Motoric Recovery After Transplantation of Bone Marrow Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Chronic Spinal Cord Injury: A Case Report.

BACKGROUND For the past 20 years, numerous of clinical trials focusing on the use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in spinal cord injury (SCI) treatment has been conducted. However, controversies over whether stem cells are the main factor in a patient's recovery still persisted in sub-acute SCI. This study aimed to evaluate the motoric recovery in a chronic SCI patient treated with bone marrow derived MSC (BM-MSC) transplantation. CASE REPORT We present a case report of patient with a 12-year-long-chronic SCI that was treated by BM-MSC) transplantation using a serial administration protocol. The protocol consisted of direct parenchymal injection to the affected lesion and multiple (5 times) intravenous stem cell injection as the adjuncts. There was no complication or serious adverse effects encountered during the procedure and follow up. At the final follow up of 5 years, the patient neurological status improved from American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) A status to ASIA C status, which signifies improvement in his ambulatory status. Magnetic resonance imaging and electrophysiology examination also showed changes that indicated recovery of the neurologic function. CONCLUSIONS Based on the limited adverse reaction and outcome, our case report may serve as an additional alternative protocol in stem cell administration to improve the outcome of chronic spinal cord injury patients.

A database of marine phytoplankton abundance, biomass and species composition in Australian waters.

There have been many individual phytoplankton datasets collected across Australia since the mid 1900s, but most are unavailable to the research community. We have searched archives, contacted researchers, and scanned the primary and grey literature to collate 3,621,847 records of marine phytoplankton species from Australian waters from 1844 to the present. Many of these are small datasets collected for local questions, but combined they provide over 170 years of data on phytoplankton communities in Australian waters. Units and taxonomy have been standardised, obviously erroneous data removed, and all metadata included. We have lodged this dataset with the Australian Ocean Data Network (http://portal.aodn.org.au/) allowing public access. The Australian Phytoplankton Database will be invaluable for global change studies, as it allows analysis of ecological indicators of climate change and eutrophication (e.g., changes in distribution; diatom:dinoflagellate ratios). In addition, the standardised conversion of abundance records to biomass provides modellers with quantifiable data to initialise and validate ecosystem models of lower marine trophic levels.

Alexandrium diversaporum sp. nov., a new non-saxitoxin producing species: Phylogeny, morphology and sxtA genes.

Species of the PST producing planktonic marine dinoflagellate genus Alexandrium have been intensively scrutinised, and it is therefore surprising that new taxa can still be found. Here we report a new species, Alexandrium diversaporum nov. sp., isolated from spherical cysts found at two sites in Tasmania, Australia. This species differs in its morphology from all previously reported Alexandrium species, possessing a unique combination of morphological features: the presence of 2 size classes of thecal pores on the cell surface, a medium cell size, the size and shape of the 6″, 1', 2⁗ and Sp plates, the lack of a ventral pore, a lack of anterior and posterior connecting pores, and a lack of chain formation. We determined the relationship of the two strains to other species of Alexandrium based on an alignment of concatenated SSU-ITS1, 5.8S, ITS2 and partial LSU ribosomal RNA sequences, and found A. diversaporum to be a sister group to Alexandrium leei with high support. A. leei shares several morphological features, including the relative size and shapes of the 6″, 1', 2⁗ and Sp plates and the fact that some strains of A. leei have two size classes of thecal pores. We examined A. diversaporum strains for saxitoxin production and found them to be non-toxic. The species lacked sequences for the domain A4 of sxtA, as has been previously found for non-saxitoxin producing species of Alexandrium.