Hemolysin expressing UPEC strains have been associated with severe advanced kidney pathologies, such as cystitis and pyelonephritis, which are associated with an inflammatory response. Macrophages play an important role in regulating an inflammatory response during a urinary tract infection. We have studied the role of purified recombinant α-hemolysin in inducing inflammatory responses and cell de

The recent clinical trial (DAWN) suggests that recanalization treatment may be beneficial up to 24 h after stroke onset, thus re-opening avenues for development of new therapeutic strategies. Unfortunately, there is a continuous failure of drugs in clinical trials and one of the major reasons proposed for this translational roadblock is the animal models. Therefore, the purpose of this study was t

Interaction effects of the latticework duct and jet cooling structures on the flow structure and heat transfer were numerically investigated. The latticework duct included eleven sub-channels both on the top wall and bottom wall. The crossing angle was set as 90°. The jet cooling structures had a curved target surface and seven jet nozzles. The jet cooling structures and latticework duct were conn

We employed Mendelian randomization (MR) to evaluate the causal relationship between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (n = ~ 38,000 for LTL and ~ 81,000 for ALS in the European population; n = ~ 23,000 for LTL and ~ 4,100 for ALS in the Asian population). We further evaluated mediation roles of lipi

The role of mammalian Transient Receptor Potential Ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) as a mechanosensor is controversial. Here, we report that purified human TRPA1 (hTRPA1) with and without its N-terminal ankyrin repeat domain responded with pressure-dependent single-channel current activity when reconstituted into artificial lipid bilayers. The hTRPA1 activity was abolished by the thiol reducing agent TCEP. Thus

Background: Poor health and unmet healthcare needs is common among people with substance use disorder (SUD) including patients in opioid substitution treatment (OST). Low health literacy (HL) is associated with poverty, low education and physical limitations, but is unexplored in an OST context. Methods: Mixed-methods were used. Participants were consecutively recruited by clinic staff or research

Alpine soils are warming strongly, leading to profound alterations in carbon cycling and greenhouse gas budgets, mediated via the soil microbiome. To explore microbial responses to global warming, we incubated eight alpine soils between 4 and 35 °C and linked the temperature dependency of bacterial growth with alterations in community structures and the identification of temperature sensitive taxa

Mafic dykes and dyke swarms in continental settings provide information on the evolution of the subcontinental mantle and can be key elements in the reconstruction of paleo-geographic settings of now separated crustal terranes. This study focuses on the petrogenesis and geochronology of mafic dykes of the WNW (~125°) trending Bhanupratappur swarm in the central Bastar Craton, central India. Dykes

Background: Streptococcus pyogenes is a well-known cause of postpartum infections and is causing significant morbidity and mortality. Aim: To describe measures taken to control an outbreak of postpartum infections caused by S. pyogenes emm75 on a maternity ward. Methods: Patients presenting postpartum with signs and symptoms of infection were cultured for β-haemolytic streptococci with cervical sw

We investigate the trade-off between energy usage and (packet) throughput in wireless mesh networks performing machine-to-machine communication. For this we provide a novel mixed-integer programming formulation to maximise the throughput while maintaining minimal energy usage, together with an effective price-and-branch solution algorithm based on column generation. The resulting optimisation mode

PURPOSE: A prespecified statistical model based on 4 kallikrein markers in blood, commercially available as the 4Kscore®, has been shown to accurately detect high grade (greater than Grade Group 2) prostate cancer in men with moderately elevated prostate specific antigen. We assessed whether the model predicted prostate cancer metastasis or death in men not subject to prostate specific antigen scr

Gluten protein crosslinking is a predetermined process where specific intra-and intermolecular disulfide bonds differ depending on the protein and cysteine motif. In this article, all-atom Monte Carlo simulations were used to understand the formation of disulfide bonds in gliadins and low molecular weight glutenin subunits (LMW-GS). The two intrinsically disordered proteins appeared to contain mos