Phase-3 trial of recombinant human alkaline phosphatase for patients with sepsis-associated acute kidney injury (REVIVAL).

Purpose: Ilofotase alfa is a human recombinant alkaline phosphatase with reno-protective effects that showed improved survival and reduced Major Adverse Kidney Events by 90 days (MAKE90) in sepsis-associated acute kidney injury (SA-AKI) patients. REVIVAL, was a phase-3 trial conducted to confirm its efficacy and safety.

Methods: In this international double-blinded randomized-controlled trial, SA-AKI patients were enrolled < 72 h on vasopressor and < 24 h of AKI.

Filling Analytical Gaps in Allergen Detection─Real-Time PCR for the Detection of Commercially Relevant Cephalopods and Gastropods in Food.

Mollusks belong to the group of shellfish, which are considered to be among the elicitors of severe food allergies worldwide. In recent years, numerous PCR detection methods have been developed for other shellfish such as crustaceans. However, cephalopods and gastropods were not considered in the development of these shellfish detection systems.

Active and dormant microorganisms on glacier surfaces.

Glacier and ice sheet surfaces host diverse communities of microorganisms whose activity (or inactivity) influences biogeochemical cycles and ice melting. Supraglacial microbes endure various environmental extremes including resource scarcity, frequent temperature fluctuations above and below the freezing point of water, and high UV irradiance during summer followed by months of total darkness during winter. One strategy that enables microbial life to persist through environmental extremes is dormancy, which despite being prevalent among microbial communities in natural settings, has not been directly measured and quantified in glacier surface ecosystems.

Pigment signatures of algal communities and their implications for glacier surface darkening.

Blooms of pigmented algae darken the surface of glaciers and ice sheets, thereby enhancing solar energy absorption and amplifying ice and snow melt. The impacts of algal pigment and community composition on surface darkening are still poorly understood. Here, we characterise glacier ice and snow algal pigment signatures on snow and bare ice surfaces and study their role in photophysiology and energy absorption on three glaciers in Southeast Greenland.

A globally relevant stock of soil nitrogen in the Yedoma permafrost domain.

Nitrogen regulates multiple aspects of the permafrost climate feedback, including plant growth, organic matter decomposition, and the production of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Despite its importance, current estimates of permafrost nitrogen are highly uncertain. Here, we compiled a dataset of >2000 samples to quantify nitrogen stocks in the Yedoma domain, a region with organic-rich permafrost that contains ~25% of all permafrost carbon.

Microbiome assembly in thawing permafrost and its feedbacks to climate.

The physical and chemical changes that accompany permafrost thaw directly influence the microbial communities that mediate the decomposition of formerly frozen organic matter, leading to uncertainty in permafrost-climate feedbacks. Although changes to microbial metabolism and community structure are documented following thaw, the generality of post-thaw assembly patterns across permafrost soils of the world remains uncertain, limiting our ability to predict biogeochemistry and microbial community responses to climate change. Based on our review of the Arctic microbiome, permafrost microbiology, and community ecology, we propose that Assembly Theory provides a framework to better understand thaw-mediated microbiome changes and the implications for community function and climate feedbacks.

DNA/RNA Preservation in Glacial Snow and Ice Samples.

The preservation of nucleic acids for high-throughput sequencing is an ongoing challenge for field scientists. In particular, samples that are low biomass, or that have to be collected and preserved in logistically challenging environments (such as remote sites or during long sampling campaigns) can pose exceptional difficulties. With this work, we compare and assess the effectiveness of three preservation methods for DNA and RNA extracted from microbial communities of glacial snow and ice samples.

Seasonality of Glacial Snow and Ice Microbial Communities.

Blooms of microalgae on glaciers and ice sheets are amplifying surface ice melting rates, which are already affected by climate change. Most studies on glacial microorganisms (including snow and glacier ice algae) have so far focused on the spring and summer melt season, leading to a temporal bias, and a knowledge gap in our understanding of the variations in microbial diversity, productivity, and physiology on glacier surfaces year-round. Here, we investigated the microbial communities from Icelandic glacier surface snow and bare ice habitats, with sampling spanning two consecutive years and carried out in both winter and two summer seasons.

Metaplasmidome-encoded functions of Siberian low-centered polygonal tundra soils.

Plasmids have the potential to transfer genetic traits within bacterial communities and thereby serve as a crucial tool for the rapid adaptation of bacteria in response to changing environmental conditions. Our knowledge of the environmental pool of plasmids (the metaplasmidome) and encoded functions is still limited due to a lack of sufficient extraction methods and tools for identifying and assembling plasmids from metagenomic datasets. Here, we present the first insights into the functional potential of the metaplasmidome of permafrost-affected active-layer soil-an environment with a relatively low biomass and seasonal freeze-thaw cycles that is strongly affected by global warming.

Environmental patterns of brown moss- and Sphagnum-associated microbial communities.

Northern peatlands typically develop through succession from fens dominated by the moss family Amblystegiaceae to bogs dominated by the moss genus Sphagnum. How the different plants and abiotic environmental conditions provided in Amblystegiaceae and Sphagnum peat shape the respective moss associated microbial communities is unknown. Through a large-scale molecular and biogeochemical study spanning Arctic, sub-Arctic and temperate regions we assessed how the endo- and epiphytic microbial communities of natural northern peatland mosses relate to peatland type (Sphagnum and Amblystegiaceae), location, moss taxa and abiotic environmental variables.

Metabolic potential of microbial communities from ferruginous sediments.

Ferruginous (Fe-rich, SO -poor) conditions are generally restricted to freshwater sediments on Earth today, but were likely widespread during the Archean and Proterozoic Eons. Lake Towuti, Indonesia, is a large ferruginous lake that likely hosts geochemical processes analogous to those that operated in the ferruginous Archean ocean. The metabolic potential of microbial communities and related biogeochemical cycling under such conditions remain largely unknown.

Anaerobic methanotrophic communities thrive in deep submarine permafrost.

Thawing submarine permafrost is a source of methane to the subsurface biosphere. Methane oxidation in submarine permafrost sediments has been proposed, but the responsible microorganisms remain uncharacterized. We analyzed archaeal communities and identified distinct anaerobic methanotrophic assemblages of marine and terrestrial origin (ANME-2a/b, ANME-2d) both in frozen and completely thawed submarine permafrost sediments.

Community structure of rare methanogenic archaea: insight from a single functional group.

The rare biosphere, the low abundant microbial populations, is suggested to be a conserved way of microbial life. Here we conducted a molecular survey of rare methanogenic archaea in the environment targeting the mcrA gene in order to test if general concepts associated with the structure of the rare bacterial biosphere also apply to single functional groups. Similar to what is known about rare bacterial communities, the contribution of rare methanogens to the alpha diversity is much larger than to Bray-Curtis measures.

Global Biogeographic Analysis of Methanogenic Archaea Identifies Community-Shaping Environmental Factors of Natural Environments.

Methanogenic archaea are important for the global greenhouse gas budget since they produce methane under anoxic conditions in numerous natural environments such as oceans, estuaries, soils, and lakes. Whether and how environmental change will propagate into methanogenic assemblages of natural environments remains largely unknown owing to a poor understanding of global distribution patterns and environmental drivers of this specific group of microorganisms. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis targeting the biogeographic patterns and environmental controls of methanogenic communities using 94 public gene datasets.

Single-cell Sequencing of Thiomargarita Reveals Genomic Flexibility for Adaptation to Dynamic Redox Conditions.

Large, colorless sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (LSB) of the family Beggiatoaceae form thick mats at sulfidic sediment surfaces, where they efficiently detoxify sulfide before it enters the water column. The genus Thiomargarita harbors the largest known free-living bacteria with cell sizes of up to 750 μm in diameter. In addition to their ability to oxidize reduced sulfur compounds, some Thiomargarita spp.

Single-Cell (Meta-)Genomics of a Dimorphic Candidatus Thiomargarita nelsonii Reveals Genomic Plasticity.

The genus Thiomargarita includes the world's largest bacteria. But as uncultured organisms, their physiology, metabolism, and basis for their gigantism are not well understood. Thus, a genomics approach, applied to a single Candidatus Thiomargarita nelsonii cell was employed to explore the genetic potential of one of these enigmatic giant bacteria.

Close association of active nitrifiers with Beggiatoa mats covering deep-sea hydrothermal sediments.

Hydrothermal sediments in the Guaymas Basin are covered by microbial mats that are dominated by nitrate-respiring and sulphide-oxidizing Beggiatoa. The presence of these mats strongly correlates with sulphide- and ammonium-rich fluids venting from the subsurface. Because ammonium and oxygen form opposed gradients at the sediment surface, we hypothesized that nitrification is an active process in these Beggiatoa mats.

Colonization of freshwater biofilms by nitrifying bacteria from activated sludge.

Effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) containing micro-organisms and residual nitrogen can stimulate nitrification in freshwater streams. We hypothesized that different ammonia-oxidizing (AOB) and nitrite-oxidizing (NOB) bacteria present in WWTP effluents differ in their potential to colonize biofilms in the receiving streams. In an experimental approach, we monitored biofilm colonization by nitrifiers in ammonium- or nitrite-fed microcosm flumes after inoculation with activated sludge.

Development of a 16S rRNA-targeted probe set for Verrucomicrobia and its application for fluorescence in situ hybridization in a humic lake.

Members of the highly diverse bacterial phylum Verrucomicrobia are globally distributed in various terrestrial and aquatic habitats. They are key players in soils, but little is known about their role in aquatic systems. Here, we report on the design and evaluation of a 16S rRNA-targeted probe set for the identification of Verrucomicrobia and of clades within this phylum.

Clinical, double-blind, placebo-controlled study investigating the combination of acetylsalicylic acid and pseudoephedrine for the symptomatic treatment of nasal congestion associated with common cold.

It was the aim of this clinical study to demonstrate the efficacy of 1000 mg acetylsalicylic acid (ASA, CAS 50-78-2) in combination with 60 mg pseudoephedrine (PSE, CAS 90-82-4), compared with placebo, in the symptomatic treatment of nasal congestion associated with the common cold. A further aim was to demonstrate the efficacy of 500 mg ASA + 30 mg PSE and of 1000 mg paracetamol (CAS 103-90-2) + 60 mg PSE (active control) in the symptomatic treatment of nasal congestion. The study was designed as a randomized, two-center, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, single-dose efficacy and safety trial over 6 h and was carried out in the USA.