Gastrointestinal microflora,food components and colon cancer prevention

Evidence that the intestinal microbiota is intrinsically linked with overall health, including cancer risk, is emerging. Moreover, its composition is not fixed but can be influenced by several dietary components. Dietary modifiers, including the consumption of live bacteria (probiotics) and indigestible or limited digestible food constituents such as oligosaccharides (prebiotics) and polyphenols or both (synbiotics), are recognized modifiers of the numbers and types of microbes and have been reported to reduce colon cancer risk experimentally. Microorganisms also have the ability to generate bioactive compounds from food components. Examples include equol from isoflavones, enterodiol and enterolactone from lignans and urolithins from ellagic acid, which have also been demonstrated to retard experimentally induced cancers. The gastrointestinal microbiota can also influence both sides of the energy balance equation, namely, as a factor influencing energy utilization from the diet and as a factor that influences host genes that regulate energy expenditure and storage. Because of the link between obesity and cancer incidence and mortality, this complex complexion deserves greater attention. Overall, a dynamic interrelationship exists between the intestinal microbiota and colon cancer risk, which can be modified by dietary components and eating behaviors.     

Burn Injury Reduces Neutrophil Directional Migration Speed in Microfluidic Devices

Thermal injury triggers a fulminant inflammatory cascade that heralds shock, end-organ failure, and ultimately sepsis and death. Emerging evidence points to a critical role for the innate immune system, and several studies had documented concurrent impairment in neutrophil chemotaxis with these post-burn inflammatory changes. While a few studies suggest that a link between neutrophil motility and patient mortality might exist, so far, cumbersome assays have prohibited exploration of the prognostic and diagnostic significance of chemotaxis after burn injury. To address this need, we developed a microfluidic device that is simple to operate and allows for precise and robust measurements of chemotaxis speed and persistence characteristics at single-cell resolution. Using this assay, we established a reference set of migration speed values for neutrophils from healthy subjects. Comparisons with samples from burn patients revealed impaired directional migration speed starting as early as 24 hours after burn injury, reaching a minimum at 72–120 hours, correlated to the size of the burn injury and potentially serving as an early indicator for concurrent infections. Further characterization of neutrophil chemotaxis using this new assay may have important diagnostic implications not only for burn patients but also for patients afflicted by other diseases that compromise neutrophil functions.     

Genome Sequence and Comparative Genomics Analysis of a Vibrio cholerae O1 Strain Isolated from a Cholera Patient in Malaysia

The genome sequence analysis of a clinical Vibrio cholerae VC35 strain from an outbreak case in Malaysia indicates multiple genes involved in host adaptation and a novel Na⁺-driven multidrug efflux pump-coding gene in the genome of Vibrio cholerae with the highest similarity to VMA_001754 of Vibrio mimicus VMA223.     

Age-related variability in occlusal wear planes

Investigation of two populations of 136 individuals shows several patterns of occlusal wear plane change which are positively correlated with age. For individuals up to the age of 18, there is a characteristic pattern in which the occlusal wear planes of the mandibular teeth are lingually sloped and those of the maxillary dentition buccally sloped, with the exception of the maxillary premolars, which are also lingually sloped. The long axes of the mandibular teeth give them a lingual orientation relative to the maxillary teeth, and the long axes of the maxillary molars, by contrast, are buccally oriented. In the 18-30 age range for all sexes, the mandibular M1 becomes buccally sloped on its occlusal surface while the occlusal wear plane on the maxillary M1 becomes lingually sloped. Later age changes indicate a trend for the mandibular premolars to become buccally sloped, while the wear planes of the maxillary premolars remain lingually sloped. There is a corresponding tendency for the maxillary and mandibular second molars to undergo changes in the initial orientation of the occlusal wear planes.