Exercise training in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus: a controlled randomized trial

Introduction

Exercise training has emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy to counteract physical dysfunction in adult systemic lupus erythematosus. However, no longitudinal studies have evaluated the effects of an exercise training program in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (C-SLE) patients. The objective was to evaluate the safety and the efficacy of a supervised aerobic training program in improving the cardiorespiratory capacity in C-SLE patients.

Methods

Nineteen physically inactive C-SLE patients were randomly assigned into two groups: trained (TR, n = 10, supervised moderate-intensity aerobic exercise program) and non-trained (NT, n = 9). Gender-, body mass index (BMI)- and age-matched healthy children were recruited as controls (C, n = 10) for baseline (PRE) measurements only. C-SLE patients were assessed at PRE and after 12 weeks of training (POST). Main measurements included exercise tolerance and cardiorespiratory measurements in response to a maximal exercise (that is, peak VO₂, chronotropic reserve (CR), and the heart rate recovery (ΔHRR) (that is, the difference between HR at peak exercise and at both the first (ΔHRR1) and second (ΔHRR2) minutes of recovery after exercise).

Results

The C-SLE NT patients did not present changes in any of the cardiorespiratory parameters at POST (P > 0.05). In contrast, the exercise training program was effective in promoting significant increases in time-to-exhaustion (P = 0.01; ES = 1.07), peak speed (P = 0.01; ES = 1.08), peak VO₂ (P = 0.04; ES = 0.86), CR (P = 0.06; ES = 0.83), and in ΔHRR1 and ΔHRR2 (P = 0.003; ES = 1.29 and P = 0.0008; ES = 1.36, respectively) in the C-SLE TR when compared with the NT group. Moreover, cardiorespiratory parameters were comparable between C-SLE TR patients and C subjects after the exercise training intervention, as evidenced by the ANOVA analysis (P > 0.05, TR vs. C). SLEDAI-2K scores remained stable throughout the study.

Conclusion

A 3-month aerobic exercise training was safe and capable of ameliorating the cardiorespiratory capacity and the autonomic function in C-SLE patients.

Trial registration

NCT01515163.     

Automated Entire Thrombus Density Measurements for Robust and Comprehensive Thrombus Characterization in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke

Background and Purpose

In acute ischemic stroke (AIS) management, CT-based thrombus density has been associated with treatment success. However, currently used thrombus measurements are prone to inter-observer variability and oversimplify the heterogeneous thrombus composition. Our aim was first to introduce an automated method to assess the entire thrombus density and then to compare the measured entire thrombus density with respect to current standard manual measurements.

Materials and Method

In 135 AIS patients, the density distribution of the entire thrombus was determined. Density distributions were described using medians, interquartile ranges (IQR), kurtosis, and skewedness. Differences between the median of entire thrombus measurements and commonly applied manual measurements using 3 regions of interest were determined using linear regression.

Results

Density distributions varied considerably with medians ranging from 20.0 to 62.8 HU and IQRs ranging from 9.3 to 55.8 HU. The average median of the thrombus density distributions (43.5 ± 10.2 HU) was lower than the manual assessment (49.6 ± 8.0 HU) (p<0.05). The difference between manual measurements and median density of entire thrombus decreased with increasing density (r = 0.64; p<0.05), revealing relatively higher manual measurements for low density thrombi such that manual density measurement tend overestimates the real thrombus density.

Conclusions

Automatic measurements of the full thrombus expose a wide variety of thrombi density distribution, which is not grasped with currently used manual measurement. Furthermore, discrimination of low and high density thrombi is improved with the automated method.     

Towards a framework for the evolutionary genomics of Kinetoplastids: what kind of data and how much?

The current status of kinetoplastids phylogeny and evolution is discussed in view of the recent progresses on genomics. Some ideas on a potential framework for the evolutionary genomics of kinetoplastids are presented.     

A bacterial genome in flux: the twelve linear and nine circular extrachromosomal DNAs in an infectious isolate of the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi

We have determined that Borrelia burgdorferi strain B31 MI carries 21 extrachromosomal DNA elements, the largest number known for any bacterium. Among these are 12 linear and nine circular plasmids, whose sequences total 610 694 bp. We report here the nucleotide sequence of three linear and seven circular plasmids (comprising 290 546 bp) in this infectious isolate. This completes the genome sequencing project for this organism; its genome size is 1 521 419 bp (plus about 2000 bp of undetermined telomeric sequences). Analysis of the sequence implies that there has been extensive and sometimes rather recent DNA rearrangement among a number of the linear plasmids. Many of these events appear to have been mediated by recombinational processes that formed duplications. These many regions of similarity are reflected in the fact that most plasmid genes are members of one of the genome's 161 paralogous gene families; 107 of these gene families, which vary in size from two to 41 members, contain at least one plasmid gene. These rearrangements appear to have contributed to a surprisingly large number of apparently non-functional pseudogenes, a very unusual feature for a prokaryotic genome. The presence of these damaged genes suggests that some of the plasmids may be in a period of rapid evolution. The sequence predicts 535 plasmid genes >/=300 bp in length that may be intact and 167 apparently mutationally damaged and/or unexpressed genes (pseudogenes). The large majority, over 90%, of genes on these plasmids have no convincing similarity to genes outside Borrelia, suggesting that they perform specialized functions.     

The role of intravascular ultrasound imaging in vascular brachytherapy

Intracoronary brachytherapy has recently emerged as a new therapy to prevent restenosis. Initial experimental work was achieved in animal models and the results were assessed by histomorphometry. Initial clinical trials used angiography to guide dosimetry and to assess efficacy. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) permits tomographic examination of the vessel wall, elucidating the true morphology of the lumen and transmural components, which cannot be investigated on the lumenogram obtained by angiography. This paper reviews the use of IVUS in the clinical studies of brachytherapy conducted to date. IVUS allows clinicians to make a thorough assessment of the remodeling of the vessel and appears to have a major role to play in facilitating understanding of the underlying mechanisms of action in this emerging field. The authors propose that state-of-the-art IVUS techniques should be employed to further knowledge of the mechanisms of action of brachytherapy in atherosclerotic human coronary arteries.     

Temporal and spatial responses of Chironomidae (Diptera) and other benthic invertebrates to urban stormwater runoff

In a longitudinal study of two streams whose lower reaches received unattenuated urban stormwater runoff, physical disturbance by stormflow was less important than the persistant unidentified chemical impacts of urban stormwater in limiting the distribution of Chironomidae, and Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera and Plecoptera (EPT). A hierarchical spatial analysis showed that chironomid density did not decrease from rural to urban stream reaches. Instead, the taxonomic composition of chironomid assemblages was significantly altered in urban versus rural reaches; chironomid assemblages in urban reaches exhibited higher average pollution tolerance scores. In contrast, the density of EPT was significantly lower in urban reaches. Despite higher values of stormflow tractive force in urban reaches, streambed stability tended to be greater in urban reaches. Modeling of temporal variation in chironomid density showed similar patterns in both rural and urban reaches: chironomid density had a unimodal relationship to rainfall index (RI), with highest densities at intermediate values of RI. Models of EPT density over time in rural reaches showed no significant relation to RI, and temporal variation in EPT density in urban reaches was not predictable. The abundance of fine particulate organic matter, including periphyton (FPOM), on cobbles was greater in urban reaches and showed a much greater degree of temporal variation than in rural reaches. In urban reaches, a negative relation between FPOM and RI indicated the importance of stormflow abrasion. Handling editor: K. Martens     

Improving model construction of profile HMMs for remote homology detection through structural alignment

Background  

Remote homology detection is a challenging problem in Bioinformatics. Arguably, profile Hidden Markov Models (pHMMs) are one of the most successful approaches in addressing this important problem. pHMM packages present a relatively small computational cost, and perform particularly well at recognizing remote homologies. This raises the question of whether structural alignments could impact the performance of pHMMs trained from proteins in the Twilight Zone, as structural alignments are often more accurate than sequence alignments at identifying motifs and functional residues. Next, we assess the impact of using structural alignments in pHMM performance.     

Transcriptional signatures of normal human mammary epithelial cells in response to benzo[a]pyrene exposure: a comparison of three microarray platforms

Microarrays are used to study gene expression in a variety of biological systems. A number of different platforms have been developed, but few studies exist that have directly compared the performance of one platform with another. The goal of this study was to determine array variation by analyzing the same RNA samples with three different array platforms. Using gene expression responses to benzo[a]pyrene exposure in normal human mammary epithelial cells (NHMECs), we compared the results of gene expression profiling using three microarray platforms: photolithographic oligonucleotide arrays (Affymetrix), spotted oligonucleotide arrays (Amersham), and spotted cDNA arrays (NCI). While most previous reports comparing microarrays have analyzed pre-existing data from different platforms, this comparison study used the same sample assayed on all three platforms, allowing for analysis of variation from each array platform. In general, poor correlation was found with corresponding measurements from each platform. Each platform yielded different gene expression profiles, suggesting that while microarray analysis is a useful discovery tool, further validation is needed to extrapolate results for broad use of the data. Also, microarray variability needs to be taken into consideration, not only in the data analysis but also in specific probe selection for each array type.