Barriers and facilitators for adequate calcium intake during pregnancy: A mixed methods study.

Objective: This study evaluates the effectiveness of calcium supplementation as a preventive measure for pregnant women with insufficient calcium intake, examining adherence to the recommended 1000 mg daily intake and identifying influencing factors.

Methods: A survey (Expect cohort II, n = 823) evaluated calcium adherence among pregnant women, followed by interviews with sixteen purposefully selected participants. Verbatim transcripts were independently analyzed to identify key themes.

Factors influencing nursing students' learning in a clinical skills laboratory.

Background: Achieving competence in clinical skills requires various resources and preparation time for undergraduate nursing students. Intentional opportunities should be created for student nurses to experience meaningful encounters in the clinical skills laboratory (CSL) to broaden their knowledge and competence. Therefore, factors that influence the competence in clinical learning in a CSL were explored.

Added value of body MRI to detect primary abdominal malignancies in the diagnostic work-up of patients with adenocarcinoma of unknown primary.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the added benefit of body MRI (covering the chest, abdomen, and pelvis) to detect the primary tumour in patients with adenocarcinoma of unknown primary (ACUP) and a suspected abdominal malignancy in whom previous diagnostic work-up with CT and/or FDG-PET/CT did not yield a primary tumour diagnosis.

Methods: Thirty ACUP patients with a suspected primary tumour in the abdomen/pelvis (based on pathology and/or pattern of disease) underwent MRI (T2-weighted, DWI, pre- and post-contrast T1-weighted) after completion of their initial diagnostic work-up with CT and/or PET/CT. Effects of MRI to establish a primary tumour diagnosis (and to detect additional metastatic sites) were documented.

Semisynthetic guanidino lipoglycopeptides with potent in vitro and in vivo antibacterial activity.

Gram-positive bacterial infections present a major clinical challenge, with methicillin- and vancomycin-resistant strains continuing to be a cause for concern. In recent years, semisynthetic vancomycin derivatives have been developed to overcome this problem as exemplified by the clinically used telavancin, which exhibits increased antibacterial potency but has also raised toxicity concerns. Thus, glycopeptide antibiotics with enhanced antibacterial activities and improved safety profiles are still necessary.

A classic antibiotic reimagined: Rationally designed bacitracin variants exhibit potent activity against vancomycin-resistant pathogens.

Bacitracin is a macrocyclic peptide antibiotic that is widely used as a topical treatment for infections caused by gram-positive bacteria. Mechanistically, bacitracin targets bacteria by specifically binding to the phospholipid undecaprenyl pyrophosphate (CPP), which plays a key role in the bacterial lipid II cycle. Recent crystallographic studies have shown that when bound to CPP, bacitracin adopts a highly ordered amphipathic conformation.

Discovery of isoquinoline sulfonamides as allosteric gyrase inhibitors with activity against fluoroquinolone-resistant bacteria.

Bacteria have evolved resistance to nearly all known antibacterials, emphasizing the need to identify antibiotics that operate via novel mechanisms. Here we report a class of allosteric inhibitors of DNA gyrase with antibacterial activity against fluoroquinolone-resistant clinical isolates of Escherichia coli. Screening of a small-molecule library revealed an initial isoquinoline sulfonamide hit, which was optimized via medicinal chemistry efforts to afford the more potent antibacterial LEI-800.

Polyester degradation by soil bacteria: identification of conserved BHETase enzymes in Streptomyces.

The rising use of plastic results in an appalling amount of waste which is scattered into the environment. One of these plastics is PET which is mainly used for bottles. We have identified and characterized an esterase from Streptomyces, annotated as LipA, which can efficiently degrade the PET-derived oligomer BHET.

The biodistribution of polystyrene nanoparticles administered intravenously in the chicken embryo.

Nanoplastics can cause severe malformations in chicken embryos. To improve our understanding of the toxicity of nanoplastics to embryos, we have studied their biodistribution in living chicken embryos. We injected the embryos in the vitelline vein at stages 18-19.

Discovery and Derivatization of Tridecaptin Antibiotics with Altered Host Specificity and Enhanced Bioactivity.

The prevalence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens combined with a decline in antibiotic discovery presents a major challenge for health care. To refill the discovery pipeline, we need to find new ways to uncover new chemical entities. Here, we report the global genome mining-guided discovery of new lipopeptide antibiotics tridecaptin A and tridecaptin D, which exhibit unusual bioactivities within their class.

Taxonomic and metabolic diversity of Actinomycetota isolated from faeces of a 28,000-year-old mammoth.

Ancient environmental samples, including permafrost soils and frozen animal remains, represent an archive with microbial communities that have barely been explored. This yet unexplored microbial world is a genetic resource that may provide us with new evolutionary insights into recent genomic changes, as well as novel metabolic pathways and chemistry. Here, we describe Actinomycetota Micromonospora, Oerskovia, Saccharopolyspora, Sanguibacter and Streptomyces species were successfully revived and their genome sequences resolved.

Whole-body MRI with diffusion-weighted imaging as an adjunct to F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography and CT in patients with suspected recurrent colorectal cancer.

Aim: The aim was to explore how findings of whole-body MRI including diffusion-weighted imaging (DW-MRI) compared to the routine diagnostic workup with CT and/or F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/CT in patients with suspected recurrent colorectal cancer (CRC).

Method: This was an exploratory retrospective analysis of 55 patients with a clinical suspicion of recurrent CRC who underwent DW-MRI following CT and/or FDG-PET/CT. Two readers in consensus interpreted all clinical imaging reports and converted each described lesion into a confidence score (1 = definitely benign to 5 = definitely malignant).

Endothelial Cell Replacement of Human Veins, Modeling Vascular Repair and Endothelial Cell Chimerism.

Allogeneic transplant organs are potentially highly immunogenic. The endothelial cells (ECs) located within the vascular system serve as the primary interface between the recipient's immune system and the donor organ, playing a key role in the alloimmune response. In this study, we investigated the potential use of recipient-derived ECs in a vein recellularization model.

The plant stress hormone jasmonic acid evokes defensive responses in streptomycetes.

Microorganisms that live on or inside plants can influence plant growth and health. Among the plant-associated bacteria, streptomycetes play an important role in defense against plant diseases, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we demonstrate that the plant hormones jasmonic acid (JA) and methyl jasmonate directly affect the life cycle of streptomycetes by modulating antibiotic synthesis and promoting faster development.

FAIR High Content Screening in Bioimaging.

The Minimum Information for High Content Screening Microscopy Experiments (MIHCSME) is a metadata model and reusable tabular template for sharing and integrating high content imaging data. It has been developed by combining the ISA (Investigations, Studies, Assays) metadata standard with a semantically enriched instantiation of REMBI (Recommended Metadata for Biological Images). The tabular template provides an easy-to-use practical implementation of REMBI, specifically for High Content Screening (HCS) data.

Research gaps and opportunities in autoimmune hepatitis-Results of the international autoimmune hepatitis group research workshop 2022.

Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a rare autoimmune liver disease that is characterised by a chronic inflammatory immune reaction directed against hepatocytes. The disease results in a substantial reduction in quality of life and potentially leads to liver-related complications or death. The International Autoimmune Hepatitis Group (IAIHG) initiated a series of research workshops to uncover the scientific gaps and opportunities in AIH.

Etiology and Outcome of Adult and Pediatric Acute Liver Failure in Europe.

Acute liver failure (ALF) is rare but life-threatening. Common causes include intoxications, infections, and metabolic disorders. Indeterminate etiology is still frequent.

A Century of Progress on Wilson Disease and the Enduring Challenges of Genetics, Diagnosis, and Treatment.

Wilson disease (WD) is a rare, inherited metabolic disorder manifested with varying clinical presentations including hepatic, neurological, psychiatric, and ophthalmological features, often in combination. Causative mutations in the gene result in copper accumulation in hepatocytes and/or neurons, but clinical diagnosis remains challenging. Diagnosis is complicated by mild, non-specific presentations, mutations exerting no clear effect on protein function, and inconclusive laboratory tests, particularly regarding serum ceruloplasmin levels.

Serum concentrations of local anesthetics after unilateral interpectoral-pectoserratus plane block in breast cancer surgery: a pharmacokinetic study.

Introduction: The ultrasound-guided interpectoral-pectoserratus plane block is a fascial plane block for superficial surgery of the anterolateral chest wall. This technique involves injecting a relatively large volume of local anesthetics (typically 30 mL of 0.25%-0.

sp. nov., a novel streptomycete isolated from actinorhizal nodules of .

An actinobacterial strain, CMB-FB, was isolated from surface-sterilized root nodules of a plant growing along Halsema Highway in the province of Benguet (Luzon, Philippines). The 16S rRNA gene sequence of CMB-FB showed high sequence similarity to those of the type strains of (99.4 %), (99.

The SepF-like proteins SflA and SflB prevent ectopic localization of FtsZ and DivIVA during sporulation of Streptomyces coelicolor.

Bacterial cytokinesis starts with the polymerization of the tubulin-like FtsZ, which forms the cell division scaffold. SepF aligns FtsZ polymers and also acts as a membrane anchor for the Z-ring. While in most bacteria cell division takes place at midcell, during sporulation of Streptomyces many septa are laid down almost simultaneously in multinucleoid aerial hyphae.