Chaos of energetic positron orbits in a dipole magnetic field and its potential application to a new injection scheme.

We study the behavior of high-energy positrons emitted from a radioactive source in a magnetospheric dipole field configuration. Because the conservation of the first and second adiabatic invariants is easily destroyed in a strongly inhomogeneous dipole field for high-energy charged particles, the positron orbits are nonintegrable, resulting in chaotic motions. In the geometry of a typical magnetospheric levitated dipole experiment, it is shown that a considerable ratio of positrons from a ^{22}Na source, located at the edge of the confinement region, has chaotic long orbit lengths before annihilation.

Gene-gene Interaction Analyses for Atrial Fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a heritable disease that affects more than thirty million individuals worldwide. Extensive efforts have been devoted to the study of genetic determinants of AF. The objective of our study is to examine the effect of gene-gene interaction on AF susceptibility.

Psychosocial Correlates of Frailty in Older Adults.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate psychosocial variables associated with frailty status. Moreover, gender differences in the psychosocial variables associated with frailty were examined.

Methods: This cross-sectional study examined a community-dwelling sample of N = 210 older adults ( = 75.

Neural correlates of the self-concept in adolescence-A focus on the significance of friends.

The formation of a coherent and unified self-concept represents a key developmental stage during adolescence. Imaging studies on self-referential processing in adolescents are rare, and it is not clear whether neural structures involved in self-reflection are also involved in reflections of familiar others. In the current study, 41 adolescents were asked to make judgments about trait adjectives during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): they had to indicate whether the word describes themselves, their friends, their teachers or politicians.

Extracellular Proteome and Citrullinome of the Oral Pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis.

Porphyromonas gingivalis is an oral pathogen associated with the inflammatory disease periodontitis. Periodontitis and P. gingivalis have been associated with rheumatoid arthritis.

Metabolic Fingerprints of Circulating IGF-1 and the IGF-1/IGFBP-3 Ratio: A Multifluid Metabolomics Study.

Objective: IGF-1 is known for its various physiological and severe pathophysiological effects on human metabolism; however, underlying molecular mechanisms still remain unsolved. To reveal possible molecular mechanisms mediating these effects, for the first time, we associated serum IGF-1 levels with multifluid untargeted metabolomics data.

Methods: Plasma/urine samples of 995 nondiabetic participants of the Study of Health in Pomerania were characterized by mass spectrometry.

Genome-wide association study of caffeine metabolites provides new insights to caffeine metabolism and dietary caffeine-consumption behavior.

Caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the world and presents with wide interindividual variation in metabolism. This variation may modify potential adverse or beneficial effects of caffeine on health. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of plasma caffeine, paraxanthine, theophylline, theobromine and paraxanthine/caffeine ratio among up to 9,876 individuals of European ancestry from six population-based studies.

Magnesium/Calcium Ratio in Serum Predicts Periodontitis and Tooth Loss in a 5-Year Follow-up.

In the cross-sectional Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP-0), subjects with an adequate magnesium supply had a lower risk of periodontal disease and more teeth than those with low magnesium levels. The authors analyzed 5-y follow-up data (SHIP-1) to determine whether the baseline magnesium levels had a long-term effect on attachment level and number of teeth lost. Of the participants examined dentally in the baseline study, 3,300 (75%) were examined for progression or recession of periodontal attachment level after 5 y.

Deficiency of fat-soluble vitamins in chronic pancreatitis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background And Aims: Chronic pancreatitis (CP) patients are at risk for fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) deficiency, but available studies are small and heterogeneous. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the prevalence of fat-soluble vitamins deficiency in CP patients.

Methods: Medline was searched up to January 2016 for case series and case-control studies reporting prevalence of fat-soluble vitamin deficiency in CP patients.

Association of Periodontal Destruction and Diabetes with Mortality.

Current evidence indicates the effects of periodontitis on diabetes as well as mortality, for which diabetes itself represents a risk factor. However, the possible interaction of these 2 chronic conditions regarding mortality has not yet been investigated. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate whether periodontal destruction interacts with diabetes on all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality or if diabetes serves as a mediator in this association.

(Non-)utilization of pre-hospital emergency care by migrants and non-migrants in Germany.

Objectives: This study was designed to explore the utilization and non-utilization of pre-hospital emergency care by migrants and non-migrants, and the factors that influence this behaviour.

Methods: A cross-sectional representative German survey was conducted in a sample of 2.175 people, 295 of whom had a migration background.

Meta-analysis identifies common and rare variants influencing blood pressure and overlapping with metabolic trait loci.

Meta-analyses of association results for blood pressure using exome-centric single-variant and gene-based tests identified 31 new loci in a discovery stage among 146,562 individuals, with follow-up and meta-analysis in 180,726 additional individuals (total n = 327,288). These blood pressure-associated loci are enriched for known variants for cardiometabolic traits. Associations were also observed for the aggregation of rare and low-frequency missense variants in three genes, NPR1, DBH, and PTPMT1.

TULA-2 Protein Phosphatase Suppresses Activation of Syk through the GPVI Platelet Receptor for Collagen by Dephosphorylating Tyr(P)346, a Regulatory Site of Syk.

Protein-tyrosine phosphatase TULA-2 has been shown to regulate receptor signaling in several cell types, including platelets. Platelets are critical for maintaining vascular integrity; this function is mediated by platelet aggregation in response to recognition of the exposed basement membrane collagen by the GPVI receptor, which is non-covalently associated with the signal-transducing FcRγ polypeptide chain. Our previous studies suggested that TULA-2 plays an important role in negatively regulating signaling through GPVI-FcRγ and indicated that the tyrosine-protein kinase Syk is a key target of the regulatory action of TULA-2 in platelets.

Angiopoietin-2, its soluble receptor Tie-2, and metabolic syndrome components in a population-based sample.

Objective: Since angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) levels strongly correlate with cardiovascular mortality and subclinical cardiovascular disease, it was hypothesized that levels of Ang-2 and its soluble receptor (sTie-2) were associated with the metabolic syndrome (MetS) and individual MetS components.

Methods: Within the population-based Study of Health in Pomerania, two sets of analyses were performed. First, Ang-2 and sTie-2 were related to the prevalence of MetS and its components cross-sectionally (n = 3,205).

The impact of diabetes mellitus on survival following resection and adjuvant chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer.

Background: Diabetes mellitus is frequently observed in pancreatic cancer patients and is both a risk factor and an early manifestation of the disease.

Methods: We analysed the prognostic impact of diabetes on the outcome of pancreatic cancer following resection and adjuvant chemotherapy using individual patient data from three European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer randomised controlled trials. Analyses were carried out to assess the association between clinical characteristics and the presence of preoperative diabetes, as well as the effect of diabetic status on overall survival.

Altered carbon turnover processes and microbiomes in soils under long-term extremely high CO2 exposure.

There is only limited understanding of the impact of high p(CO2) on soil biomes. We have studied a floodplain wetland where long-term emanations of temperate volcanic CO2 (mofettes) are associated with accumulation of carbon from the Earth's mantle. With an integrated approach using isotope geochemistry, soil activity measurements and multi-omics analyses, we demonstrate that high (nearly pure) CO2 concentrations have strongly affected pathways of carbon production and decomposition and therefore carbon turnover.

Removal of naturally grown human biofilm with an atmospheric pressure plasma jet: An in-vitro study.

The removal of biofilm is a prerequisite for a successful treatment of biofilm-associated diseases. In this study, we compared the feasibility of an atmospheric pressure plasma device with a sonic powered brush to remove naturally grown supragingival biofilm from extracted teeth. Twenty-four periodontally hopeless teeth were extracted.

PROGRESS - prospective observational study on hospitalized community acquired pneumonia.

Background: Community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a high incidence disease resulting in about 260,000 hospital admissions per year in Germany, more than myocardial infarction or stroke. Worldwide, CAP is the most frequent infectious disease with high lethality ranging from 1.2 % in those 20-29 years old to over 10 % in patients older than 70 years, even in industrial nations.

Effects of Inonotus hispidus Extracts and Compounds on Human Immunocompetent Cells.

is used as a traditional medicine in China. Previous investigations revealed promising immunomodulatory activity of fruit body extracts of . Bioactivity-guided fractionation showed that hispolon and hispidin were active substances.

Data on the occurrence of corticolous myxomycetes from Denali National Park, Alaska.

This data set contains data about corticolous (bark-inhabiting) myxomycetes from a 100×100 m(2) plot including ca. 380 trees of Picea glauca (white spruce), of which 260 were large enough that bark could been sampled to prepare moist chamber cultures. At the end of the data set records of myxomycetes from 66 moist chambers prepared with bark of deciduous trees and shrubs, and outermost twiglets of P.

Thirty-five years of research into ribozymes and nucleic acid catalysis: where do we stand today?

Since the discovery of the first catalytic RNA in 1981, the field of ribozyme research has developed from the discovery of catalytic RNA motifs in nature and the elucidation of their structures and catalytic mechanisms, into a field of engineering and design towards application in diagnostics, molecular biology and medicine. Owing to the development of powerful protocols for selection of nucleic acid catalysts with a desired functionality from random libraries, the spectrum of nucleic acid supported reactions has greatly enlarged, and importantly, ribozymes have been accompanied by DNAzymes. Current areas of research are the engineering of allosteric ribozymes for artificial regulation of gene expression, the design of ribozymes and DNAzymes for medicinal and environmental diagnostics, and the demonstration of RNA world relevant ribozyme activities.

Non-viral magnetic engineering of endothelial cells with microRNA and plasmid-DNA-An optimized targeting approach.

Genetic modulation of angiogenesis is a powerful tool for the treatment of multiple disorders. Here, we describe a strategy to produce modified endothelial cells, which can be efficiently magnetically guided. First, we defined optimal transfection conditions with both plasmid and microRNA, using a polyethyleneimine/magnetic nanoparticle-based vector (PEI/MNP), previously designed in our group.

Millions of reads, thousands of taxa: microbial community structure and associations analyzed via marker genes.

With high-throughput sequencing (HTS), we are able to explore the hidden world of microscopic organisms to an unpre-cedented level. The fast development of molecular technology and statistical methods means that microbial ecologists must keep their toolkits updated. Here, we review and evaluate some of the more widely adopted and emerging techniques for analysis of diversity and community composition, and the inference of species interactions from co-occurrence data generated by HTS of marker genes.

Costs of life - Dynamics of the protein inventory of Staphylococcus aureus during anaerobiosis.

Absolute protein quantification was applied to follow the dynamics of the cytoplasmic proteome of Staphylococcus aureus in response to long-term oxygen starvation. For 1,168 proteins, the majority of all expressed proteins, molecule numbers per cell have been determined to monitor the cellular investments in single branches of bacterial life for the first time. In the presence of glucose the anaerobic protein pattern is characterized by increased amounts of glycolytic and fermentative enzymes such as Eno, GapA1, Ldh1, and PflB.

Staphylococcal serine protease-like proteins are pacemakers of allergic airway reactions to Staphylococcus aureus.

Background: A substantial subgroup of asthmatic patients have "nonallergic" or idiopathic asthma, which often takes a severe course and is difficult to treat. The cause might be allergic reactions to the gram-positive pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, a frequent colonizer of the upper airways. However, the driving allergens of S aureus have remained elusive.