Social complexity in bees is not sufficient to explain lack of reversions to solitary living over long time scales

Background  

The major lineages of eusocial insects, the ants, termites, stingless bees, honeybees and vespid wasps, all have ancient origins (≥ 65 mya) with no reversions to solitary behaviour. This has prompted the notion of a 'point of no return' whereby the evolutionary elaboration and integration of behavioural, genetic and morphological traits over a very long period of time leads to a situation where reversion to solitary living is no longer an evolutionary option.     

First clinical experience with the R Stent: a new highly flexible stainless steel tube intracoronary stent

BACKGROUND: Coronary stents have been used with increasing frequency and in increasingly complex coronary disease. A new 316 LVM stainless steel coronary stent, the R Stent, has been designed to provide maximum flexibility for tracking and high radial strength post-deployment. PURPOSE: To assess the clinical feasibility of the R Stent in a tertiary referral population of patients with coronary heart disease. Specific objectives are to assess the R Stent's deployment success, angiographic and procedural success (<20% residual stenosis and >TIMI 2 flow), safety (absence of complications), and 30-day clinical success (angiographic/procedural success plus no major adverse coronary events). METHODS: Between April and November 1998, stent deployment was attempted in 27 patients with stable (46%) or unstable (54%) angina pectoris who qualified for percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. Eighty per cent of patients had a pre-existing history of myocardial infarction, coronary bypass surgery or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, and several of the lesions were anatomically complex (totally occluded, n 32; thrombus present, n 32; heavily calcified, n 33; ostial, n 31; >20 mm long, n 39; angulation >45 degrees, n 37). Lesions in aortocoronary saphenous vein grafts were excluded. Adjunctive medical management included intraprocedural aspirin and heparin and post-procedural aspirin and ticlopidine. After deployment, patients were followed up in the hospital and at 30 days post procedure. RESULTS: Stent deployment was achieved in 32 of 33 attempts (26 of 27 patients). There was one deployment failure in a long, calcified ostial and proximal left coronary lesion. In the 26 successful deployments, TIMI 3 flow was achieved. One other patient experienced a painless increase in creatine kinase to 375 (CK-MB of 59) at 12 h without ECG changes. At 30 days, there were no deaths, no myocardial infarctions, no subacute thromboses, no repeat interventions, no bypass surgeries and no bleeding complications. Only the patient with post-procedural CK-MB elevation experience recurrence of CCS class 2 angina within the 30 days. CONCLUSION: The R Stent is a promising new device for the treatment of complex coronary heart disease. A larger, more broadly-based study is warranted.     

Maximizing recombinant human serum albumin production in a Muts Pichia pastoris strain

Human serum albumin (HSA) is a cysteine rich molecule that is most abundant in human blood plasma. To remain viable in the market due to lower marketing costs for HSA, it is important to produce a large quantity in an economical manner by recombinant technology. The objective of this study was to maximize recombinant HSA (rHSA) production using a Mut^s Pichia pastoris strain by fermentation process optimization. We evaluated the impact of process parameters on the production of rHSA, including induction cell density (wet cell weight, g/L) and the control of specific growth rate at induction. In this study, we demonstrated that induction cell density is a critical factor for high level production of rHSA under controlled specific growth rate. We observed higher specific productivities at higher induction cell densities (285 g/L) and at lower specific growth rates (0.0022–0.0024/h) during methanol induction phase, and achieved the broth titer of rHSA up to 10 g/L. The temperature shift from 24 to 28^oC was effective to control the specific growth rate at low level (≤0.0024/h) during methanol induction phase while maintaining high specific productivity [0.0908 mg_rHSA/(g_wcw h)]. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 30:1488–1496, 2014