Practicability and Diagnostic Yield of One-Stop Stroke CT with Delayed-Phase Cardiac CT in Detecting Major Cardioembolic Sources of Acute Ischemic Stroke : A Proof of Concept Study.

Purpose: Recurrent stroke is considered to increase the incidence of severe disability and death. For correct risk assessment and patient management it is essential to identify the origin of stroke at an early stage. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the initial standard of care for evaluating patients in whom a cardioembolic source of stroke (CES) is suspected but its diagnostic capability is limited.

Direct Sparse Odometry.

Direct Sparse Odometry (DSO) is a visual odometry method based on a novel, highly accurate sparse and direct structure and motion formulation. It combines a fully direct probabilistic model (minimizing a photometric error) with consistent, joint optimization of all model parameters, including geometry-represented as inverse depth in a reference frame-and camera motion. This is achieved in real time by omitting the smoothness prior used in other direct methods and instead sampling pixels evenly throughout the images.

Functional Similarities between the Protein O-Mannosyltransferases Pmt4 from Bakers' Yeast and Human POMT1.

Protein O-mannosylation is an essential post-translational modification. It is initiated in the endoplasmic reticulum by a family of protein O-mannosyltransferases that are conserved from yeast (PMTs) to human (POMTs). The degree of functional conservation between yeast and human protein O-mannosyltransferases is uncharacterized.

Aspergillus fumigatus Cap59-like protein A is involved in α1,3-mannosylation of GPI-anchors.

Glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) attaches a variety of eukaryotic proteins to the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane. In fungi, these proteins may also be transferred to the cell wall, to which they are covalently linked via a remnant of the GPI-anchor. They play crucial physiological roles in cell-cell interactions, adhesion or cell wall biogenesis.

Characterization of an N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase involved in Aspergillus fumigatus zwitterionic glycoinositolphosphoceramide biosynthesis.

Glycoinositolphosphoceramides (GIPCs) are complex sphingolipids present at the plasma membrane of various eukaryotes with the important exception of mammals. In fungi, these glycosphingolipids commonly contain an α-mannose residue (Man) linked at position 2 of the inositol. However, several pathogenic fungi additionally synthesize zwitterionic GIPCs carrying an α-glucosamine residue (GlcN) at this position.

Biosynthesis of the fungal cell wall polysaccharide galactomannan requires intraluminal GDP-mannose.

Fungal cell walls frequently contain a polymer of mannose and galactose called galactomannan. In the pathogenic filamentous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, this polysaccharide is made of a linear mannan backbone with side chains of galactofuran and is anchored to the plasma membrane via a glycosylphosphatidylinositol or is covalently linked to the cell wall. To date, the biosynthesis and significance of this polysaccharide are unknown.

Approaching the secrets of N-glycosylation in Aspergillus fumigatus: characterization of the AfOch1 protein.

The mannosyltransferase Och1 is the key enzyme for synthesis of elaborated protein N-glycans in yeast. In filamentous fungi genes implicated in outer chain formation are present, but their function is unclear. In this study we have analyzed the Och1 protein of Aspergillus fumigatus.

A single UDP-galactofuranose transporter is required for galactofuranosylation in Aspergillus fumigatus.

Galactofuranose (Galf) containing molecules have been described at the cell surface of several eukaryotes and shown to contribute to the virulence of the parasite Leishmania major and the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus. It is anticipated that a number of the surface glycoconjugates such as N-glycans or glycolipids are galactofuranosylated in the Golgi apparatus. This raises the question of how the substrate for galactofuranosylation reactions, UDP-Galf, which is synthesized in the cytosol, translocates into the organelles of the secretory pathway.

The mitA gene of Aspergillus fumigatus is required for mannosylation of inositol-phosphorylceramide, but is dispensable for pathogenicity.

GDP-mannose:inositol-phosphorylceramide (MIPC)-derived glycosphingolipids are important pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMP) of Candida albicans and according to recently published data also of Aspergillus fumigatus. MIPC transferases are essential for the synthesis of MIPC, but have so far been studied only in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and C. albicans.