pipeline owing to attrition in any phase of the project are referred to as the high-hanging fruit, in contrast to those proteins that yielded good-quality crystals and crystal structures, which are referred to as low-hanging fruit. It has previously been shown that proteins that do not crystallize in the wild-type form can have their surfaces engineered by site-directed mutagenesis in order to create patches of low conformational entropy that are conducive to forming intermolecular interactions.

Proteome of Caulobacter crescentus cell cycle publicly accessible on SWICZ server.

Here we present the Swiss-Czech Proteomics Server (SWICZ), which hosts the proteomic database summarizing information about the cell cycle of the aquatic bacterium Caulobacter crescentus. The database provides a searchable tool for easy access of global protein synthesis and protein stability data as examined during the C. crescentus cell cycle.

Determination of ethyl glucuronide in human hair by SPE and LC-MS/MS.

A method for the sensitive and selective determination of ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in hair has been developed using solid-phase extraction (SPE) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Washed and cut hair segments were extracted by ultrasonication (3h, 50 degrees C) and the extracts were cleaned-up with aminopropyl SPE columns. LC-MS/MS analysis was performed using a polar-endcapped phenyl-hexyl-RP-phase with negative mode electrospray ionisation (ESI) using a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (Sciex API 365) with a turboionspray source and post-column addition of acetonitrile for enhanced sensitivity.