Blood-sampling collection prior to surgery may have a significant influence upon biomarker concentrations measured.

Background: Biomarkers can be subtle tools to aid the diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of therapy and disease progression. The validation of biomarkers is a cumbersome process involving many steps. Serum samples from lung cancer patients were collected in the framework of a larger study for evaluation of biomarkers for early detection of lung cancer.

Panel of emerging cardiac biomarkers contributes for prognosis rather than diagnosis in chronic heart failure.

Background: As complex disease, heart failure is associated with various pathophysiological and biochemical disorders. No single biomarker is able to display all these characteristics. Therefore, we evaluated a multimarker panel together with the biochemical gold-standard NT-proBNP.

High-sensitive troponin T in chronic heart failure correlates with severity of symptoms, left ventricular dysfunction and prognosis independently from N-terminal pro-b-type natriuretic peptide.

Background: Troponin T is an established marker of myocardial ischemia. We speculated that the role of the new high-sensitive troponin T (hs-cTnT) might expand towards non-ischemic myocardial disease, indicate disease severity and allow for prognostication in chronic heart failure.

Methods: Hs-cTnT (Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) was assessed in 233 individuals with chronic heart failure (n=149) or healthy controls (n=84).

Piceamycin and its N-acetylcysteine adduct is produced by Streptomyces sp. GB 4-2.

Piceamycin, a new macrolactam polyketide antibiotic, was detected by HPLC-diode array screening in extracts of Streptomyces sp. GB 4-2, which was isolated from the mycorrhizosphere of Norway spruce. The structure of piceamycin was determined by mass spectrometry and NMR experiments.

Proximicin A, B and C, novel aminofuran antibiotic and anticancer compounds isolated from marine strains of the actinomycete Verrucosispora.

A family of three novel aminofuran antibiotics named as proximicins was isolated from the marine Verrucosispora strain MG-37. Proximicin A was detected in parallel in the marine abyssomicin producer "Verrucosispora maris" AB-18-032. The characteristic structural element of proximicins is 4-amino-furan-2-carboxylic acid, a hitherto unknown gamma-amino acid.

Auxofuran, a novel metabolite that stimulates the growth of fly agaric, is produced by the mycorrhiza helper bacterium Streptomyces strain AcH 505.

The mycorrhiza helper bacterium Streptomyces strain AcH 505 improves mycelial growth of ectomycorrhizal fungi and formation of ectomycorrhizas between Amanita muscaria and spruce but suppresses the growth of plant-pathogenic fungi, suggesting that it produces both fungal growth-stimulating and -suppressing compounds. The dominant fungal-growth-promoting substance produced by strain AcH 505, auxofuran, was isolated, and its effect on the levels of gene expression of A. muscaria was investigated.

Abyssomicins, inhibitors of the para-aminobenzoic acid pathway produced by the marine Verrucosispora strain AB-18-032.

A screening method was established to detect inhibitors of the biosynthetic pathways of aromatic amino acids and para-aminobenzoic acid, the precursor of folic acid, using an agar plate diffusion assay modified as an antagonism test. By this screening method, a family of three novel polycyclic polyketides named as abyssomicins was isolated from a marine strain of Verrucosispora. The main component abyssomicin C inhibits the pathway between chorismate and para-aminobenzoic acid and is strongly active against gram-positive bacteria, including multi-resistant clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus.