Psychoeducation and compliance in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia

Psychoeducation provides to the patient and his family members full information about schizophrenia and all aspects of the treatment. If the patient is not fully informed about the treatment and the side effects, there is a higher risk for discontinuation of the therapy without consulting his psychiatrist. Dicontinuation of the treatment is one of the main reasons for the relapse of schizophrenia. Aim of the study was to define wheter there are differences in compliance between two groups of patients, one who went through education about schizophrenia and the other group without the education about the disease. Group of 30 patients were during the hospitalisation educated about the schizophrenia and the treatment of the disease, while the control group of 30 patients were not educated. On the admission to the hospital, on the release from the hospital and after three months from the release from the hospital patients were rated with Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and Clinical Global Impression, compliance was rated with Compliance Assessment Inventory, attitude towards drugs with Drug Attitude Inventory, and social functioning of the patients with Global Assessment of Functioning. Knowledge about the disease was assessed with specially disagned questionnaire with 12 questions. Results of our study show us the importance of education on the compliance, as well as on the positive attitude towards the drug treatment, which is one of the most important predictors of the successful treatment of the schizophrenia.     

Generation of conditional alleles of the murine Iron Regulatory Protein (IRP)-1 and -2 genes

Central aspects of cellular iron metabolism are controlled by IRP1 and IRP2, which are ubiquitously expressed in mouse organs and cells. Total and constitutive deficiency of both IRPs causes embryonic lethality in the mouse. To bypass the early lethality and to study organ-specific and/or temporal functions of IRP1 and/or IRP2 we generated Irp1 and Irp2 conditional alleles. We used mouse lines where a betaGeo gene trap construct was inserted into the second intron of the Irp1 and the Irp2 gene, generating hypomorphic alleles by interrupting the corresponding open reading frame near the amino-termini. The gene trap cassettes are flanked by Frt sites and were co-inserted with LoxP sites flanking exon 3. Flp-mediated removal of the gene trap construct generates floxed alleles with wildtype functions. For both Irp genes, Cre-assisted deletion of exon 3 generates complete null alleles that, in the case of IRP2, are associated with altered body iron distribution and compromised hematopoiesis. If not removed, the gene trap construct causes partially penetrant embryonic lethality unrelated to IRP deficiency when inserted within the Irp1 but not the Irp2 locus. We discuss the implications for functional genomics in the mouse.     

Fungal and host protein persulfidation are functionally correlated and modulate both virulence and antifungal response

Aspergillus fumigatus is a human fungal pathogen that can cause devastating pulmonary infections, termed “aspergilloses,” in individuals suffering immune imbalances or underlying lung conditions. As rapid adaptation to stress is crucial for the outcome of the host–pathogen interplay, here we investigated the role of the versatile posttranslational modification (PTM) persulfidation for both fungal virulence and antifungal host defense. We show that an A. fumigatus mutant with low persulfidation levels is more susceptible to host-mediated killing and displays reduced virulence in murine models of infection. Additionally, we found that a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the human gene encoding cystathionine γ-lyase (CTH) causes a reduction in cellular persulfidation and correlates with a predisposition of hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients to invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA), as correct levels of persulfidation are required for optimal antifungal activity of recipients’ lung resident host cells. Importantly, the levels of host persulfidation determine the levels of fungal persulfidation, ultimately reflecting a host–pathogen functional correlation and highlighting a potential new therapeutic target for the treatment of aspergillosis.

This study reveals that the post-translational modification persulfidation is important for both fungal virulence and the host antifungal response. The level of persulfidation in the host, which correlates with its antifungal potency, impacts the level required in the fungus to counteract host attack, reflecting a functional correlation. Thus modulating persulfidation may be a promising strategy to target both pathogens and immune responses.     

Determination of volatile products of human colon cell line metabolism by GC/MS analysis

Colon cancer is one of the most reasons for cancer death worldwide. Thus, it is important to find new prognostic and diagnostic marker, as well as to throw light on the special metabolic pathways of colon cancer cells. This paper highlights for the first time some qualitative differences in the profiles of the volatile metabolites of colon cancer cell lines SW 480 (grade IV, Duke B) and SW 1116 (grade II, Duke A) among themselves and in comparison to the normal colon cell line NCM460, which are mostly represented by ketones and alcohols. These results, which were obtained by applying solid phase micro extraction (SPME) and combined gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), are consistent with Warburg’s hypothesis because the found reaction products may indicate that the cancer cells show the Crabtree’s effect. Furthermore, compounds like undecan-2-ol and pentadecan-2-one were associated for the first time with the human metabolism. In summary, these findings indicate that the metabolism of colon cancer cells differs extremely from the metabolism of healthy cells and it changes during the progress of the disease. Compounds that are present in the breath, the blood and the tissue of patients represent the differences and they can serve as new biomarker for colon cancer in future.     

Environmental constraint of intraguild predation: Inorganic turbidity modulates omnivory in fairy shrimps

1. Omnivory is widespread in food webs, with an important stabilising effect. The strength of omnivorous trophic interactions may change considerably with changes in the local environment.
2. Shallow temporary waters are often characterised by high levels of inorganic turbidity that may directly limit the food uptake of filter-feeding organisms, but there is little evidence on how it might affect omnivorous species. Anostracans are key species of temporary waters and recent evidence suggests that these organisms are omnivorous consumers of both phyto- and zooplankton.
3. Using Branchinecta orientalis as a model species, our aim was to test how turbidity affects the feeding of an omnivorous anostracan. To do this, we used short-term feeding experiments and stable isotope analyses, with animals collected from soda pans in eastern Austria. In the feeding experiments, algae and zooplankton were offered as food either separately or in combination. The prey type treatments were crossed with turbidity levels in a factorial design.
4. There was a pronounced decrease in the ingested algal biomass with increasing turbidity. Conversely, ingestion rates on zooplankton were less affected by turbidity. Stable isotope analyses from field material supported our experimental results by showing a positive relationship of the trophic position of anostracans and the trophic niche of the communities with turbidity.
5. Our results show that turbidity modulates the intraguild trophic relationship between anostracans and their prey by shifting the diet of anostracans from more herbivorous in transparent to more carnivorous in turbid waters. Thus, inorganic turbidity might also have a community-shaping role in plankton communities of temporary waters through altering trophic relationships.