The association between sociodemographic,hormonal, tubo-ovarian factors and bacterial count in Chlamydia and Mycoplasma infections with infertility

Aim: To determine if there is an association between the Chlamydia and Mycoplasma infections with socio-demographic and clinical factors, and also with infertility. Methods: We conducted a study on 100 infertile married women and 100 control group, and collected data on the socio-demographic, hormonal and tubo-ovarian factors. The results of the endocervical swabs were analyzed for Mycoplasma and Chlamydia infection, the bacterial counts were also determined. Results: The percentage positivity to infection was significantly more among the infertile group compared to the control group, and also significantly more among the age group <30 years old. The positivity for infection with Chlamydia and/or Mycoplasma was significantly correlated with age, history of irregular menstruation, and history of previous abortion. Further sub-analysis of the infertile group showed that positivity to Chlamydia and/or Mycoplasma infection was significantly correlated to hormonal factors, ovarian factors, irregular menstruation, and previous abortion. Regression analysis showed that hormonal, ovarian factors, and irregular menstruation were the most significant factors in the positivity to Chlamydia and Mycoplasma infection. Bacterial count was significantly correlated with age, history of irregular menstruation, and history of previous abortion. Conclusion: Infection to Chlamydia and Mycoplasma is associated to younger age (?30 years old), and occurs in the infertile women. There is an interplay between infection in younger women, irregular menstruation, hormonal, and tubo-ovarian factors with infertility. Bacterial count was significantly correlated with age, history of irregular menstruation, and history of previous abortion.     

PPARgamma activation primes human monocytes into alternative M2 macrophages with anti-inflammatory properties

Th1 cytokines promote monocyte differentiation into proatherogenic M1 macrophages, while Th2 cytokines lead to an "alternative" anti-inflammatory M2 macrophage phenotype. Here we show that in human atherosclerotic lesions, the expression of M2 markers and PPARgamma, a nuclear receptor controlling macrophage inflammation, correlate positively. Moreover, PPARgamma activation primes primary human monocytes into M2 differentiation, resulting in a more pronounced anti-inflammatory activity in M1 macrophages. However, PPARgamma activation does not influence M2 marker expression in resting or M1 macrophages, nor does PPARgamma agonist treatment influence the expression of M2 markers in atherosclerotic lesions, indicating that only native monocytes can be primed by PPARgamma activation to an enhanced M2 phenotype. Furthermore, PPARgamma activation significantly increases expression of the M2 marker MR in circulating peripheral blood mononuclear cells. These data demonstrate that PPARgamma activation skews human monocytes toward an anti-inflammatory M2 phenotype.     

Cover Image,Volume 120, Number 8, August 2019

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are novel noncoding RNAs and play crucial roles in various biological processes. However, little is known about the functions of circRNAs in osteogenic differentiation. The current study aimed to investigate the differential expression of circRNAs in rat dental follicle cells (rDFCs) during osteogenic differentiation, identified by RNA high-throughput sequencing and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to further explore the biofunctions of circRNA biofunctions. Two hundred sixty-six differentially-expressed circRNAs that are involved in several important signaling pathways, including mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling pathways were revealed. Among these, circFgfr2 and its predicted downstream targets, miR-133 and BMP6 (bone morphogenetic protein-6), were identified both in vivo and in vitro. For further validation, circFgfr2 was overexpressed in rDFCs, the results showed that the expression of miR-133 was downregulated and the expression of BMP6 was upregulated. Taken together, the results revealed the circRNA expression profiles and indicated the importance of circRNAs of rDFCs. In addition, circFgfr2 might promote osteogenesis by controlling miR-133/BMP6, which is a potential new target for the manipulation of tooth regeneration and bone formation.     

Redescription of a rare deep-sea batfish, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Halieutopsis bathyoreos</Emphasis> (Lophiiformes: Ogcocephalidae)

Halieutopsis bathyoreos Bradbury, 1988 (Lophiiformes: Ogcocephalidae), previously described only on the basis of the holotype (62.6mm in standard length) from the central North Pacific, is redescribed on the basis of the holotype and six additional specimens (41.2–68.7mm in standard length) collected from the western South Pacific, off Papua New Guinea, and the western North Pacific, including the Japanese Archipelago. Halieutopsis bathyoreos is distinguished from its congeners by having a shelflike rostrum extending anteriorly well beyond the mouth, a dorsal escal lobe slightly bisected ventrally, an illicial cavity square in outline and completely visible in ventral view, and lacking tubercles on the ventral surface of the disk. The following characters are newly added to the diagnoses of this species: rostrum width 21–29% of head length, tubercles on the dorsal surface of the disk about half the diameter of those on the lateral margin, and 13–15 large lateral-line scales on the tail.     

Triamterene-β-cyclodextrin systems: Preparation,characterization and in vivo evaluation

The purpose of this research was to improve the solubility and therefore dissolution and bioavailability of triamterene, a poorly water soluble diuretic, by complexation with β-cyclodextrin. Triamterene has been reported to show low bioavailability after oral administration, with wide intersubject variation. This study presents the formulation of solid dispersions of triamterene with β-cyclodextrin—by cogrinding, kneading, and coevaporation, using low pH conditions—and their characterizations, evaluation of improvement in dissolution profiles, and in vivo advantage. Phase solubility studies indicated complex with possible stoichiometry of 1∶1 and a stability constant of 167.67M⁻¹. The solid dispersions were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, x-ray diffraction, and differential scanning calorimetry studies. The characterization studies confirmed inclusion of the phenyl ring of triamterene within the nonpolar cavity of β-cyclodextrin in the coevaporate. Remarkable improvement in in vitro drug release profiles in 0.1 N HCl and pH 6.8 phosphate buffer was observed with all dispersions, especially the coevaporate. The coevaporate, when administered orally in rats, also exhibited improved in vivo activity, as measured by net sodium ion excretion, as compared with triamterene powder. Thus, coevaporation of the drug and β-cyclodextrin from acidified alcohol provide the optimum condition for inclusion complexation to give a binary system with remarkable improvement in in vitro drug release profile and in vivo performance.     

Biosynthesis of very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in transgenic oilseeds: constraints on their accumulation

Omega6- and omega3-polyunsaturated C20 fatty acids represent important components of the human diet. A more regular consumption and an accordingly sustainable source of these compounds are highly desirable. In contrast with the very high levels to which industrial fatty acids have to be enriched in plant oils for competitive use as chemical feedstocks, much lower percentages of very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLCPUFA) in edible plant oils would satisfy nutritional requirements. Seed-specific expression in transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and linseed (Linum usitatissimum) of cDNAs encoding fatty acyl-desaturases and elongases, absent from all agronomically important plants, resulted in the very high accumulation of Delta6-desaturated C18 fatty acids and up to 5% of C20 polyunsaturated fatty acids, including arachidonic and eicosapentaenoic acid. Detailed lipid analyses of developing seeds from transgenic plants were interpretated as indicating that, after desaturation on phosphatidylcholine, Delta6-desaturated products are immediately channeled to the triacylglycerols and effectively bypass the acyl-CoA pool. Thus, the lack of available Delta6-desaturated acyl-CoA substrates in the acyl-CoA pool limits the synthesis of elongated C20 fatty acids and disrupts the alternating sequence of lipid-linked desaturations and acyl-CoA dependent elongations. As well as the successful production of VLCPUFA in transgenic oilseeds and the identification of constraints on their accumulation, our results indicate alternative strategies to circumvent this bottleneck.     

Yeast Lsm1p-7p/Pat1p deadenylation-dependent mRNA-decapping factors are required for brome mosaic virus genomic RNA translation

Previously, we used the ability of the higher eukaryotic positive-strand RNA virus brome mosaic virus (BMV) to replicate in yeast to show that the yeast LSM1 gene is required for recruiting BMV RNA from translation to replication. Here we extend this observation to show that Lsm1p and other components of the Lsm1p-Lsm7p/Pat1p deadenylation-dependent mRNA decapping complex were also required for translating BMV RNAs. Inhibition of BMV RNA translation was selective, with no effect on general cellular translation. We show that viral genomic RNAs suitable for RNA replication were already distinguished from nonreplication templates at translation, well before RNA recruitment to replication. Among mRNA turnover pathways, only factors specific for deadenylated mRNA decapping were required for BMV RNA translation. Dependence on these factors was not only a consequence of the nonpolyadenylated nature of BMV RNAs but also involved the combined effects of the viral 5' and 3' noncoding regions and 2a polymerase open reading frame. High-resolution sucrose density gradient analysis showed that, while mutating factors in the Lsm1p-7p/Pat1p complex completely inhibited viral RNA translation, the levels of viral RNA associated with ribosomes were only slightly reduced in mutant yeast. This polysome association was further verified by using a conditional allele of essential translation initiation factor PRT1, which markedly decreased polysome association of viral genomic RNA in the presence or absence of an LSM7 mutation. Together, these results show that a defective Lsm1p-7p/Pat1p complex inhibits BMV RNA translation primarily by stalling or slowing the elongation of ribosomes along the viral open reading frame. Thus, factors in the Lsm1p-7p/Pat1p complex function not only in mRNA decapping but also in translation, and both translation and recruitment of BMV RNAs to viral RNA replication are regulated by a cell pathway that transfers mRNAs from translation to degradation.     

A new method for the extraction of fetal ECG from the dependent abdominal signals using blind source separation and adaptive noise cancellation techniques

Background

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a diagnostic tool that records the electrical activity of the heart, and depicts it as a series of graph-like tracings, or waves. Being able to interpret these details allows diagnosis of a wide range of heart problems. Fetal electrocardiogram (FECG) extraction has an important impact in medical diagnostics during the mother pregnancy period. Since the observed FECG signals are often mixed with the maternal ECG (MECG) and the noise induced by the movement of electrodes or by mother motion, the separation process of the ECG signal sources from the observed data becomes quite complicated. One of its complexity is when the ECG sources are dependent, thus, in this paper we introduce a new approach of blind source separation (BSS) in the noisy context for both independent and dependent ECG signal source. This approach consist in denoising the observed ECG signals using a bilateral total variation (BTV) filter; then minimizing the Kullbak-Leibler divergence between copula densities to separate the FECG signal from the MECG one.

Results

We present simulation results illustrating the performance of our proposed method. We will consider many examples of independent/dependent source component signals. The results will be compared with those of the classical method called independent component analysis (ICA) under the same conditions. The accuracy of source estimation is evaluated through a criterion, called again the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). The first experiment shows that our proposed method gives accurate estimation of sources in the standard case of independent components, with performance around 27 dB in term of SNR. In the second experiment, we show the capability of the proposed algorithm to successfully separate two noisy mixtures of dependent source components - with classical criterion devoted to the independent case - fails, and that our method is able to deal with the dependent case with good performance.

Conclusions

In this work, we focus specifically on the separation of the ECG signal sources taken from skin two electrodes located on a pregnant woman’s body. The ECG separation is interpreted as a noisy linear BSS problem with instantaneous mixtures. Firstly, a denoising step is required to reduce the noise due to motion artifacts using a BTV filter as a very effective one-pass filter for denoising. Then, we use the Kullbak-Leibler divergence between copula densities to separate the fetal heart rate from the mother one, for both independent and dependent cases.

     

Spatio-temporal Genetic Structuring of Leishmania major in Tunisia by Microsatellite Analysis

In Tunisia, cases of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania major are increasing and spreading from the south-west to new areas in the center. To improve the current knowledge on L. major evolution and population dynamics, we performed multi-locus microsatellite typing of human isolates from Tunisian governorates where the disease is endemic (Gafsa, Kairouan and Sidi Bouzid governorates) and collected during two periods: 1991–1992 and 2008–2012. Analysis (F-statistics and Bayesian model-based approach) of the genotyping results of isolates collected in Sidi Bouzid in 1991–1992 and 2008–2012 shows that, over two decades, in the same area, Leishmania parasites evolved by generating genetically differentiated populations. The genetic patterns of 2008–2012 isolates from the three governorates indicate that L. major populations did not spread gradually from the south to the center of Tunisia, according to a geographical gradient, suggesting that human activities might be the source of the disease expansion. The genotype analysis also suggests previous (Bayesian model-based approach) and current (F-statistics) flows of genotypes between governorates and districts. Human activities as well as reservoir dynamics and the effects of environmental changes could explain how the disease progresses. This study provides new insights into the evolution and spread of L. major in Tunisia that might improve our understanding of the parasite flow between geographically and temporally distinct populations.