Background: The microbial etiology of prosthetic valve infective endocarditis (PVE) can be difficult to identify. Our aim was to investigate the benefit of molecular imaging technique fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) combined with 16S rRNA-gene polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequencing (FISHseq) for the analysis of infected prosthetic heart valves.
Methods: We retrospectively evaluated the diagnostic outcome of 113 prosthetic valves from 105 patients with suspected PVE, treated in 2003-2013 in the Department of Cardiac Surgery, Charité University Medicine Berlin. Each prosthetic valve underwent cultural diagnostics and was routinely examined by FISH combined with 16S rRNA gene PCR and sequencing. We compared classical microbiological culture outcomes (blood and valve cultures) with FISHseq results and evaluated the diagnostic impact of the molecular imaging technique.
Results: Conventional microbiological diagnostic alone turned out to be insufficient, as 67% of preoperative blood cultures were noninformative (negative, inconclusive, or not obtained) and 67% of valve cultures remained negative. FISHseq improved the conventional cultural diagnostic methods in PVE in 30% of the cases and increased diagnostic accuracy. Of the valve culture-negative PVE cases, FISHseq succeeded in identifying the causative pathogen in 35%.
Conclusions: FISHseq improves PVE diagnostics, complementing conventional cultural methods. In addition to species identification, FISH provides information about the severity of PVE and state of the pathogens (eg, stage of biofilm formation, activity, and localization on and within the prosthetic material). As a molecular imaging technique, FISHseq enables the unambiguous discrimination of skin flora as contaminant or infectious agent.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciac860 | DOI Listing |
Sci Rep
December 2024
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Medical University of Lublin, 20-093, Lublin, Poland.
Using Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), it is possible to show chemical composition of materials and / or profile chemical changes occurring in tissues, cells, and body fluids during onset and progression of diseases. For diagnostic application, the use of blood would be the most appropriate in biospectroscopy studies since, (i) it is easily accessible and, (ii) enables frequent analyses of biochemical changes occurring in pathological states. At present, different studies have investigated potential of serum, plasma and sputum being alternative biofluids for lung cancer detection using FTIR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
December 2024
Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan.
Taking advantage of the good mechanical strength of expanded Drosophila brains and to tackle their relatively large size that can complicate imaging, we apply potassium (poly)acrylate-based hydrogels for expansion microscopy (ExM), resulting in a 40x plus increased resolution of transgenic fluorescent proteins preserved by glutaraldehyde fixation in the nervous system. Large-volume ExM is realized by using an axicon-based Bessel lightsheet microscope, featuring gentle multi-color fluorophore excitation and intrinsic optical sectioning capability, enabling visualization of Tm5a neurites and L3 lamina neurons with photoreceptors in the optic lobe. We also image nanometer-sized dopaminergic neurons across the same intact iteratively expanded Drosophila brain, enabling us to measure the 3D expansion ratio.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
December 2024
Institute of Informatics, HES-SO Valais-Wallis University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, Sierre, Switzerland.
Manual segmentation of lesions, required for radiotherapy planning and follow-up, is time-consuming and error-prone. Automatic detection and segmentation can assist radiologists in these tasks. This work explores the automated detection and segmentation of brain metastases (BMs) in longitudinal MRIs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTheranostic drugs represent an emerging path to deliver on the promise of precision medicine. However, bottlenecks remain in characterizing theranostic targets, identifying theranostic lead compounds, and tailoring theranostic drugs. To overcome these bottlenecks, we present the Theranostic Genome, the part of the human genome whose expression can be utilized to combine therapeutic and diagnostic applications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
December 2024
Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Biological systems are complex, encompassing intertwined spatial, molecular and functional features. However, methodological constraints limit the completeness of information that can be extracted. Here, we report the development of INSIHGT, a non-destructive, accessible three-dimensional (3D) spatial biology method utilizing superchaotropes and host-guest chemistry to achieve homogeneous, deep penetration of macromolecular probes up to centimeter scales, providing reliable semi-quantitative signals throughout the tissue volume.
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