Linking human cerebral and ocular waste clearance: Insights from tear fluid and ultra-high field MRI.

Impaired cerebral waste clearance (i.e., glymphatics) is evident in aging and neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, where an impaired waste clearance system could be related to the accumulation of pathological proteins (e.

Validity of an ultrasonographic joint-specific scoring system in juvenile idiopathic arthritis: a cross-sectional study comparing ultrasound findings of synovitis with whole-body magnetic resonance imaging and clinical assessment.

Objective: To assess the validity of an ultrasonographic scoring system in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) by comparing ultrasound detected synovitis with whole-body MRI and clinical assessment of disease activity.

Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 27 patients with active JIA underwent clinical 71-joints examination, non-contrast enhanced whole-body MRI and ultrasound evaluation of 28 joints (elbow, radiocarpal, midcarpal, metacarpophalangeal 2-3, proximal interphalangeal 2-3, hip, knee, tibiotalar, talonavicular, subtalar and metatarsophalangeal 2-3). One rheumatologist, blinded to clinical findings, performed ultrasound and scored synovitis (B-mode and power Doppler) findings using a semiquantitative joint-specific scoring system for synovitis in JIA.

Probing and perturbing riboswitch folding using a fluorescent base analogue.

Riboswitches are mRNA segments that regulate gene expression in response to ligand binding. The Class I preQ riboswitch consists of a stem-loop and an adenine-rich single-stranded tail ("L3"), which adopt a pseudoknot structure upon binding of the ligand preQ . We inserted 2-aminopurine (2-AP), a fluorescent analogue of adenine (A), into the riboswitch at six different positions within L3.

Tear biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease screening and diagnosis (the TearAD study): design and rationale of an observational longitudinal multicenter study.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia, and due to increasing life expectancy the number of patients is expected to grow. The diagnosis of AD involves the use of biomarkers determined by an amyloid PET scan or cerebrospinal fluid analyses that are either invasive or expensive, and not available in each hospital, thus limiting their usage as a front-line screener. The TearAD study aims to use tear fluid as a potential source for AD biomarkers.