Diagnosis-linked antibiotic prescribing quality indicators: demonstrating feasibility using practice-based routine primary care data, reliability, validity and their potential in antimicrobial stewardship.

Background: Quality indicators (QIs) can be used to obtain valuable insights into prescribing quality. Five quantitative and nine diagnosis-linked QIs, aiming to provide general practitioners (GP) with feedback on their antibiotic prescribing quantity and quality, were previously developed and evaluated in a controlled study.

Objective: To confirm, in a larger non-controlled study, the feasibility of using routinely collected and extracted electronic patient records to calculate the diagnosis-linked QI outcomes for antibiotic prescribing, and their reliability and validity.

Partial cell fusion: a newly recognized type of communication between dedifferentiating cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts.

Objective: Fibroblasts have been shown to couple to neonatal cardiomyocytes in heterocellular cultures through functional gap junctions. Our objective was to provide evidence for an additional type of heterocellular communication between fibroblasts and adult cardiomyocytes in vitro and in vivo.

Methods: The contact areas in heterocellular co-cultures were evaluated by specific labeling and the intercellular communication was studied using preloading of fibroblasts with tracer molecules.

Cell surface exposure of phosphatidylserine during apoptosis is phylogenetically conserved.

Exposure of the aminophospholipid phosphatidylserine at the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane by apoptotic cells can trigger phagocytic removal of these dying cells. This functionality of phosphatidylserine exposure in the process of phagocytosis is indicated by in vitro studies of mammalian and insect phagocytes. We have studied the in vivo distribution of cell-surface exposed phosphatidylserine by injecting biotinylated Annexin V, a Ca2+ -dependent phosphatidyl-serine binding protein, into viable mouse and chick embryos and Drosophila pupae.

Timing and sequence of differentiation of embryonic rat hepatocytes along the biliary epithelial lineage.

To study the differentiation of hepatocytes along the biliary epithelial lineage in vivo, embryonic day 14 (E14) rat hepatocytes were isolated by differential centrifugation and transplanted as single-cell suspensions into the spleen of adult syngeneic rats. Hepatocytes and cholangiocytes were identified and their maturation characterized by the level of expression of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), and carbamoyl phosphate synthetase I (CPS); annexin IV, annexin V, cytokeratin 19 (CK-19), and cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR); and electron microscopy. By correlating morphologic changes with the timing in the expression of these markers, we show that the organization of the transplanted E14 hepatocytes into lobular structures is accompanied by the formation and maturation of bile ducts around these developing lobules.

Visualization of cell death in vivo with the annexin A5 imaging protocol.

Annexin A5 binds to phosphatidylserine (PS), which is one of the "eat me" signals at the surface of the apoptotic cell. This property has been the driving force for the research of annexin A5 as a probe to measure apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. A non-invasive imaging protocol using annexin A5 has been developed and applied successfully to measure programmed cell death programmed cell death (PCD) in patients.