Alkane degradation coupled to Fe(III) reduction mediated by Gram-positive bacteria.

Petroleum hydrocarbon contamination, such as n-alkanes, poses a significant global threat to ecosystems and human health. Microbial remediation emerges as a promising strategy for addressing this issue through both aerobic and anaerobic processes. Notably, the majority of anaerobic hydrocarbon degraders identified to date are Gram-negative bacteria.

Hepatocellular carcinoma: updates on epidemiology, surveillance, diagnosis and treatment.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major global burden, ranking as the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality. HCC due to chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) or C virus (HCV) infection has decreased due to universal vaccination for HBV and effective antiviral therapy for both HBV and HCV, but HCC related to metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is increasing. Biannual liver ultrasonography and serum α-fetoprotein are the primary surveillance tools for early HCC detection among high-risk patients (e.

Value of HCC surveillance in a landscape of emerging surveillance options: Perspectives of a multi-stakeholder modified delphi panel.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) surveillance is recommended by liver professional societies but lacks broad acceptance by several primary care and cancer societies due to limitations in the existing data. We convened a diverse multidisciplinary group of cancer screening experts to evaluate current and future paradigms of HCC prevention and early detection using a rigorous Delphi panel approach. The experts had high agreement on twenty-one statements about primary prevention, HCC surveillance benefits, HCC surveillance harms, and the evaluation of emerging surveillance modalities.

Multiphasic Computed Tomography Enhancement Characteristics and Utility of Delayed Phase in Infiltrative Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

 The aims of this study are to compare the multiphasic contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) characteristics of infiltrative hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with nodular HCC and to assess the conspicuity of infiltrative HCC on different phases of CECT.  This retrospective study comprised consecutive treatment-naive cirrhotic patients diagnosed with infiltrative and nodular HCC between January 2020 and December 2021 based on a multiphasic CECT (comprising arterial, portal venous, and delayed phases). The diagnosis of HCC was based on the Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) v2018 criteria (LR-4 and LR-5 lesions).

Sustained effects of repeated levodopa (L-DOPA) administration on reward circuitry, effort-based motivation, and anhedonia in depressed patients with higher inflammation.

Inflammatory biomarkers like C-reactive protein (CRP) are elevated in a subset of patients with depression and associated with lower functional connectivity (FC) in a ventral striatum (VS) to ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) reward circuit and symptoms of anhedonia. Evidence linking these relationships to the effects of inflammation on dopamine is consistent with our recent findings that acute levodopa (L-DOPA) increased VS-vmPFC FC in association with deceased anhedonia in depressed patients with higher but not lower CRP (>2 versus ≤ 2 mg/L). To determine whether repeated L-DOPA administration caused sustained effects on FC and behavior in these patients, medically stable depressed outpatients with CRP > 2 mg/L and anhedonia (n = 18) received one week of three doses of L-DOPA (150-450 mg/day/week with carbidopa) or placebo in a randomized order.