Synthetic peptides bioactive against phytopathogens have lower impact on some beneficial bacteria: An assessment of peptides biosafety in agriculture.

The emergence of bacterial resistance and the increasing restrictions on the use of agrochemicals are boosting the search for novel, sustainable antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) arise as a new generation of antibiotics due to their effectiveness at low doses and biocompatibility. We compared the antimicrobial activity of four promising AMPs (CA-M, BP100, RW-BP100, and 3.

Clinical outcomes of DEB-TACE in locally advanced hepatocellular carcinoma: A 5-year real world experience.

Purpose: To evaluate outcomes including safety and efficacy of drug-eluting bead trans-arterial chemo-embolization (DEB-TACE) in the treatment of locally advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (LA-HCC).

Materials And Methods: In this single-center, retrospective study, we evaluated 471 consecutive patients with LA-HCC who underwent DEB-TACE from 2015 to 2020. Efficacy of DEB-TACE was assessed based on the imaging response using the modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (mRECIST) and the biochemical response using alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels at 1-month follow-up.

Impact of Educational Videos on Patient Understanding of Interventional Radiology Procedures.

Rationale And Objectives: Under-awareness of Interventional Radiology (IR) care by the public has been reported. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of educational videos to facilitate better patient understanding during the informed consent process.

Materials And Methods: Educational videos for six common IR procedures including chemoembolization, radioembolization, ablation, tunneled central venous catheter placement, port placement, and port removal were developed for educating patients in the pre-procedural setting.

Safety outcomes and improvement in pain scores after radiologist-performed fluoroscopy-guided interlaminar cervical epidural steroid injection.

Introduction: Image-guided spine injections are an important tool in the management of patients with a variety of spinal pathologies. Our practice offers radiologist-performed fluoroscopy-guided interlaminar cervical epidural steroid injection (ESI) routinely performed in the outpatient setting. The purpose of this study was to evaluate clinical outcomes and improvement in pain scores after radiologist-performed cervical ESI.

Peptaibiotics: Harnessing the potential of microbial secondary metabolites for mitigation of plant pathogens.

Agricultural systems are in need of low-cost, safe antibiotics to protect crops from pests and diseases. Peptaibiotics, a family of linear, membrane-active, amphipathic polypeptides, have been shown to exhibit antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral activity, and to be inducers of plant resistance against a wide range of phytopathogens. Peptaibiotics belong to the new generation of alternatives to agrochemicals, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the One Health approach toward ensuring global food security and safety.

Towards a Sustainable Management of the Spotted-Wing Drosophila: Disclosing the Effects of Two Spider Venom Peptides on .

The spotted-wing drosophila () is a polyphagous pest that causes severe damage and economic losses to soft-skinned fruit production. Current control methods are dominated by inefficient cultural practices and broad-spectrum insecticides that, in addition to having toxic effects on non-target organisms, are becoming less effective due to acquired resistance. The increasing awareness of the real impact of insecticides on health and the environment has promoted the exploration of new insecticidal compounds, addressing novel molecular targets.

Clinical Outcomes of DEB-TACE in Hepatic Metastatic Neuroendocrine Tumors: A 5-Year Single-Institutional Experience.

Rationale And Objectives: To evaluate single-institution outcomes of drug-eluting bead transarterial chemoembolization (DEB-TACE) in the treatment of locally advanced neuroendocrine tumor (NET) hepatic metastases with a focus on safety and efficacy of treatment.

Materials And Methods: A single-center retrospective cohort study of the outcomes of consecutive patients with NELM who underwent DEB-TACE between 2014 and 2019 was performed. Clinicopathologic characteristics, radiologic response (modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors) at 1-month follow-up, adverse events, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival were calculated.

Mediastinal Extension of a Pancreatic Pseudocyst: A Rare Intrathoracic Complication of Pancreatitis.

Pancreatic pseudocysts are a common complication of pancreatitis. However, mediastinal extension of a pseudocyst is rare and often presents with atypical symptoms. We present a case of mediastinal extension of a pancreatic pseudocyst in a 56-year-old woman with a history of alcohol-related chronic pancreatitis, who presented with acute on chronic epigastric abdominal pain and atypical chest pain.

Pulmonary artery dissection in long standing idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension: A case report.

Pulmonary arterial dissection (PAD) is a rare and often lethal complication of chronic pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which may occurs in patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) and potentially in those with connective tissue disorders. While rare, sudden death often occurs secondary to acute cardiac tamponade, as the pulmonary artery dissects into the pericardium; this diagnosis is often made postmortem. Nevertheless, with the proliferation of multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) as a diagnostic test, patients may be identified very early after symptom onset, prompting rapid intervention with decreased morbidity and mortality.

Procedural Fundamentals for Medical Students: Institutional Outcomes of a Novel Multimodal Course.

Rationale And Objectives: There is a gap in current medical student education pertaining to procedural skills' exposure and acquisition. The aim of this study is to evaluate the institutional experience of a novel medical student procedural course and its impact on procedural confidence.

Materials And Methods: This is a single-center prospective study performed at a public medical school and its associated tertiary care medical center between June 2020 and January 2021.

Pneumococcal Carriage Among Indigenous Kichwa Children From the Ecuadorian Andes After the 10-Valent Pneumococcal Vaccine Introduction.

Background: We assessed nasopharyngeal pneumococcal carriage in Andean Kichwa children, the largest Amerindian indigenous population in the Ecuadorian Andes. All children in our study had been vaccinated with the 10-valent pneumococcal vaccine (PCV10).

Methods: Nasopharyngeal swabs from 63 families, 100 children <10 years old including 38 children under 5 years and 63 adult caregivers, from 5 different communities, were cultivated for Streptococcus pneumoniae and isolates were serotyped and antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed.

In Vitro Evaluation of Five Antimicrobial Peptides against the Plant Pathogen .

Fire blight is a major pome fruit trees disease that is caused by the quarantine phytopathogenic , leading to major losses, namely, in pear and apple productions. Nevertheless, no effective sustainable control treatments and measures have yet been disclosed. In that regard, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been proposed as an alternative biomolecule against pathogens but some of those AMPs have yet to be tested against .

A Synergic Potential of Antimicrobial Peptides against pv. .

pv. (Psa) is the pathogenic agent responsible for the bacterial canker of kiwifruit (BCK) leading to major losses in kiwifruit productions. No effective treatments and measures have yet been found to control this disease.

Meniscus tears accelerate joint space loss and lateral meniscal extrusion increases risk of knee arthroplasty in middle-aged adults.

We sought to use publicly available data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), a multicenter prospective cohort study, to determine the rate of joint space loss and likelihood of knee arthroplasty due to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-diagnosed meniscal tears or meniscal extrusion in middle-aged adults with no to mild knee osteoarthritis. Participants (n = 2199; mean age, 60.2 years) with Kellgren-Lawrence osteoarthritis grades 2 (mild) (48.

Radiographic Reference Values for the Cardiac Silhouette in Bonelli's Eagle ().

Radiographs are an important diagnostic tool available in wildlife hospitals to evaluate the size of the avian heart. Despite the large variety wild birds in the Iberian peninsula, clinical studies addressing these species are lacking. To establish reference values for cardiac size in the Bonelli's eagle (), ventrodorsal radiographs of 20 healthy birds were obtained, and the width of the cardiac silhouette, sternum, thorax, coracoid, and hepatic silhouette were measured.

A DNA barcode library for 5,200 German flies and midges (Insecta: Diptera) and its implications for metabarcoding-based biomonitoring.

This study summarizes results of a DNA barcoding campaign on German Diptera, involving analysis of 45,040 specimens. The resultant DNA barcode library includes records for 2,453 named species comprising a total of 5,200 barcode index numbers (BINs), including 2,700 COI haplotype clusters without species-level assignment, so called "dark taxa." Overall, 88 out of 117 families (75%) recorded from Germany were covered, representing more than 50% of the 9,544 known species of German Diptera.

Publisher Correction: A fossil species of the enigmatic early polypod fern genus Cystodium (Cystodiaceae) in Cretaceous amber from Myanmar.

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.

Publisher Correction: A fossil species of the enigmatic early polypod fern genus Cystodium (Cystodiaceae) in Cretaceous amber from Myanmar.

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML version of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.

A fossil species of the enigmatic early polypod fern genus Cystodium (Cystodiaceae) in Cretaceous amber from Myanmar.

The monospecific fern genus Cystodium (Cystodiaceae; Polypodiales) occurs exclusively in the tropical forests of the Malay Archipelago, the Admiralty Islands, the Louisiade Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands. Divergence time estimates suggest that the genus originated in the Mesozoic; however, fossil evidence to validate this suggestion has been lacking. Amber from Myanmar (Burmese amber) is an important source of new information on the diversity of vascular cryptogams in the Cretaceous.

Determination of quality and adulteration of tequila through the use of surface plasmon resonance.

In this work, the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technique is used to determine the quality or adulteration of tequila beverages. Graphic analyses of the position and width of the SPR curve are related to the complex refractive index of the sample, showing differentiated regions where one can easily and unambiguously identify white, aged, or extra-aged tequilas, and even adulterated or low quality tequilas. The curves generated by aged and extra-aged tequilas, with respect to those obtained from white tequilas, are wider, while the resonant peak shifts towards larger angles.

Correction masks for thickness uniformity in large-area thin films.

Experimental results from the emission of vapor sources are considered in designing correcting diaphragms to achieve a uniform thickness distribution during evaporation of thin films mounted on large-area substrate holders, in different geometric configurations.