[Organizational Impacts and Clinical Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic on a Swiss Tertiary Internal Medicine Department].

The rapid progression of COVID-19 is an organizational challenge for all hospitals. To secure the patient overflow, the Department internal medicine of the University Hospital of Lausanne increased nurse and medical workforces as well as bed capacity by 65 %, with extraordinary help from other departments. The implemented crisis management stood upon three pillars : a crisis management team, steering documents and internal communication.

Predicting the microbial cause of community-acquired pneumonia: can physicians or a data-driven method differentiate viral from bacterial pneumonia at patient presentation?

Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) requires urgent and specific antimicrobial therapy. However, the causal pathogen is typically unknown at the point when anti-infective therapeutics must be initiated. Physicians synthesize information from diverse data streams to make appropriate decisions.

Epitaxial growth of TbFe on piezoelectric LiNbO Z-cut.

The strongly magnetostrictive TbFe compound has been epitaxially grown on Z-cut Lithium Niobate (LiNbO) substrates after the deposition of various buffer layers (Mo, Ti and Ti/Mo). Detailed and combined RHEED and x-ray analysis permitted to unravel the in-plane and relative orientation relationships (OR) of the different materials in the system. Despite the use of different templates with different structural orders, similar final OR are eventually found between the piezoelectric substrate and the magnetic layer.

Epitaxial growth of magnetostrictive TbFe2 films on piezoelectric LiNbO3.

The TbFe compound has been deposited by molecular beam epitaxy on lithium niobate (LN) substrates with different orientations (LN Z-, 128 Y- and 41 Y-cuts). Despite the challenging growth on these unconventional substrates, crystalline TbFe films (as a single orientated domain or with a limited number of orientations) of reasonable structural quality could be obtained after the deposition of a Mo buffer layer. Detailed and combined RHEED and x-ray analysis permitted to unravel the complex Mo and TbFe crystal orientations and to reveal common 3D orientation relationships between the different lattices, whatever the initial LN cut.

Diagnostic performance of multiplex PCR on pulmonary samples versus nasopharyngeal aspirates in community-acquired severe lower respiratory tract infections.

Background: PCR-based techniques for the diagnosis of community- acquired severe lower respiratory tract infections are becoming the standard of care. However, their relative ability to identify either atypical bacteria or viruses that cause LRTI from clinical samples from various sources is yet to be determined.

Objectives And Study Design: The aim of our study was to compare the diagnostic yield of nasopharyngeal aspirates with that of pulmonary samples for the etiological diagnosis of severe acute lower respiratory tract infections by multiplex PCR.

IR spectroscopy analysis of pancreatic lipase-related protein 2 interaction with phospholipids: 1. Discriminative recognition of mixed micelles versus liposomes.

Guinea pig pancreatic lipase-related protein 2 (GPLRP2) is an interesting model enzyme that can hydrolyze a large set of acylglycerols in vitro but displays however some selectivity depending on the supramolecular structure of substrate and the presence of surfactants like bile salts. We showed that GPLRP2 hydrolyzes 1,2-dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) present in mixed micelles with sodium taurodeoxycholate (NaTDC) but not in multilamellar (MLV) and large unilamellar (LUV) vesicles of DPPC. After characterization of these lipid aggregates by dynamic light scattering (DLS), the discriminative recognition of DPPC in DPPC/NaTDC micelles versus MLV and LUV by an inactive variant (S152G) of GPLRP2 to avoid the effect of substrate hydrolysis was investigated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).

Molecular characterization of Leptospira sp by multilocus variable number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) from clinical samples: a case report.

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic infection for which diagnosis is difficult. It has appeared as a global emerging infectious disease over recent years. Genotype determination often requires a Leptospira strain obtained by culture, which is a long and fastidious technique.

In vitro digestion of citric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides (CITREM) and CITREM-containing infant formula/emulsions.

CITREM is an emulsifier used in the food industry and contains citric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides (GCFE). It is generally recognized as safe but no publication on its digestibility under gastrointestinal conditions and impact on fat digestion was available. It was shown here that fatty acids are released from CITREM by gastric lipase, pancreatic lipase, pancreatic-lipase-related protein 2 and carboxyl ester hydrolase.

Effect of environmental conditions on various enzyme activities and triacylglycerol contents in cultures of the freshwater diatom, Asterionella formosa (Bacillariophyceae).

A detailed analysis of triacylglycerols (TAGs) contents, fatty acid patterns and key enzyme activities in the freshwater diatom Asterionella formosa was performed under various conditions, including nitrate, iron and silicon limitation (stress conditions), or bicarbonate and phytohormones supplementation (stimulation conditions). Of all the conditions tested, the addition of bicarbonate produced the greatest increase (5-fold) in TAGs contents compared to the control while the biomass increased. The addition of phytohormones also allowed a significant increase in TAGs of about 3-fold while the biomass increased.

Quantitative study of lipase secretion, extracellular lipolysis, and lipid storage in the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica grown in the presence of olive oil: analogies with lipolysis in humans.

Lipase secretion, extracellular lipolysis, and fatty acid uptake were quantified in the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica grown in the presence of olive oil and/or glucose. Specific lipase assays, Western blot analysis, and ELISA indicated that most of the lipase activity measured in Y. lipolytica cultures resulted from the YLLIP2 lipase.

Prenatal exposure to tobacco and risk for schizophrenia: a retrospective epidemiological study.

Introduction: In animal studies, long-term prenatal nicotinic exposure alters the development of dopaminergic neurons. To determine whether prenatal smoking exposure was associated with schizophrenia, using a retrospective design study, we compared the prevalence of tobacco use during pregnancy in mothers of subjects with and without schizophrenia.

Methods: One hundred patients with schizophrenia, 100 nonschizophrenic-matched subjects, and their respective mothers were interviewed.

Lipolysis of natural long chain and synthetic medium chain galactolipids by pancreatic lipase-related protein 2.

Monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG) and digalactosyldiacylglycerol (DGDG) are the most abundant lipids in nature, mainly as important components of plant leaves and chloroplast membranes. Pancreatic lipase-related protein 2 (PLRP2) was previously found to express galactolipase activity, and it is assumed to be the main enzyme involved in the digestion of these common vegetable lipids in the gastrointestinal tract. Most of the previous in vitro studies were however performed with medium chain synthetic galactolipids as substrates.