Protein family annotation for the Unified Human Gastrointestinal Proteome by DPCfam clustering.

Technological advances in massively parallel sequencing have led to an exponential growth in the number of known protein sequences. Much of this growth originates from metagenomic projects producing new sequences from environmental and clinical samples. The Unified Human Gastrointestinal Proteome (UHGP) catalogue is one of the most relevant metagenomic datasets with applications ranging from medicine to biology. However, the low levels of sequence annotation may impair its usability. This work aims to produce a family classification of UHGP sequences to facilitate downstream structural and functional annotation. This is achieved through the release of the DPCfam-UHGP50 dataset containing 10,778 putative protein families generated using DPCfam clustering, an unsupervised pipeline grouping sequences into single or multi-domain architectures. DPCfam-UHGP50 considerably improves family coverage at protein and residue levels compared to the manually curated repository Pfam. In the hope that DPCfam-UHGP50 will foster future discoveries in the field of metagenomics of the human gut, we release a FAIR-compliant database of our results that is easily accessible via a searchable web server and Zenodo repository.

New perineal tensive transobturator tape (T-TOT) for postprostatectomy urinary incontinence.

UNLABELLED: Bulbourethral transobturator sling data from other investigators report a success rate from 53% to 85%. Since the degree of sling tension and its adjustment seems to be important for achieving complete urinary continence we present results on the first consecutive 12 patients, with mild post prostatectomy stress urinary incontinence--defined as--less than 500 ml, who underwent a new perineal tensive transobturator polypropylene tape (T-TOT) procedure at our institution. RESULTS: Pre-operative mean abdominal leak point pressure (ALPP) was 23 cm H2O (sd +/- 10), retrograde leak point pressure (RLPP) was 24 cm H2O (sd +/- 6) and the mean pad test was 324 g (sd +/- 176). The overall success rate has been of 58.3% (7 patients) complete responders (CR), 33.3% (4 pts) partial responders (PR) and 8.33% (1 patient) failure. No significant urodynamic outlet obstruction nor urethral erosion occurred at 9-month follow up occurred. Post operative ICIQ-SF questionnaire score dropped from 11 to 3 with significant statistical evidence (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Perineal T-TOT showed safe and effective results similar to conventional bulbourethral transobturator male slings without obstructive symptoms despite maximal tension was used. Anyway longer prospective follow up is needed to determine the long-term efficacy of this procedure and the effective preservation from urethral erosion.

Soft prosthesis implant and relaxing albugineal incision with saphenous grafting for surgical therapy of Peyronie's disease: a 5-year experience and long-term follow-up on 145 operated patients.

INTRODUCTION: Most surgical therapies used to date for Peyronie's disease produce good results but cause penis retraction. The authors propose a personal surgical technique that makes use of an intracavernous cylinder, soft but axially rigid in consistency, in association with tunical relaxing incisions and saphenous vein grafting, in this exact sequence. METHODS: Between March 1997 and March 2003, 145 patients presenting with Peyronie's disease underwent this 3-phase personal surgical procedure. Complete plaque excision was necessary only for 13 patients (8.9%); in the remaining 132, a single incision was placed in 113 cases (77.9%) and double incisions were used for 19 patients (13.1%). Penile length was measured intraoperatively, after drug-hydraulic erection, then at the later control visits. Distance follow-up ranged from a minimum of 6 months to a maximum period of 3 years (mean 13 months); the latter follow-up period was possible for 38 patients. All patients and partners with at least one year follow-up were asked to answer a questionnaire administered over the telephone at 12 months post-surgery. RESULTS: Average penile lengthening was approximately 1.5 cm. 80 patients answered the questionnaire (70.75%): 76 expressed complete satisfaction, while 4 patients reported glans paresthesia. No major complications were noted; for 8 patients circumcision was repeated because of preputial edema. In 6 cases there was a local, postoperative infection, that was treated conservatively with a prolonged antibiotic therapy. CONCLUSIONS: This technique allows to successfully solve penile retraction, caused by traditional surgery for Peyronie's disease. The technique is easy to carry out, has low risks of complications and ensures very high rates of patient satisfaction.

[Urethro-autoplasty: scrotal in-lay, mesh-graft, buccal on-lay]. / Uretro-autoplastiche: in-lay scrotale, mesh-graft, on-lay buccale.

The surgical therapy of the urethral strictures is still controversial as it interests the choice of an appropriate technique among many methods. In cases of complex urethral strictures, urethroplasties using genital or extragenital tissue for reconstruction are indicated. Scrotal in-lay was popular some years ago, but the complications rate was high. Nowdays, the two techniques with better outcome are the mesh graft urethroplasty and the buccal mucosa on-lay urethroplasty.