Temporal trends in respiratory pathogens following the COVID-19 pandemic and climate variables: A unicentric retrospective evaluation of 24 pathogens in a temperate subtropical region.

Temperature and humidity are studied in the context of seasonal infections in temperate and tropical zones, but the relationship between viral trends and climate variables in temperate subtropical zones remains underexplored. Our retrospective study analyzes respiratory pathogen incidence and its correlation with climate data in a subtropical zone. Retrospective observational study at Moinhos de Vento Hospital, South Brazil, aiming to assess seasonal trends in respiratory pathogens, correlating them with climate data.

Impact on pulmonary, cardiac, and renal function and long-term quality of life after hospitalization for acute respiratory distress syndrome due to COVID-19: Protocol of the Post-COVID Brazil 3 study.

Rationale: Evidence about long-term sequelae after hospitalization for acute respiratory distress syndrome due to COVID-19 is still scarce.

Purpose: To evaluate changes in pulmonary, cardiac, and renal function and in quality of life after hospitalization for acute respiratory distress syndrome secondary to COVID-19.

Methods: This will be a multicenter case-control study of 220 participants.

What outcomes should be evaluated in critically ill patients?

Randomized clinical trials in intensive care prioritize disease-focused outcomes rather than patient-centered outcomes. A paradigm shift considering the evaluation of measures after hospital discharge and measures focused on quality of life and common symptoms, such as pain and dyspnea, could better reflect the wishes of patients and their families. However, barriers related to the systematization of the interpretation of these outcomes, the heterogeneity of measurement instruments and the greater difficulty in performing the studies, to date, seem to hinder this change.

Off-Colony Screening of Biosynthetic Libraries by Rapid Laser-Enabled Mass Spectrometry.

By leveraging advances in DNA synthesis and molecular cloning techniques, synthetic biology increasingly makes use of large construct libraries to explore large design spaces. For biosynthetic pathway engineering, the ability to screen these libraries for a variety of metabolites of interest is essential. If the metabolite of interest or the metabolic phenotype is not easily measurable, screening soon becomes a major bottleneck involving time-consuming culturing, sample preparation, and extraction.

Hemocyanin facilitates lignocellulose digestion by wood-boring marine crustaceans.

Woody (lignocellulosic) plant biomass is an abundant renewable feedstock, rich in polysaccharides that are bound into an insoluble fiber composite with lignin. Marine crustacean woodborers of the genus Limnoria are among the few animals that can survive on a diet of this recalcitrant material without relying on gut resident microbiota. Analysis of fecal pellets revealed that Limnoria targets hexose-containing polysaccharides (mainly cellulose, and also glucomannans), corresponding with the abundance of cellulases in their digestive system, but xylans and lignin are largely unconsumed.

Plant science. Morphinan biosynthesis in opium poppy requires a P450-oxidoreductase fusion protein.

Morphinan alkaloids from the opium poppy are used for pain relief. The direction of metabolites to morphinan biosynthesis requires isomerization of (S)- to (R)-reticuline. Characterization of high-reticuline poppy mutants revealed a genetic locus, designated STORR [(S)- to (R)-reticuline] that encodes both cytochrome P450 and oxidoreductase modules, the latter belonging to the aldo-keto reductase family.

Structural characterization of a unique marine animal family 7 cellobiohydrolase suggests a mechanism of cellulase salt tolerance.

Nature uses a diversity of glycoside hydrolase (GH) enzymes to convert polysaccharides to sugars. As lignocellulosic biomass deconstruction for biofuel production remains costly, natural GH diversity offers a starting point for developing industrial enzymes, and fungal GH family 7 (GH7) cellobiohydrolases, in particular, provide significant hydrolytic potential in industrial mixtures. Recently, GH7 enzymes have been found in other kingdoms of life besides fungi, including in animals and protists.

A Papaver somniferum 10-gene cluster for synthesis of the anticancer alkaloid noscapine.

Noscapine is an antitumor alkaloid from opium poppy that binds tubulin, arrests metaphase, and induces apoptosis in dividing human cells. Elucidation of the biosynthetic pathway will enable improvement in the commercial production of noscapine and related bioactive molecules. Transcriptomic analysis revealed the exclusive expression of 10 genes encoding five distinct enzyme classes in a high noscapine-producing poppy variety, HN1.

Expression of a chitinase gene from Metarhizium anisopliae in tobacco plants confers resistance against Rhizoctonia solani.

The chit1 gene from the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae, encoding the endochitinase CHIT42, was placed under the control of the CaMV 35S promoter, and the resulting construct was transferred to tobacco. Seventeen kanamycin-resistant transgenic lines were recovered, and the presence of the transgene was confirmed by polymerase chain reactions and Southern blot hybridization. The number of chit1 copies was determined to be varying from one to four.

[The use of preoperative intra-aortic balloon in myocardial revascularization surgery associated to severe ventricular dysfunction].

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of prophylactic intra-aortic balloon (IAB) in elective myocardial revascularization surgery (MRS), to prevent trans or post-operative infarction and reduce intra-hospital mortality in patients with low left ventricular ejection fraction.

Methods: Using a cohort study model, 239 patients with left ventricular ejection fraction < or = 40%, submitted to elective MRS with extracorporeal circulation (ECC) were evaluated from March 1995 to February 2001.

Results: Of these, 58 patients received preoperative IAB and the remainder underwent surgery without circulatory assistance (control group).