Management of primary biliary cholangitis: results from a large real-life observational study in France and Belgium.

Background And Aims: To assess the characteristics, care, treatment response, and outcomes of primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) patients recently followed-up by hepato-gastroenterologists in various French and Belgian healthcare settings.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included patients with PBC who recently visited 79 hepato-gastroenterologists in France and Belgium. Data were collected at the time of diagnosis and at last visit and were compared according to biochemical response (BR) to ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) (BR), using Paris I-II criteria, and clinical outcomes.

Assessment of potential toxicological aspects of dietary exposure to silicon-rich spirulina in rats.

Silicon has beneficial effects especially on bones and skin and is important in cardiovascular pathophysiology. Furthermore, in spontaneously hypertensive rats, it reduces hypertension and increases antihypertensive and antiatherogenic gene expressions in the aorta. Thus, incorporating silicon into spirulina could be a way to produce a bioavailable food supplement.

Chloroplast DNA diversity in wild and cultivated species of rice (Genus Oryza, section Oryza). Cladistic-mutation and genetic-distance analysis.

Using a novel nonaqueous procedure, chloroplast DNA was isolated from 318 individual adult rice plants, representing 247 accessions and the breadth of the diversity in section Oryza of genus Oryza. Among them, 32 different cpDNA restriction patterns were distinguished using the restriction endonucleases EcoRI and AvaI, and they were further characterized by restriction with BamHI, HindIII, SmaI, PstI, and BstEII enzymes. The differences in the electrophoretic band patterns were parsimoniously interpreted as being the result of 110 mutations, including 47 restriction site mutations.