Phosphatidylcholine PC ae C44:6 in cerebrospinal fluid is a sensitive biomarker for bacterial meningitis.

Background: The timely diagnosis of bacterial meningitis is of utmost importance due to the need to institute antibiotic treatment as early as possible. Moreover, the differentiation from other causes of meningitis/encephalitis is critical because of differences in management such as the need for antiviral or immunosuppressive treatments. Considering our previously reported association between free membrane phospholipids in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and CNS involvement in neuroinfections we evaluated phosphatidylcholine PC ae C44:6, an integral constituent of cell membranes, as diagnostic biomarker for bacterial meningitis.

Numerical constructions of optimal feedback in models of chemotherapy of a malignant tumor.

In this paper, a problem of chemotherapy of a malignant tumor is considered. Dynamics is piecewise monotone and a therapy function has two maxima. The aim of therapy is to minimize the number of tumor cells at the given final instance.

Kynurenine Is a Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarker for Bacterial and Viral Central Nervous System Infections.

Background: The tryptophan-kynurenine-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (oxidized; NAD+) pathway is closely associated with regulation of immune cells toward less inflammatory phenotypes and may exert neuroprotective effects. Investigating its regulation in central nervous system (CNS) infections would improve our understanding of pathophysiology and end-organ damage, and, furthermore, open doors to its evaluation as a source of diagnostic and/or prognostic biomarkers.

Methods: We measured concentrations of kynurenine (Kyn) and tryptophan (Trp) in 221 cerebrospinal fluid samples from patients with bacterial and viral (due to herpes simplex, varicella zoster, and enteroviruses) meningitis/encephalitis, neuroborreliosis, autoimmune neuroinflammation (due to anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor [NMDA] encephalitis and multiple sclerosis), and noninflamed controls (ie, individuals with Bell palsy, normal pressure hydrocephalus, or Tourette syndrome).

Discovery of Leptospira spp. seroreactive peptides using ORFeome phage display.

Background: Leptospirosis is the most common zoonotic disease worldwide. The diagnostic performance of a serological test for human leptospirosis is mainly influenced by the antigen used in the test assay. An ideal serological test should cover all serovars of pathogenic leptospires with high sensitivity and specificity and use reagents that are relatively inexpensive to produce and can be used in tropical climates.

Identification of Cerebrospinal Fluid Metabolites as Biomarkers for Enterovirus Meningitis.

Enteroviruses are among the most common causes of viral meningitis. Enteroviral meningitis continues to represent diagnostic challenges, as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cell numbers (a well validated diagnostic screening tool) may be normal in up to 15% of patients. We aimed to identify potential CSF biomarkers for enteroviral meningitis, particularly for cases with normal CSF cell count.

[SHIFTS IN URINE PROTEIN PROFILE DURING DRY IMMERSION].

The study was aimed at tracking the proteomic profile of urine in 8 normal volunteers to 5-day dry immersion (DI). The proteome composition was determined by chromatography-mass spectrometry on high-efficient on-line liquid nano chromatograph Agilent 1100; complementary information about the protein spectra was obtained by dint of mass-spectrometer MaXis Impact 4G and hybrid mass-spectrometer LTQ-FT. Functional associations between proteins and biological functions were analyzed using computer system ANDCell (Associative Networks Discovery in Cells).

Optimized leaf ordering with class labels for hierarchical clustering.

Hierarchical clustering is extensively used in the bioinformatics community to analyze biomedical data. These data are often tagged with class labels, as e.g.

HUM calculator and HUM package for R: easy-to-use software tools for multicategory receiver operating characteristic analysis.

Unlabelled: Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis is usually applied in bioinformatics to evaluate the abilities of biological markers to differentiate between the presence or absence of a disease. It includes the derivation of the useful scalar performance measure area under the ROC curve for binary classification tasks. As real applications often deal with more than two classes, multicategory ROC analysis and the corresponding hypervolume under the manifold (HUM) measure have become a topic of growing interest.

Entropy-based cluster validation and estimation of the number of clusters in gene expression data.

Many external and internal validity measures have been proposed in order to estimate the number of clusters in gene expression data but as a rule they do not consider the analysis of the stability of the groupings produced by a clustering algorithm. Based on the approach assessing the predictive power or stability of a partitioning, we propose the new measure of cluster validation and the selection procedure to determine the suitable number of clusters. The validity measure is based on the estimation of the "clearness" of the consensus matrix, which is the result of a resampling clustering scheme or consensus clustering.

Global transcriptome analysis in influenza-infected mouse lungs reveals the kinetics of innate and adaptive host immune responses.

An infection represents a highly dynamic process involving complex biological responses of the host at many levels. To describe such processes at a global level, we recorded gene expression changes in mouse lungs after a non-lethal infection with influenza A virus over a period of 60 days. Global analysis of the large data set identified distinct phases of the host response.

[Seven-day dry immersion: relations between water-electrolyte and cardiovascular responses].

The paper presents the results of the experiment with 7-day dry immersion. Eight healthy men were studied before, during and after exposure. It is shown that the primary response involves hemodynamic and water-electrolyte changes.

Gene expression changes in the host response between resistant and susceptible inbred mouse strains after influenza A infection.

Inbred mouse strains exhibit differences in susceptibility to influenza A infections. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these differences are unknown. Therefore, we infected a highly susceptible mouse strain (DBA/2J) and a resistant strain (C57BL/6J) with influenza A H1N1 (PR8) and performed genome-wide expression analysis.

[Specific features of the development of Siberian stone pine megagametophytes and embryos in vitro].

Seedlings were grown in vitro from fertilized eggs and immature embryos of the Siberian stone pine. Cultivation of megagametophytes on a hormone-containing Murashige-Skoog medium from the egg formation until the globular embryo stage made it possible to manipulate fertilization and embryogenesis. Immature embryos are the most promising for in vitro cultivation.

The effect of taurine derivative on lipid peroxidation and interhemispheric asymmetry of phospholipids from the brain synaptosomes in rats after immobilization stress.

Malondialdehyde (MDA) as an indicator of lipid peroxidation (LPO), content and composition of phospholipids (PL) were analyzed in synaptosomes of the rat brain hemispheres using immobilization stress without and with pretreatment with a new synthetic taurine derivative (STD). The stress was accompanied by a decrease MDA content, inversion of the initial asymmetry of total phospholipids (TPL) and modification PL composition in the brain hemispheres of rats. STD administration to the rats after stress antagonized the decrease of the MDA level, attenuates stress induced inversion TPL asymmetry and normalized PL composition in the brain hemispheres.

[Status of the blood and lung antioxidant system of the rat in toxic pulmonary edema].

The state of enzymatic and non-enzymatic components of antioxidant system and also lipid peroxidation processes in blood and lungs of rats with toxic pulmonary edema induced by inhalation of nitric oxides were investigated. The changes in the state of blood and lung antioxidant system components accompany the development of toxic pulmonary edema and coincide in time-course of edema manifestation. The determined changes were more pronounced in blood than in lungs.

[A change in the composition of cardiac membrane phospholipids in the process of nonspecific myocardial adaptation].

The content and composition of cardiac phospholipids (PL) were investigated under the action of a new neuroactive inhibitory amino acid designed on the molecular basis. I.p.

[Cardiac phospholipids in the dynamics of experimental myocardial infarct in rats].

The study was undertaken to examine the cardiac levels and composition of phospholipids (PL) in the time course of rat experimental myocardial infarction (EMI) caused by the Selye procedure. The course of EMI was shown to be accompanied by a rise in the total levels of PH in the cardiomyocytic membranes, which was observed 1 hour and 14 days after the occurrence of EMI. Analyzing the composition of individual PL demonstrated higher concentrations of the minor PL phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylinositol, as well as differently directed changes in the content of massive PL: lower concentrations of phosphatidylethanolamine and higher levels of phosphatidylcholine.

[Characteristics of bacterial excretion in pulmonary tuberculosis patients residents of the Yakut region].

The present state of bacilli excretion in the Yakut area and its certain social aspects are characterized, the detection rate of M. tuberculosis in pulmonary tuberculosis and the sex-age structure are subjected to analysis. Data on the primary and secondary drug resistance, type appertainance of the causative agent and the result of a disinfectant work in the infection foci have been studied in 511 patients having copious bacilli excretion.

[Bacteriologic examination for tuberculosis in subjects from a group at risk].

Laboratory methods were used to test the samples taken from 55,068 people for M. tuberculosis. Inoculation of diagnostic material for M.