Assessment of safety culture in radiotherapy facilities using safety performance indicators.

This paper describes the development of the Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs), the methodology for assessment of the safety culture of radiotherapy institutions using SPIs and common strengths and common areas for improvement. SPIs were categorized into eight sections which all together contain 23 attributes and each attribute has scoring criteria from 0 to 2 (in steps of 0.5).

Structural and functional insights of sortases and their interactions with antivirulence compounds.

Sortase proteins play a crucial role as integral membrane proteins in anchoring bacterial surface proteins by recognizing them through a Cell-Wall Sorting (CWS) motif and cleaving them at specific sites before initiating pilus assembly. Both sortases and their substrate proteins are major virulence factors in numerous Gram-positive pathogens, making them attractive targets for antimicrobial intervention. Recognizing the significance of virulence proteins, a comprehensive exploration of their structural and functional characteristics is essential to enhance our understanding of pilus assembly in diverse Gram-positive bacteria.

Multifaceted roles of plant glycosyl hydrolases during pathogen infections: more to discover.

Carbohydrates are hydrolyzed by a family of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) called glycosidases or glycosyl hydrolases. Here, we have summarized the roles of various plant defense glycosidases that possess different substrate specificities. We have also highlighted the open questions in this research field.

Chemiluminescence-Based Assay to Monitor Early Oxidative Bursts in Soybean (Glycine max) Lateral Roots.

The reactive oxygen species (ROS) burst assay is a valuable tool for studying pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) in plants. During PTI, the interaction between pathogen recognition receptors (PRRs) and pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) leads to the rapid production of ROS in the apoplastic space. The resultant ROS can be measured using a chemiluminescent approach that involves the usage of horseradish peroxidase and luminol.