Is there a place for nuclear medicine in the radioembolization of liver tumors?

This is purposely an ultraprovocative title for the broad nuclear medicine community (including radiophysics and radiopharmacy) which leads us to ask questions about how we should correctly use ⁹⁰Yttrium (MSY90) microspheres in the treatment of liver tumors.     

Evidence-based alternative medicine?

The validity of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the subject of ongoing controversy. The EBM movement has proposed a "hierarchy of evidence," according to which randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses of RCTs provide the most reliable evidence concerning the efficacy of medical interventions. The evaluation of alternative medicine therapies highlights problems with the EBM hierarchy. Alternative medical researchers-like those in mainstream medicine-wish to evaluate their therapies using methods that are rigorous and that are consistent with their philosophies of medicine and healing. These investigators have three ways to relate their work to EBM. They can accept the EBM hierarchy and carry out RCTs when possible; they can accept the EBM standards but argue that the special characteristics of alternative medicine warrant the acceptance of "lower" forms of evidence; or they can challenge the EBM approach and work to develop new research designs and new standards of evidence that reflect their approach to medical care. For several reasons, this last option is preferable. First, it will best meet the needs of alternative medicine practitioners. Moreover, because similar problems beset the evaluation of mainstream medical therapies, reevaluation of standards of evidence will benefit everyone in the medical community--including, most importantly, patients.     

Parasites lost? An overlooked hypothesis for the evolution of alternative reproductive strategies in amphibians

Amphibians exhibit the greatest diversity of reproductive strategies of all tetrapod vertebrates. While authors have traditionally attributed the evolution of these strategies to factors such as complex topography, unpredictable larval environments, and predation on larvae and eggs, support for any of these hypotheses has been limited. Importantly, most authors have ignored parasites, including unicellular pathogens and multicellular parasites, as selective agents capable of influencing amphibian evolution. Insights in disease transmission, amphibian immunity, and their interaction with various life histories require that we consider parasites to be selective pressures in our exploration of the evolution of amphibian reproductive strategies. I review recent findings and describe how these principles converge to form a novel conceptual hypothesis for the evolution of alternative reproductive strategies in amphibians. I offer some specific predictions and recommend that parasites be considered with other selective pressures when constructing formal, falsifiable hypotheses during evaluative studies of amphibian reproductive behavior.     

European medicinal mushrooms: Do they have potential for modern medicine? – An update

BackgroundThe application of mushrooms for health purposes has a long tradition and is very common in Asian countries. This trend is also becoming increasingly popular in the western hemisphere. However, mushrooms from European tradition are being treated in a restrained manner despite having significant potential as drugs or as sources of pure bioactive substances.Aim: The present review provides an overview of the most important mushrooms used in European ethnomedical traditions and explores their pharmacological potential and the challenges for the development of new drugs from these sources of natural products.Method: Mushroom species were selected based on information in old herbal books and dispensaries, uninterrupted use and scientific literature in the PubMed database up to June 2019.Results: Traditional experiences and modern studies have demonstrated that medical mushrooms used in European traditions have promising distinct pharmacological potential mediated through defined mechanisms (anti-tumour, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative and anti-bacterial). However, the number of modern chemical, biological and pharmacological studies remains relatively small, and some mushroom species have not been studied at all. Unfortunately, no valid clinical studies can be found. Unlike the case with herbal and fungal drugs from traditional Chinese medicine, we are far from comprehensively exploring this potential.Conclusions: Mushrooms from traditional European medicine have the potential to be used in modern medicine. Considerable research, interdisciplinary collaboration, involvement of the pharmaceutical industry, time and money are necessary to explore this potential not only in the form of dietary supplements but also in the form of approved drugs.     

Probiotics and pharmabiotics: alternative medicine or an evidence-based alternative?

That commensal bacteria play an important role in human health is beyond doubt, and it is now widely accepted that humans function as super organisms, whose collective metabolic potential exceeds the sum of our individual eukaryotic and prokaryotic components. However, while it is has been established that the prokaryotic component of the human superorganism is amenable to manipulation by chemotherapeutic, dietary or microbial interventions, the significance of such alterations in terms of human health or well being is less well established. Prebiotics (non- digestible food ingredients that stimulate the growth and/or activity of bacteria in the digestive system) and probiotics (live microorganisms that when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host) are often bracketed among 'alternative' approaches to influencing human health, such as homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture and hypnotherapy. Others believe that prebiotics and probiotics have proven their effectiveness in properly conducted, clinically controlled human trials and therefore can be considered as evidence-based alternatives or adjuncts to conventional medicines. My journey from a position of total skepticism to 'reluctant convert' is the basis of this article, which should not be considered in any sense as a review of the literature but simply a personal account of this transition. While I am not bent on converting other doubters, I will recount some of the thought processes and evidence that has helped to form my current opinion.     

What about the ducks? An alternative vaccination strategy.

Like most emerging disease threats, avian influenza is a zoonotic disease maintained in nature by wildlife. In this case, the reservoir of infection is migratory waterfowl, primarily ducks. Rather than trying to vaccinate most of the world's human population in response to the threat of an avian influenza pandemic, it might be more prudent to vaccinate key reservoir wildlife species from which pandemic strains evolve. This strategy would require a much more intensive research effort to understand the evolution of avian influenza viruses in nature, but it would be far less costly than any of the alternatives. Research priorities for emerging zoonoses, such as new strains of avian influenza viruses, should be re-evaluated with an emphasis on ways to intervene at their source, the natural reservoir hosts from which they originate, rather than focusing up on human-based interventions, which are too often too late.     

Ragweed – An allergy risk in Sweden?

Ragweed pollen, which is a major cause of allergic rhinitis in North America and during the last decades, also in parts of the European continent, has not been regarded as a risk in Sweden, since occurrences of Ambrosia have been rare and with two exceptions, ephemeral. During the last four years, however, long-distance transported pollen has been registered in South Sweden. Moreover, seeds are dispersed by man with birdseed and reports on ragweed plants growing at birdtables are becoming more and more common. In warm years, the fruits of these plants mature and are germinative. We argue that there is a risk that ragweed pollen may be a problem in the future in Sweden. Long-distance transport from the continent is likely to be increasingly more common, and in larger amounts, as ragweed is rapidly spreading in Europe. Among the plants now appearing within Sweden, selection is likely to favour phenotypes which are able to fulfil their life-cycle during the indigenous vegetation period, especially in a scenario of global warming.     

An urgent need for sustainable thinking in agriculture – An Indian scenario

This article emphasizes on the present urgent need to think in “Holistic Dimensions” to achieve a sustainable agro-ecosystem. In this respect, the complex network of dynamic interactions in the agro-ecosystem soil at spatiotemporal dimensions holds crucial importance. It reflects the inherent tendency of dynamic ecosystems to achieve a more efficient state successively through improved interactions. The short-sighted and inefficient agro-management during Green Revolution decades has been detrimental to these interactions in agricultural soils, which is widely evident by its boomerang effects (i.e. declining efficiency, productivity and multi-functionality). It jeopardized the internal regulation in our agro-ecosystem's functioning by erosion of efficiency building interactions among biotic and abiotic components. Therefore, a bottom-up as well as top-down approach in the soil management is required to restore and sustain the unaccounted but indispensible ecological subsidies for sustainable agriculture and development, globally. We propose a “commercial ecological agriculture” which should be an amalgamation of sustainable agricultural practices and supported by a progressive co-ordination among all the stakeholders via participatory learning and adaptation with time. It should be least-disturbing, resilience-building, resource (i.e. energy and nutrient) use efficient, site-specific, labor and skill-intensive, low-input, diversified and integrated, and intimately harmonized with nature. It may potentially provide us agricultural sustainability with time in real sense. It would be primarily based on management of interactions indirectly through identification of integrative variables as surrogate, which may help to achieve internal regulation or self-reliance in agroecosystems. Further, it would be helpful to eliminate the widening socio-economic divide and in mitigation of global change in environment (i.e. air, water and soil) and climate. Additionally, it would improve and restore the multifaceted potential of soil, thus quality and productivity, through improved internal regulation on resource-use efficiency.     

Relationship between DAPI-fluorescence fading and nuclear DNA content: An alternative method to DNA quantification?

In observations by confocal or conventional fluorescence microscopy, important factors should be considered in order to obtain accurate images. One of them, such as the fluorescence bleaching from highest intensity to lowest signal of fluorescence is a common problem with several DNA fluorochromes and especially for DAPI stain. The fluorescence of DAPI fades rapidly when it is exposed to UV light, under optimal conditions of observation. Although the fading process can be retarded using a mounting medium with antifading reagents, the photochemical process underlying the fluorescence decay has not yet been fully explained. In addition, no relationship between fluorescence fading and nuclear DNA content has been tested. In order to test this relationship, we measured by means of image analysis the DAPI-fluorescence intensity in several cellular types (spermatozoa, erythrocytes and haemocytes) during their fluorescence bleaching. An algorithm specifically built in MATLAB software was used for this approach. The correlation coefficient between nuclear DNA content and DAPI-fluorescence fading was found equal to 99%. This study demonstrates the feasibility to measure nuclear DNA content by fluorescence fading quantification, as an alternative method concurrently with image analysis procedures.     

Is actin involved in the nuclear division in Amoeba proteus?

During semi-open mitosis of Amoeba proteus the nuclear envelope is not dispersed and nucleus divides by fission. The presence of actin layer close to nuclear envelope was demonstrated in interphase and telophase nuclei of that amoeba stained with rhodamine labelled phalloidin. In telophase, an accumulation of actin arises in the space between the future daughter nuclei. It appears to be comparable with the contractile ring of dividing cells. This suggests that actin associated with the nuclear envelope of Amoeba proteus may be involved in final separation of the daughter nuclei, forming a constriction ring at the middle of dividing nucleus.     

Monoubiquitination: the signal for p53 nuclear export?

The ubiquitin-proteasome pathway has become an increasingly important regulatory mechanism for protein function. Countless proteins are degraded by the addition of polymeric ubiquitin chains, but more recently, monoubiquitination has emerged as a mechanism for regulatory functions other than proteasomal degradation. Monoubiquitination acts as a signal in nuclear export for the tumor suppressor protein p53. Different levels of Mdm2 are capable of inducing both mono- and polyubiquitination in a dosage dependent manner, thus determining p53's fate. Our findings demonstrate monoubiquitin-mediated protein trafficking can be expanded to nuclear-cytoplasmic shuttling, and also imply similar scenarios may apply to other cellular factors.