Role of serum procalcitonin in differentiating disease flare and systemic bacterial infection among febrile children with known chronic rheumatic diseases: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: To evaluate the role of serum procalcitonin (PCT) as a diagnostic tool to differentiate bacterial sepsis from flare-ups during febrile episodes in children with known rheumatic disorders compared to other inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein (CRP), and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR).

Methods: Previously diagnosed patients with known rheumatic disorders presenting in emergency or outpatient departments with febrile episodes were included in the study. Blood samples were collected upon admission to test for signs of infection, including serum PCT levels with routine laboratory and radiological tests.

Mercury tolerance and bioremediation potential of mountain soil bacteria: Insights from Darjeeling, containing elevated levels of mercury.

More and more research is now being focused on the mercury contamination of remote mountain environments. This study aimed to explore the mountain soil of Tiger Hill, Darjeeling, through the lens of its mercury tolerant bacterial microbiome to characterize regional mercury pollution and isolate strains with mercury bioremediation potential. The soil bacteria isolated from the region displayed an extreme tolerance to mercury at previously unseen levels of up to 7 mg/mL.

Bottom-up design of calcium channels from defined selectivity filter geometry.

Native ion channels play key roles in biological systems, and engineered versions are widely used as chemogenetic tools and in sensing devices. Protein design has been harnessed to generate pore-containing transmembrane proteins, but the capability to design ion selectivity based on the interactions between ions and selectivity filter residues, a crucial feature of native ion channels, has been constrained by the lack of methods to place the metal-coordinating residues with atomic-level precision. Here we describe a bottom-up RFdiffusion-based approach to construct Ca channels from defined selectivity filter residue geometries, and use this approach to design symmetric oligomeric channels with Ca selectivity filters having different coordination numbers and different geometries at the entrance of a wide pore buttressed by multiple transmembrane helices.

Divergent paths of mammary gland involution: unveiling the cellular dynamics in abruptly and gradually involuted mouse models.

Background: Epidemiological studies associate an increase in breast cancer risk, particularly triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), with lack of breastfeeding. This is more prevalent in African American women, with significantly lower rate of breastfeeding compared to Caucasian women. Prolonged breastfeeding leads to gradual involution (GI), whereas short-term or lack of breastfeeding leads to abrupt involution (AI) of the breast.

Lower vicine content reduces the reproductive yield performance in faba bean (Vicia faba L.).

Faba bean is a nutritionally and medicinally rich popular legume crop. However, vicine-convicine remain as potential threats for "favism" in human beings. In this study, 189 diverse faba bean accessions have been evaluated for yield component traits and vicine content in seeds followed by a correlation study.