Swallowing muscle mass contributes to post-stroke dysphagia in ischemic stroke patients undergoing mechanical thrombectomy.

Background: Neurogenic dysphagia is a frequent complication of stroke and is associated with aspiration pneumonia and poor outcomes. Although ischaemic lesion location and size are major determinants of the presence and severity of post-stroke dysphagia, little is known about the contribution of other acute stroke-unrelated factors. We aimed to analyse the impact of swallowing and non-swallowing muscles measurements on swallowing function after large vessel occlusion stroke.

Elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor improves chronic rhinosinusitis detected by magnetic resonance imaging in children with cystic fibrosis on long-term therapy with lumacaftor/ivacaftor.

Introduction: Previous studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrated early onset and progression of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) from infancy to school age, and response to lumacaftor/ivacaftor (LUM/IVA) therapy in children with cystic fibrosis (CF). However, the effect of elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor (ELX/TEZ/IVA) on CRS detected by MRI in children with CF and at least one F508del mutation, and potential incremental effects of ELX/TEZ/IVA compared to LUM/IVA in F508del homozygous children have not been studied.

Methods: 30 children with CF with at least one F508del mutation underwent three longitudinal paranasal sinus MRI before (MRI1), without (n = 16) or with LUM/IVA therapy (n = 14, MRI2), and with ELX/TEZ/IVA therapy (MRI3, mean age at therapy initiation 11.

Early flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing after mechanical thrombectomy in stroke patients.

Objective: The aims of the study were to (1) characterize the findings of flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) in stroke patients undergoing mechanical thrombectomy (MT); (2) analyse the screening performance of the Standardized Swallowing Assessment (SSA); and (3) study the impact of FEES-defined dysphagia on 3-month outcomes.

Methods: This single-centre study was based on a local registry of consecutive acute ischaemic stroke patients undergoing MT during a 1-year period. Patients received FEES within 5 days of admission regardless of the result of dysphagia screening.

The relationship between neurogenic dysphagia, stroke-associated pneumonia and functional outcome in a cohort of ischemic stroke patients treated with mechanical thrombectomy.

Introduction: Mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is an established treatment approach in acute ischemic stroke patients with large vessel occlusion (LVO). Recent studies suggest that the prevalence of dysphagia and pneumonia risk is increased in this patient population. The aim of this study was to systematically evaluate the prevalence, predictors, and influence of neurogenic dysphagia for 3-month outcome in a large population of patients receiving MT and to elucidate the relationship between dysphagia, stroke-associated pneumonia (SAP) and medium-term functional outcome.

Renewable carbon sources to biochemicals and -fuels: contributions of the smut fungi Ustilaginaceae.

The global demand for food, fuels, and chemicals increases annually. Using renewable C-sources (i.e.

The decidual expression of Interleukin-7 is upregulated in early pregnancy loss.

Background: Maternal immunological rejection of the semi-allogenic fetus is discussed as one of the significant factors involved in early pregnancy loss. An array of cytokines secreted by both maternal and fetal cells is involved in generating a delicate maternal immune tolerance. Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is discussed to play a key role in pro-inflammatory processes, but there is still limited insight into the pathophysiological input on placentation and embryonic development in early pregnancy loss.

Cytosolic Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxykinase Deficiency: Cause of Hypoglycemia-Induced Seizure and Death.

Cytosolic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) deficiency (MIM 261680, EC 4.1.1.

Serial whole-body cryotherapy in fibromyalgia is effective and alters cytokine profiles.

Introduction: Whole-body cryotherapy (WBC) has shown to be beneficial in the treatment of fibromyalgia (FM). There is cumulative evidence that cytokines play a crucial role in FM. It's unknown whether clinical effects of WBC can be demonstrated at the molecular level and how long the effects last.

An Optimized for Itaconic Acid Production at Maximal Theoretical Yield.

, a member of the Ustilaginaceae family, is a promising host for the production of several metabolites including itaconic acid. This dicarboxylate has great potential as a bio-based building block in the polymer industry, and is of special interest for pharmaceutical applications. Several itaconate overproducing strains have been generated by metabolic and morphology engineering.

High level production of itaconic acid at low pH by Ustilago maydis with fed-batch fermentation.

The metabolically engineered plant pathogen Ustilago maydis MB215 Δcyp3 Pria1 has been cultivated to produce more than 80 g/L itaconate in 16 L scale pH and temperature controlled fermentation, in fed-batch mode with two successive feedings. The effect of pH as well as successive rounds of feeding has been quantified via elemental balances. Volumetric itaconic acid productivity gradually decreased with successive glucose feedings with increasing itaconic titers, with nearly constant product yield.

Modulating the Heat Sensitivity of Prostate Cancer Cell Lines In Vitro: A New Impact for Focal Therapies.

Focal therapies such as high-intensity focused ultrasound (HiFU) are an emerging therapeutic option for prostate cancer (PCA). Thermal or mechanical effects mediate most therapies. Moreover, locally administered drugs such as bicalutamide or docetaxel are new focal therapeutic options.

Increased Diagnostic Certainty of Periprosthetic Joint Infections by Combining Microbiological Results with Histopathological Samples Gained via a Minimally Invasive Punching Technique.

Background: The diagnosis of low-grade infections of endoprostheses is challenging. There are still no unified guidelines for standardised diagnostic approaches, recommendations are categorised into major and minor criteria. Additional histopathological samples might sustain the diagnosis.

An Ustilago maydis chassis for itaconic acid production without by-products.

Ustilago maydis is a promising yeast for the production of a range of valuable metabolites, including itaconate, malate, glycolipids and triacylglycerols. However, wild-type strains generally produce a potpourri of all of these metabolites, which hinders efficient production of single target chemicals. In this study, the diverse by-product spectrum of U.

Integrated strain- and process design enable production of 220 g L itaconic acid with .

Background: Itaconic acid is an unsaturated, dicarboxylic acid which finds a wide range of applications in the polymer industry and as a building block for fuels, solvents and pharmaceuticals. Currently, is used for industrial production, with titers above 100 g L depending on the conditions. Besides , is also a promising itaconic acid production host due to its yeast-like morphology.

ASAP-HSQC-TOCSY for fast spin system identification and extraction of long-range couplings.

Based on Ernst-angle-type excitation and Acceleration by Sharing Adjacent Polarization (ASAP), a fast HSQC-TOCSY experiment is introduced. In the approach, the DIPSI-2 isotropic mixing period of the ASAP-HSQC is simply shifted, which provides a TOCSY period without additional application of rf-energy. The ASAP-HSQC-TOCSY allows the acquisition of a conventional 2D in about 30 s.

Rapid two-dimensional ALSOFAST-HSQC experiment for metabolomics and fluxomics studies: application to a C-enriched cancer cell model treated with gold nanoparticles.

Isotope labeling enables the use of C-based metabolomics techniques with strongly improved resolution for a better identification of relevant metabolites and tracing of metabolic fluxes in cell and animal models, as required in fluxomics studies. However, even at high NMR-active isotope abundance, the acquisition of one-dimensional C and classical two-dimensional H,C-HSQC experiments remains time consuming. With the aim to provide a shorter, more efficient alternative, herein we explored the ALSOFAST-HSQC experiment with its rapid acquisition scheme for the analysis of C-labeled metabolites in complex biological mixtures.

Identification of novel parasitophorous vacuole proteins in P. falciparum parasites using BioID.

Malaria blood stage parasites develop within red blood cells where they are contained in a vacuolar compartment known as the parasitophorous vacuole (PV). This compartment holds a key role in the interaction of the parasite with its host cell. However, the proteome of this compartment has so far not been comprehensively analysed.

Improvements, extensions, and practical aspects of rapid ASAP-HSQC and ALSOFAST-HSQC pulse sequences for studying small molecules at natural abundance.

Previously we introduced two novel NMR experiments for small molecules, the so-called ASAP-HSQC and ALSOFAST-HSQC (Schulze-Sünninghausen et al., 2014), which allow the detection of heteronuclear one-bond correlations in less than 30s at natural abundance. We propose an improved symmetrized pulse scheme of the basic experiment to minimize artifact intensities and the combination with non-uniform sampling to enable the acquisition of conventional HSQC spectra in as short as a couple of seconds and extremely C-resolved spectra in less than ten minutes.

Laser ablation ICP-MS: Application in biomedical research.

In the last decade, the development of diverse bioanalytical methodologies based on mass spectrometry imaging has increased, as has their application in biomedical questions. The distribution analysis of elements (metals, semimetals, and non-metals) in biological samples is a point of interest in life sciences, especially within the context of metallomics, which is the scientific field that encompasses the global analysis of the entirety of elemental species inside a cell or tissue. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) has been efficiently employed to generate qualitative and quantitative maps of elemental distribution in thin tissue sections of a variety of biological samples, for example, brain, cartilage, spinal cord, etc.

CLIP-ASAP-HSQC for fast and accurate extraction of one-bond couplings from isotropic and partially aligned molecules.

Fast measurement of heteronuclear one-bond couplings, a class of NMR parameters valuable for structure elucidation, is highly desirable, especially if samples undergo chemical reactions or dynamic processes are observed. Methods presented so far face severe limitations in terms of resolution, accessible bandwidth, and sensitivity. We present the CLean InPhase-Acceleration by Sharing Adjacent Polarization-HSQC (CLIP-ASAP-HSQC) pulse sequence that allows fast acquisition of spectra with clean inphase multiplets in about 25 s.

Factors influencing the attitudes of cattle veterinarians, farmers, and claw trimmers towards the pain associated with the treatment of sole ulcers and the sensitivity to pain of dairy cows.

This study assessed the attitudes of personnel involved in therapeutic claw trimming of dairy cattle in Switzerland towards pain associated with sole ulcers and their treatment. Data from 77 farmers, 32 claw trimmers, and 137 cattle veterinarians were used. A large range of factors were associated with whether the respondents thought that anaesthesia during the treatment of sole ulcers was beneficial; these included year of graduation, work experience, attitude to costs of analgesia, perception of competition between veterinarians and claw trimmers, estimation of pain level associated with treatment, estimated sensitivity of dairy cows to pain, knowledge of the obligation to provide analgesia, and whether the respondent thought lesion size and occurrence of defensive behaviour by the cow were important.

Rapid heteronuclear single quantum correlation NMR spectra at natural abundance.

A novel NMR experiment, the so-called ASAP-HSQC, is introduced that allows the detection of heteronuclear one-bond correlations in less than 30 s on small molecules at natural abundance without compromises in sweep width, resolution or spectral quality. Equally, the experiment allows a significant increase in digital resolution or a moderate senstitivity enhancement in the same overall experiment time compared to a conventional HSQC. The gain is a consequence of keeping all unused proton magnetization along z during acquisition, so that the previously reported ASAP and ALSOFAST approaches can be transferred from HMQC to HSQC-type experiments.

Current attitudes of bovine practitioners, claw-trimmers and farmers in Switzerland to pain and painful interventions in the feet in dairy cattle.

The attitudes of bovine practitioners, claw-trimmers and farmers towards painful therapeutic claw-trimming of dairy cattle were surveyed and differences between the respondents were assessed. A total of 77 farmers and 32 claw-trimmers were interviewed, and 137 bovine practitioners completed an equivalent online survey. No veterinary consultation for common painful interventions in the feet of cattle was reported by 52% of farmers (i.

Acute and chronic pain in calves after different methods of rubber-ring castration.

The goal of the present study was to evaluate the effect of different methods of rubber-ring castration on acute and chronic pain in calves. Sixty-three 4-6 week-old calves were randomly and sequentially allocated to one of five groups: Group RR (traditional rubber ring castration); group BRR (combination of one rubber ring with Burdizzo); group Rcut (one rubber ring applied with the scrotal tissue and rubber ring removed on day 9); group 3RR (three rubber rings placed one above the other around the scrotal neck); and group CO (controls; sham-castrated). All calves received 0.