Building on research on cohort-specific trends in life-course differentiation and destandardization, our study seeks to explore how patterns of family-life-course diversity relate to characteristics of sociopolitical regimes. Applying sequence analysis, we analyse cohort-specific family life courses from nine European countries and Canada, classifying them into five sociopolitical regimes (Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, Mediterranean, Continental, Eastern). We use data from the Harmonized Histories and the German National Educational Panel Survey.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVascular diseases like atherosclerosis and abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) are common pathologies in the western world, promoting various potentially fatal conditions. Here, we evaluate high-resolution (HR) ultrasound in mouse models of atherosclerosis and AAA as a useful tool for noninvasive monitoring of early vascular changes in vivo. We used Apolipoprotein E-deficient () mice as an atherosclerosis model and induced AAA development by the implementation of Angiotensin II-releasing osmotic minipumps.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell-cell communication is mediated by membrane receptors and their ligands, such as the Eph/ephrin system, orchestrating cell migration during development and in diverse cancer types. Epigenetic mechanisms are key for integrating external "signals", e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Although child morbidity and mortality could be reduced in Sub-Saharan Africa during the last years both remain high. Since neonatal infections play a major role, we conducted a cross-sectional pilot study in the lake region of Western Tanzania in order to analyze not only the prevalence of neonatal infection with its bacterial etiology including antimicrobial resistance pattern but also to detect potential maternal risk factors.
Methods: We screened 156 women for potential risk factors and examined their neonates for clinical signs of an infection including microbiological verification.
The disordered nature of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDPs) makes their structural ensembles particularly susceptible to changes in chemical environmental conditions, often leading to an alteration of their normal functions. A Radial Distribution Function (RDF) is considered a standard method for characterizing the chemical environment surrounding particles during atomistic simulations, commonly averaged over an entire or part of a trajectory. Given their high structural variability, such averaged information might not be reliable for IDPs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiarrhea is the second leading cause of death mainly effecting young children. Often it is the result of fecal-oral pathogen transmission. We aimed to investigate whether monitoring the prevalence of Gram-negative bacteria on the hands of asymptomatic children is suitable as an indicator of fecal contamination of the environment in their playground.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent randomized controlled multi-center trials JUPITER, CANTOS and COLCOT impressively demonstrated the effect of anti-inflammatory therapy on secondary prevention of cardiovascular events. These studies also rapidly re-vitalized the question of whether the C-reactive protein (CRP), the prototype human acute phase protein, is actively involved in atherosclerosis and its sequelae. Direct CRP inhibition may indeed improve the specificity and effectiveness of anti-inflammatory intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNosocomial infections with have become an emergent health threat. We sought to define risk factors for a infection (CDI) beyond the widely known ones, such as antibiotic use and prior hospital stay. We therefore focused on a group of patients with diarrhea in order to identify risk factors for infection among this symptomatic cohort.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo elucidate cross-sectional patterns and longitudinal changes of oral and stool microbiota in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and the effect of B-cell depletion. We conducted an observational, longitudinal clinical cohort study analysing four timepoints over 12 months in 36 MS patients, of whom 22 initiated B-cell depleting therapy with ocrelizumab and a healthy control group. For microbiota analysis of the oral cavity and the gut, provided stool and oral swab samples underwent 16S rDNA sequencing and subsequent bioinformatic analyses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith an annual incidence of 250-300 per 100,000 inhabitants, reactive arthritis is not uncommon. However, the fact that infection (CDI) can also lead to this complication is largely unknown. We report on a 69-years-old man who developed reactive arthritis of his right knee joint one week after antibiotic-associated diarrhea with evidence of of the hypervirulent ribotype 027.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Radial (RA) instead of femoral access (FA) for coronary interventions has become a European Society of Cardiology Class-IA guideline recommendation. But when the decision on the access site is left to the discretion of the operator, differences in adverse event rates mitigate.
Methods: We compared the 30-day outcome for RA and FA in all patients recruited for the observational German Austrian ABSORB Registry (GABI-R) in regard to all-cause mortality, stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), TIMI major bleedings (TMB) and quality of life (QoL).
Background: Scelionid wasps are arthropod egg parasitoids, many of which are relevant to global biosecurity. However, the scelionid fauna of Germany has not received much attention from professional taxonomists.
New Information: Eleven species and four genera are recorded for the first time from Germany, including species of interest to agriculture and biological control.
Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to far-reaching restrictions of social and professional life, affecting societies all over the world. To contain the virus, medical schools had to restructure their curriculum by switching to online learning. However, only few medical schools had implemented such novel learning concepts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBACKGROUND High C-reactive protein (CRP) plasma levels in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection are associated with poor prognosis. CRP, by activating the classical complement pathway and interacting with macrophages via Fc gamma receptors, can cause pulmonary inflammation with subsequent fibrosis. Recently, we have reported first-in-man CRP apheresis in a "high-risk" COVID-19 patient.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe brown marmorated stink bug, , is a polyphagous pest species of worldwide economic importance. Since the mid-1990s, it has invaded and become established in various countries outside its native Asian range. In the newly invaded areas, biological control by native natural enemies has been shown to be insufficient in the long-term control of this severe pest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Recently, new advances were made regarding the depletion of CD45RA naïve T cells from haploidentical grafts as they are suspected to be the most alloreactive.
Methods: Within this project we investigated CD45RA-depletion from G-CSF mobilized PBSC by two different purification strategies according to GMP, specifically direct depletion of CD45RA cells (one-step approach), or CD34-positive selection followed by CD45RA-depletion (two-step approach).
Results: With log -3.
Young children are frequently colonized with () . Depending on their resistance patterns, antibiotic treatment can facilitate gastrointestinal spreading in colonized individuals, potentially leading to transmission to others. was isolated from stool samples from infants born in two hospitals in Göttingen and Darmstadt, Germany.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The incidence of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) shows a constant increase, while the long-term outcome remains poor over the last decades. Radical oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) - initially released by carcinogens, such as alcohol and tobacco, and later maintained by the tumor microenvironment - appear to be strongly associated to chronic inflammation, tumor induction, progression, and metastatic spread. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of oxidative and nitrosative stress in primary OSCC compared to healthy tissue specimens and to identify their impact on tumor carcinogenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis the primary infectious cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Local transmissions and international outbreaks of this pathogen have been previously elucidated by bacterial whole-genome sequencing, but comparative genomic analyses at the global scale were hampered by the lack of specific bioinformatic tools. Here we introduce a publicly accessible database within EnteroBase (http://enterobase.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBACKGROUND C-reactive protein (CRP) plasma levels in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel viral disease, are surprisingly high. Pulmonary inflammation with subsequent fibrosis in SARS-CoV-2 infection is strongly accelerated. Recently, we have developed CRP apheresis to selectively remove CRP from human plasma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring the last decades, hypervirulent strains of Clostridioides difficile with frequent disease recurrence and increased mortality appeared. Clostridioides difficile DSM 101085 was isolated from a patient who suffered from several recurrent infections and colonizations, likely contributing to a fatal outcome. Analysis of the toxin repertoire revealed the presence of a complete binary toxin locus and an atypical pathogenicity locus consisting of only a tcdA pseudogene and a disrupted tcdC gene sequence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: The ABSORB bioresorbable vascular scaffold raised safety concerns due to higher rates of scaffold thrombosis (ScT) and adequate scaffold diameter and length for scaffold technology. Smaller scaffold diameter (SScD, 2.5 mm) was an infrequently quoted predictor of major adverse cardiac events (MACE).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrior research has suggested that destandardization is a phenomenon that does not affect all aspects of the life course uniformly. There is, however, no existing evidence from a holistic perspective that different life phases are affected by destandardization differently, even though this is likely to be the case in light of prior research on the pluralization of living arrangements and the destandardization of life course events. This question is particularly salient in the German context, as previous research has shown that standardization has characterized the early life phases in Germany, whereas destandardization has been dominant in many other European countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImproving an enzyme's (thermo-)stability or tolerance against solvents and detergents is highly relevant in protein engineering and biotechnology. Recent developments have tended toward data-driven approaches, where available knowledge about the protein is used to identify substitution sites with high potential to yield protein variants with improved stability, and subsequently, substitutions are engineered by site-directed or site-saturation (SSM) mutagenesis. However, the development and validation of algorithms for data-driven approaches have been hampered by the lack of availability of large-scale data measured in a uniform way and being unbiased with respect to substitution types and locations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF, a Gram-positive spore-forming bacterium, is the leading cause of nosocomial diarrhea worldwide and therefore a substantial burden to the healthcare system. During the past decade, hypervirulent PCR-ribotypes (RT) e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF