Tattoo pigment in an axillary lymph node simulating metastatic malignant melanoma

We report a case of axillary lymphadenopathy thirty years after a decorative tattoo clinically mimicking metastatic melanoma. The importance of relying on histological confirmation of metastatic disease before altering extent of surgery is discussed. The importance of recording presence of decorative tattoos is stressed.     

Clinical and angiographic results with the beStent: the Registry for Optimal beStent Evaluation (ROSE) trial

BACKGROUND: Although safety and efficacy of the beStent (Medtronic Inc., Santa Rosa, CA, USA) have been described, the long-term angiographic and clinical outcomes have yet to be investigated. The ROSE (Registry for Optimal beStent Evaluation) trial was designed to assess the procedural safety of single 15 mm beStent implantation, and the six-month angiographic and 12-month clinical outcomes of patients treated with this novel coronary stent. METHODS: Patients with angina and a single de novo lesion in a native coronary artery of >/=2.75 mm diameter were included in this multicenter, prospective, observational trial. Clinical follow-up was obtained at one, six and 12 months. Angiography was performed before and after the stent implantation and at six months. The primary end-point included major adverse cardiac events (death, myocardial infarction and target lesion revascularization), major bleeding complications, and thrombotic occlusions at one-month follow-up. Secondary end-points were major cardiac-event-free survival at six- and 12-month follow-up and angiographic restenosis at six months. A total of 120 patients (80% male, mean age 58.6 +/- 10.6 years) with stable (48%) or unstable (44%) angina pectoris were allocated. The target vessel reference diameter pre-procedure was 2.85 +/- 0.52 mm. RESULTS: Minimal lumen diameter pre/post and at follow-up was 0.97 +/- 0.28 mm, 2.53 +/- 0.40 mm and 1.86 +/- 0.63 mm, respectively. Restenosis rate according to the >50% diameter stenosis criterion at six-month follow-up was 21.5%. At 12 months, the event-free survival rate was 75% (no deaths, two Q-wave and seven non-Q-wave infarctions, five bypass surgery interventions and 16 target lesion revascularizations), whilst 87% of the patients were free of angina pectoris. CONCLUSION: Despite the relatively high percentage of small vessels, the outcome of the ROSE trial is comparable to those observed in previous stent trials, indicating that the coronary beStent is safe and effective as a primary device for the treatment of native coronary artery lesions in patients with (un)stable angina pectoris.     

Associations of myostatin gene polymorphisms with performance and mortality traits in broiler chickens

Myostatin is a negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth. We evaluated effects of myostatin polymorphisms in three elite commercial broiler chicken lines on mortality, growth, feed conversion efficiency, ultrasound breast depth, breast percentage, eviscerated carcass weight, leg defects, blood oxygen level, and hen antibody titer to infectious bursal disease virus vaccine. Progeny mean data adjusted for fixed and mate effects and DNA from 100 sires per line were used. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the myostatin gene segregating in these lines were identified by designing specific primers, amplifying individual DNA in each line by polymerase chain reaction, cloning, sequencing and aligning the corresponding products. Individual sires were genotyped for five identified SNPs which contributed to eight haplotypes. Frequencies of SNP alleles and haplotypes differed between lines. Using the allele substitution effect model, the myostatin SNPs were found to have significant (P < 0.031) associations with growth, mortality, blood oxygen and hen antibody titer to infectious bursal disease virus vaccine, although the associations were not often consistent across lines. These results suggest that the myostatin gene has pleiotropic effects on broiler performance.     

Functional implications of the microbial community structure of undefined mesophilic starter cultures

This review describes the recent advances made in the studies of the microbial community of complex and undefined cheese starter cultures. We report on work related to the composition of the cultures at the level of genetic lineages, on the presence and activity of bacteriophages and on the population dynamics during cheese making and during starter culture propagation. Furthermore, the link between starter composition and starter functionality will be discussed. Finally, recent advances in predictive metabolic modelling of the multi-strain cultures will be discussed in the context of microbe-microbe interactions.     

Selective heterocyclic amidine inhibitors of human inducible nitric oxide synthase

The potency and selectivity of a series of 5-hetero-2-iminohexahydroazepines were examined as inhibitors of the three human NOS isoforms. The effect of ring substitution of the 5-carbon for a heteroatom is presented. Potencies (IC(50)'s) for these inhibitors are in the low micromolar range for hi-NOS with some examples exhibiting a 500x selectivity versus hec-NOS.     

Linkage disequilibrium in crossbred and pure line chickens

Background

Both genome-wide association (GWA) studies and genomic selection depend on the level of non-random association of alleles at different loci, i.e. linkage disequilibrium (LD), across the genome. Therefore, characterizing LD is of fundamental importance to implement both approaches. In this study, using a 60K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel, we estimated LD and haplotype structure in crossbred broiler chickens and their component pure lines (one male and two female lines) and calculated the consistency of LD between these populations.

Results

The average level of LD (measured by r²) between adjacent SNPs across the chicken autosomes studied here ranged from 0.34 to 0.40 in the pure lines but was only 0.24 in the crossbred populations, with 28.4% of adjacent SNP pairs having an r² higher than 0.3. Compared with the pure lines, the crossbred populations consistently showed a lower level of LD, smaller haploblock sizes and lower haplotype homozygosity on macro-, intermediate and micro-chromosomes. Furthermore, correlations of LD between markers at short distances (0 to 10 kb) were high between crossbred and pure lines (0.83 to 0.94).

Conclusions

Our results suggest that using crossbred populations instead of pure lines can be advantageous for high-resolution QTL (quantitative trait loci) mapping in GWA studies and to achieve good persistence of accuracy of genomic breeding values over generations in genomic selection. These results also provide useful information for the design and implementation of GWA studies and genomic selection using crossbred populations.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12711-015-0098-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.