Clinical profile, microbiology and outcomes in infective endocarditis treated with aortic valve replacement: a multicenter case-control study.

Background: Aortic valve infective endocarditis (IE) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. We aimed to describe the clinical profile, risk factors and predictors of short- and long-term mortality in patients with aortic valve IE treated with aortic valve replacement (AVR) compared with a control group undergoing AVR for non-infectious valvular heart disease.

Methods: Between January 2008 and December 2013, a total of 170 cases with IE treated with AVR (exposed cohort) and 677 randomly selected non-infectious AVR-treated patients with degenerative aortic valve disease (controls) were recruited from three tertiary hospitals with cardiothoracic facilities across Scandinavia.

Validity of a smartwatch for detecting atrial fibrillation in patients after heart valve surgery: a prospective observational study.

Objectives: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common early arrhythmia after heart valve surgery that limits physical activity. We aimed to evaluate the criterion validity of the Apple Watch Series 5 single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) for detecting AF in patients after heart valve surgery.

Design: We enrolled 105 patients from the University Hospital of North Norway, of whom 93 completed the study.

Early and mid-term results after endovascular repair of thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms using the off-the-shelf multibranched t-Branch device: a national multi-center study.

: The multibranched off-the-shelf Zenith® t-Branch (Cook Medical, Bloomington, IN) device is commonly chosen for endovascular repair of thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms. The aim of this study was to report early and mid-term outcomes in all patients treated with the t-Branch in Norway; : A retrospective multicenter study with Norwegian centers performing complex endovascular aortic repair was undertaken. T-Branch patients from 2014 to 2020 were included.

Plant and microbial science and technology as cornerstones to Bioregenerative Life Support Systems in space.

Long-term human space exploration missions require environmental control and closed Life Support Systems (LSS) capable of producing and recycling resources, thus fulfilling all the essential metabolic needs for human survival in harsh space environments, both during travel and on orbital/planetary stations. This will become increasingly necessary as missions reach farther away from Earth, thereby limiting the technical and economic feasibility of resupplying resources from Earth. Further incorporation of biological elements into state-of-the-art (mostly abiotic) LSS, leading to bioregenerative LSS (BLSS), is needed for additional resource recovery, food production, and waste treatment solutions, and to enable more self-sustainable missions to the Moon and Mars.

From urine to food and oxygen: effects of high and low NH:NO ratio on lettuce cultivated in a gas-tight hydroponic facility.

production of food, water and oxygen is essential for long-duration human space missions. Higher plants represent a key element in Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS), where crop cultivation can be based on water and nutrients recovered from waste and wastewater. Human urine exemplifies an important waste stream with potential to provide crops with nitrogen (N) and other nutrients.

Effects of ischaemic postconditioning in aortic valve replacement: a multicenter randomized controlled trial.

Objectives: The effect of ischaemic postconditioning (IPost) on postcardioplegic cardiac function is not known. We hypothesized that IPost was cardioprotective in adult patients undergoing elective aortic valve replacement.

Methods: In a multicentre, prospective, randomized trial, patients (n = 209) were randomized to either a standard operation (controls) or postconditioning.

Identification of Regulatory Genes and Metabolic Processes Important for Alginate Biosynthesis in by Screening of a Transposon Insertion Mutant Library.

produces the biopolymer alginate, which has a wide range of industrial and pharmaceutical applications. A random transposon insertion mutant library was constructed from ATCC12518Tc in order to identify genes and pathways affecting alginate biosynthesis, and about 4,000 mutant strains were screened for altered alginate production. One mutant, containing a disruption, displayed an elevated alginate production level, and several mutants with decreased or abolished alginate production were identified.

Mapping global effects of the anti-sigma factor MucA in Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 through genome-scale metabolic modeling.

Background: Alginate is an industrially important polysaccharide, currently produced commercially by harvesting of marine brown sea-weeds. The polymer is also synthesized as an exo-polysaccharide by bacteria belonging to the genera Pseudomonas and Azotobacter, and these organisms may represent an alternative alginate source in the future. The current work describes an attempt to rationally develop a biological system tuned for very high levels of alginate production, based on a fundamental understanding of the system through metabolic modeling supported by transcriptomics studies and carefully controlled fermentations.

Adenosine instead of supranormal potassium in cardioplegia: it is safe, efficient, and reduces the incidence of postoperative atrial fibrillation. A randomized clinical trial.

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a cold crystalloid cardioplegic solution with adenosine (1.2 mmol/L) instead of supranormal potassium.

Methods: Sixty low-risk patients scheduled for elective coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) were randomized to receive standard cold crystalloid hyperkalemic cardioplegia (hyperkalemic group) or normokalemic cardioplegia in which supranormal potassium was replaced with 1.

Optimized submerged batch fermentation strategy for systems scale studies of metabolic switching in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2).

Background: Systems biology approaches to study metabolic switching in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) depend on cultivation conditions ensuring high reproducibility and distinct phases of culture growth and secondary metabolite production. In addition, biomass concentrations must be sufficiently high to allow for extensive time-series sampling before occurrence of a given nutrient depletion for transition triggering. The present study describes for the first time the development of a dedicated optimized submerged batch fermentation strategy as the basis for highly time-resolved systems biology studies of metabolic switching in S.

Inhibition of NF-κB activation by β-glucan is not associated with protection from global ischemia-reperfusion injury in pigs.

Background: Pretreatment with β-glucan has been shown to protect against regional ischemia-reperfusion injury, through inhibition of myocardial NF-κB activation. The aim was to examine whether β-glucan pretreatment could protect against the global ischemia-reperfusion injury, which is encountered in the clinical setting during open heart surgery.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-one pigs were randomized to pretreatment with oral β-glucan (SBGo, n = 7), pretreatment with i.

Bacillus methanolicus pyruvate carboxylase and homoserine dehydrogenase I and II and their roles for L-lysine production from methanol at 50 degrees C.

We here present the pyc gene encoding pyruvate carboxylase (PC), and the hom-1 and hom-2 genes encoding two active homoserine dehydrogenase (HD) proteins, in methylotrophic Bacillus methanolicus MGA3. In general, both PC and HD are regarded as key targets for improving bacterial L-lysine production; PC plays a role in precursor oxaloacetate (OAA) supply while HD controls an important branch point in the L-lysine biosynthetic pathway. The hom-1 and hom-2 genes were strongly repressed by L-threonine and L-methionine, respectively.

Adenosine protects against hypoxic injury at hypothermia in guinea pig papillary muscles.

Objectives: To investigate the protective effects of adenosine against hypoxic injury at hypothermia; both magnitude and mechanisms.

Design: Receptor versus non-receptor dependent mechanisms in cardioprotection by adenosine were examined in guinea pig papillary muscles exposed to glucose free hypoxia at 24 degrees C. Contractile force amplitude (CFA) and action potential duration (APD) during increasing concentrations of adenosine at 37 degrees C, 30 degrees C and 24 degrees C normoxia were also examined.

The dynamic architecture of the metabolic switch in Streptomyces coelicolor.

Background: During the lifetime of a fermenter culture, the soil bacterium S. coelicolor undergoes a major metabolic switch from exponential growth to antibiotic production. We have studied gene expression patterns during this switch, using a specifically designed Affymetrix genechip and a high-resolution time-series of fermenter-grown samples.

Oxygen-wasting effect of inotropy: is there a need for a new evaluation? An experimental large-animal study using dobutamine and levosimendan.

Background: We addressed the hypothesis that the inotropic drugs dobutamine and levosimendan both induce surplus oxygen consumption (oxygen wasting) relative to their contractile effect in equipotent therapeutic doses, with levosimendan being energetically more efficient.

Methods And Results: Postischemically reduced left ventricular function (stunning) was created by repetitive left coronary occlusions in 22 pigs. This contractile dysfunction was reversed by infusion of either levosimendan (24 microg/kg loading and 0.

Mechanoenergetic function and troponin T release following cardioplegic arrest induced by St Thomas' and histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate cardioplegia--an experimental comparative study in pigs.

The study compares the single dose histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate (HTK) cardioplegia to the repeatedly delivered St Thomas' Hospital Solution (STHS) with respect to preservation of left ventricular mechanoenergetics and leakage of troponin T in a porcine experimental model. Fourteen pigs were randomized to a single infusion of 30 ml/kg HTK cardioplegia (n=7) or 500 ml STHS (n=7) followed by 200 ml after 20 and 40 min. After 1 h of aortic cross-clamping on cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), the pigs were weaned and the hearts reperfused for 4 h.

Overexpression of wild-type aspartokinase increases L-lysine production in the thermotolerant methylotrophic bacterium Bacillus methanolicus.

Aspartokinase (AK) controls the carbon flow into the aspartate pathway for the biosynthesis of the amino acids l-methionine, l-threonine, l-isoleucine, and l-lysine. We report here the cloning of four genes (asd, encoding aspartate semialdehyde dehydrogenase; dapA, encoding dihydrodipicolinate synthase; dapG, encoding AKI; and yclM, encoding AKIII) of the aspartate pathway in Bacillus methanolicus MGA3. Together with the known AKII gene lysC, dapG and yclM form a set of three AK genes in this organism.

Adenosine instead of supranormal potassium in cardioplegic solution preserves endothelium-derived hyperpolarization factor-dependent vasodilation.

Objective: We have recently shown that adenosine instead of supranormal potassium in cold crystalloid cardioplegia improves cardioprotection. Studies indicate that hyperkalemia has unfavorable effects on vascular endothelial function. Three pathways have been identified as major vasodilatory pathways: the nitric oxide (NO) pathway, the cyclooxygenase (COX) pathway, and the endothelium-derived hyperpolarization (EDHF) pathway, where the EDHF pathway, in particular, seems susceptible to hyperkalemia.

Adenosine instead of supranormal potassium in cardioplegic solution improves cardioprotection.

Objective: To determine whether adenosine instead of supranormal potassium in cold crystalloid cardioplegia gives satisfactory cardiac arrest and improved cardioprotection. Cold crystalloid cardioplegia with adenosine, procaine and magnesium (A) was compared with standard cold crystalloid hyperkalemic cardioplegia (K).

Methods: Sixteen pigs were randomized to receive either cold K (n=8) or A (n=8), where hyperkalemia was substituted with 1.

Bacillus methanolicus: a candidate for industrial production of amino acids from methanol at 50 degrees C.

Amino acids are among the major products in biotechnology in both volume and value, and the global market is growing. Microbial fermentation is the dominant method used for industrial production, and today the most important microorganisms used are Corynebacteria utilizing sugars. For low-prize bulk amino acids, the possibility of using alternative substrates such as methanol has gained considerable interest.

Contractile recovery of heart muscle after hypothermic hypoxia is improved by nicorandil via mitochondrial K(ATP) channels.

Background: The ATP-sensitive potassium channel (K(ATP)) opener nicorandil used instead of potassium in hypothermic cardioplegia significantly improves preservation of cardiac function and energetics in the in situ heart preparation. The present study, therefore, examines the effect of nicorandil at different temperatures and the role of sarcolemmal and mitochondrial K(ATP) channels under ex vivo conditions using contractile force (CF) and action potential duration (APD) as end points.

Methods: Guinea-pig papillary muscles at 37, 27, or 22 degrees C (1Hz) were exposed to nicorandil 0.

Upregulated transcription of plasmid and chromosomal ribulose monophosphate pathway genes is critical for methanol assimilation rate and methanol tolerance in the methylotrophic bacterium Bacillus methanolicus.

The natural plasmid pBM19 carries the key mdh gene needed for the oxidation of methanol into formaldehyde by Bacillus methanolicus. Five more genes, glpX, fba, tkt, pfk, and rpe, with deduced roles in the cell primary metabolism, are also located on this plasmid. By using real-time PCR, we show that they are transcriptionally upregulated (6- to 40-fold) in cells utilizing methanol; a similar induction was shown for two chromosomal genes, hps and phi.