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The coculture theory that promotes denitrification relies on effectively utilizing the resources of low-efficiency denitrification microbes. Here, the strains Streptomyces sp. PYX97 and Streptomyces sp. TSJ96 were isolated and showed lower denitrification capacity when cultured individually. However, the coculture of strains PYX97 and TSJ96 enhanced nitrogen removal (removed 96.40% of total nitrogen) and organic carbon reduction (removed 92.13% of dissolved organic carbon) under aerobic conditions. Nitrogen balance analysis indicated that coculturing enhanced the efficiency of nitrate converted into gaseous nitrogen reaching 70.42%. Meanwhile, the coculturing promoted the cell metabolism capacity and carbon source metabolic activity. The coculture strains PYX97 and TSJ96 thrived in conditions of C/N = 10, alkalescence, and 150 rpm shaking speed. The coculturing reduced total nitrogen and CODMn in the raw water treatment by 83.32 and 84.21%, respectively. During this treatment, the cell metabolic activity and cell density increased in the coculture strains PYX97 and TSJ96 reactor. Moreover, the coculture strains could utilize aromatic protein and soluble microbial products during aerobic denitrification processes in raw water treatment. This study suggests that coculturing inefficient actinomycete strains could be a promising approach for treating polluted water bodies.
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Actinobacteria , Desnitrificación , Aerobiosis , Actinobacteria/metabolismo , Actinomyces/metabolismo , Carbono , Técnicas de Cocultivo , Nitratos/metabolismo , Nitrógeno , NitrificaciónRESUMEN
To investigate automation of the preparation of the region of interest (ROI) for surface-guided radiotherapy (SGRT) of the whole breast with two algorithms based on contour anatomies: using the body contour, and using the breast contour. The patient dataset used for modeling consisted of 39 breast cancer patients previously treated with SGRT. The patient's anatomical structures (body and ipsilateral breast) were retrieved from the planning system, and the clinical ROI (cROI) drawn by the planners was retrieved from the SGRT system for comparison. For the body-contour-based algorithm, a convolutional neural network (MobileNet-v2) was utilized to train a synthetic human model dataset to predict body joint locations. With the body joint location knowledge, an automated ROI (aROIbody ) can be created based on: (1) the superior-inferior (S-I) borders defined by the joint locations, (2) the left-right (L-R) borders defined with 3/4 of chest width, and (3) a curation of the ROI to avoid the ipsilateral armpit. For the breast-contour-based algorithm, an aROIbreast was created by first defining the ROI in the S-I direction with the ipsilateral breast boundaries. Other steps are the same as with the body-contour-based algorithm. Among the 39 patients, 24 patients were used to fine-tune the algorithm parameters, and the remaining 15 patients were used to evaluate the quality of the aROIs against the cROIs. A blinded evaluation was performed by three SGRT expert physicists to rate the acceptability and the quality (1-10 scale) of the aROIs and cROIs, and the dice similarity coefficient (DSC) was also calculated to compare the similarity between the aROIs and cROIs. The results showed that the average acceptability was 14/15 (range: 13/15-15/15) for cROIs, 13.3/15 (range: 13/15-14/15) for aROIbody , and 14.6/15 (range: 14/15-15/15) for aROIbreast . The average quality was 7.4 ± 0.8 for cROIs, 8.1 ± 1.2 for aROIbody , and 8.2 ± 0.9 for aROIbreast . The DSC with cROIs was 0.81 ± 0.06 for aROIbody , and 0.83 ± 0.04 for aROIbreast . The ROI creation time was â¼120 s for clinical, 1.3 s for aROIbody , and 1.2 s for aROIbreast . The proposed automated algorithms can improve the ROI compliance with the SGRT protocol, with a shortened preparation time. It is ready to be integrated into the clinical workflow for automated ROI preparation.
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Neoplasias de la Mama , Radioterapia Guiada por Imagen , Humanos , Femenino , Neoplasias de la Mama/radioterapia , Algoritmos , Mama/diagnóstico por imagen , Redes Neurales de la Computación , Planificación de la Radioterapia Asistida por Computador/métodosRESUMEN
A label-free immunoassay based on rolling circle amplification (RCA) and G-quadruplex/Thioflavin T (G4/ThT) is proposed to realize the sensitive detection of carboxy-terminal cross-linked fragment of type I collagen (CTX I) for bone loss. Under the optimal conditions, as low as 38.02 pg/mL of CTX I can be detected. To improve the detecting throughput and simplify the operation, a microfluidic chip was designed, fabricated, and used for CTX I detection based on the proposed assay. The detection can be completed with only a single on-chip magnetic separation step, which was easy to operate, less time-consuming, and has only low reagent consumption. The limit of detection was 131.83 pg/mL by observing with fluorescence microscope. With further improvement of detection equipment, the sensitivity of on-chip detection can be improved. It can be expected that the proposed RCA/G4/ThT immunoassay for sensitive and high-throughput automated detection of CTX I might be chosen as a potential analytical tool for clinical osteoporosis diagnosis and in-orbit bone loss detection.
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G-Cuádruplex , Microfluídica , Benzotiazoles , BioensayoRESUMEN
Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is a Gram-negative enteropathogen and causes gastrointestinal infections. It disseminates from gut to mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs), spleen, and liver of infected humans and animals. Although the molecular mechanisms for dissemination and infection are unclear, many Gram-negative enteropathogens presumably invade the small intestine via Peyer's patches to initiate dissemination. In this study, we demonstrate that Y. pseudotuberculosis utilizes its lipopolysaccharide (LPS) core to interact with CD209 receptors, leading to invasion of human dendritic cells (DCs) and murine macrophages. These Y. pseudotuberculosis-CD209 interactions result in bacterial dissemination to MLNs, spleens, and livers of both wild-type and Peyer's patch-deficient mice. The blocking of the Y. pseudotuberculosis-CD209 interactions by expression of O-antigen and with oligosaccharides reduces infectivity. Based on the well-documented studies in which HIV-CD209 interaction leads to viral dissemination, we therefore propose an infection route for Y. pseudotuberculosis where this pathogen, after penetrating the intestinal mucosal membrane, hijacks the Y. pseudotuberculosis-CD209 interaction antigen-presenting cells to reach their target destinations, MLNs, spleens, and livers.
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Moléculas de Adhesión Celular/metabolismo , Células Dendríticas/microbiología , Endocitosis , Interacciones Huésped-Patógeno , Lectinas Tipo C/metabolismo , Lipopolisacáridos/metabolismo , Macrófagos/microbiología , Receptores de Superficie Celular/metabolismo , Yersinia pseudotuberculosis/patogenicidad , Animales , Adhesión Bacteriana , Células Cultivadas , Modelos Animales de Enfermedad , Humanos , Ratones Endogámicos BALB C , Ratones Endogámicos C57BL , Unión Proteica , Yersiniosis/microbiología , Yersiniosis/patología , Yersiniosis/fisiopatologíaRESUMEN
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, a Gram-negative bacterium, can cause infectious diseases ranging from gastroenteritis to systemic dissemination and infection. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this bacterial dissemination have yet to be elucidated. A study indicated that using the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) core as a ligand, S Typhimurium was able to bind human dendritic cell-specific intercellular adhesion molecule-3-grabbing nonintegrin (hCD209a), an HIV receptor that promotes viral dissemination by hijacking antigen-presenting cells (APCs). In this study, we showed that S Typhimurium interacted with CD209s, leading to the invasion of APCs and potentially the dissemination to regional lymph nodes, spleen, and liver in mice. Shielding of the exposed LPS core through the expression of O-antigen reduces dissemination and infection. Thus, we propose that similar to HIV, S Typhimurium may also utilize APCs via interactions with CD209s as a way to disseminate to the lymph nodes, spleen, and liver to initiate host infection.
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Moléculas de Adhesión Celular/fisiología , Lectinas Tipo C/fisiología , Receptores de Superficie Celular/fisiología , Salmonella typhimurium/patogenicidad , Animales , Células Presentadoras de Antígenos/microbiología , Femenino , Interacciones Huésped-Patógeno , Humanos , Lipopolisacáridos/fisiología , Mananos/farmacología , Ratones , Ratones Endogámicos C57BL , Antígenos O/fisiología , Ganglios Linfáticos Agregados/fisiología , Fagocitosis , Células RAW 264.7RESUMEN
Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) is an emerging technique which can improve the availability and efficiency of equipment. A series of related optimization of the PHM system has been achieved due to the growing need for lowering the cost of maintenance. The PHM system highly relies on data collected from its components. Based on the theory of machine learning, this paper proposes a bio-inspired PHM model based on a dissolved gas-in-oil dataset (DGA) to diagnose faults of transformes in power grids. Specifically, this model applies Bat algorithm (BA), a metaheuristic population-based algorithm, to optimize the structure of the Back-propagation neural network (BPNN). Furthermore, this paper proposes a modified Bat algorithm (MBA); here the chaos strategy is utilized to improve the random initialization process of BA in order to avoid falling into local optima. To prove that the proposed PHM model has better fault diagnostic performance than others, fitness and mean squared error (MSE) of Bat-BPNN are set as reference amounts to compare with other power grid PHM approaches including BPNN, Particle swarm optimization (PSO)-BPNN, as well as Genetic algorithm (GA)-BPNN. The experimental results show that the BA-BPNN model has increased the fault diagnosis accuracy from 77.14% to 97.14%, which is higher than other power transformer PHM models.
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An emerging prognostic and health management (PHM) technology has recently attracted a great deal of attention from academies, industries, and governments. The need for higher equipment availability and lower maintenance cost is driving the development and integration of prognostic and health management systems. PHM models depend on the smart sensors and data generated from sensors. This paper proposed a machine learning-based methods for developing PHM models from sensor data to perform fault diagnostic for transformer systems in a smart grid. In particular, we apply the Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm to optimize the Back-propagation (BP) neural network in order to build high performance fault diagnostics models. The models were developed using sensor data called dissolved gas data in oil of the power transformer. We validated the models using real sensor data collected from power transformers in China. The results demonstrate that the developed meta heuristic algorithm for optimizing the parameters of the neural network is effective and useful; and machine learning-based models significantly improved the performance and accuracy of fault diagnosis/detection for power transformer PHM.
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Gab proteins, Grb2 (growth factor receptor binding protein 2)-associated binder, are important scaffolding adapter proteins required by many signaling pathways. In mammals, the Gab proteins mainly consist of Gab1, Gab2 and Gab3, and are involved in the amplification and integration of signal transduction evoked by a variety of extracellular stimuli, including various growth factors and cytokines. They are known to play key roles in many biological processes through the two classical signal pathways, SHP2/RAS/ERK and PI3K/AKT. In this review, we provide an overview of the structure and function of the scaffolding adapter, Gab, with a special focus on its role in tumor, inflammation and cardiovascular diseases.
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Enfermedades Cardiovasculares , Inflamación , Neoplasias , Proteínas Adaptadoras Transductoras de Señales , Humanos , Péptidos y Proteínas de Señalización Intercelular , Fosfatidilinositol 3-Quinasas , Fosforilación , Transducción de SeñalRESUMEN
Yersinia pestis is a Gram-negative bacterium that causes plague. After Y. pestis overcomes the skin barrier, it encounters antigen-presenting cells (APCs), such as Langerhans and dendritic cells. They transport the bacteria from the skin to the lymph nodes. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in bacterial transmission are unclear. Langerhans cells (LCs) express Langerin (CD207), a calcium-dependent (C-type) lectin. Furthermore, Y. pestis possesses exposed core oligosaccharides. In this study, we show that Y. pestis invades LCs and Langerin-expressing transfectants. However, when the bacterial core oligosaccharides are shielded or truncated, Y. pestis propensity to invade Langerhans and Langerin-expressing cells decreases. Moreover, the interaction of Y. pestis with Langerin-expressing transfectants is inhibited by purified Langerin, a DC-SIGN (DC-specific intercellular adhesion molecule 3 grabbing nonintegrin)-like molecule, an anti-CD207 antibody, purified core oligosaccharides and several oligosaccharides. Furthermore, covering core oligosaccharides reduces the mortality associated with murine infection by adversely affecting the transmission of Y. pestis to lymph nodes. These results demonstrate that direct interaction of core oligosaccharides with Langerin facilitates the invasion of LCs by Y. pestis. Therefore, Langerin-mediated binding of Y. pestis to APCs may promote its dissemination and infection.
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Células Presentadoras de Antígenos/inmunología , Antígenos CD/inmunología , Lectinas Tipo C/inmunología , Lectinas de Unión a Manosa/inmunología , Fagocitosis/inmunología , Yersinia pestis/inmunología , Animales , Células Presentadoras de Antígenos/microbiología , Antígenos CD/metabolismo , Adhesión Bacteriana/inmunología , Células CHO , Células Cultivadas , Cricetinae , Cricetulus , Células Dendríticas/inmunología , Células Dendríticas/metabolismo , Citometría de Flujo , Interacciones Huésped-Patógeno/inmunología , Humanos , Células de Langerhans/inmunología , Células de Langerhans/metabolismo , Lectinas Tipo C/metabolismo , Lectinas de Unión a Manosa/metabolismo , Ratones , Antígenos O/inmunología , Antígenos O/metabolismo , Peste/inmunología , Peste/microbiología , Unión Proteica/inmunología , Receptores de Superficie Celular/inmunología , Receptores de Superficie Celular/metabolismo , Análisis de Supervivencia , Yersinia pestis/metabolismo , Yersinia pestis/fisiologíaRESUMEN
An integrated and high-throughput device for pathogen detection is crucial in point-of-care testing (POCT), especially for early diagnosis of infectious diseases and preventing the spread of infection. We developed an on-site testing platform that utilizes a centrifugal microfluidic chip and automated device to achieve high-throughput detection. The low-power (<32 W), portable (220 mm × 220 mm × 170 mm, 4 kg) device can complete bacterial lysis, nucleic acid extraction and purification, loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) reaction, and real-time fluorescence detection. Magnetic beads for nucleic acid adsorption can be mixed by applying electromagnetic fields and centrifugal forces, and the efficiency of nucleic acid extraction is improved by 60% compared to the no-mixing group. The automated nucleic acid extraction process achieves equivalent nucleic acid extraction efficiency in only 40% of the time consumed using the kit protocol. By designing the valve system and disc layout, the maximum speed required for the centrifugal microfluidic chip is reduced to 1500 rpm, greatly reducing the equipment power consumption and size. In detecting E. coli, our platform achieves a limit of detection (LOD) of 102 CFU/mL in 60 min. In summary, our active centrifugal microfluidic platform provides a solution for the integration of complex biological assays on turntables, with great potential in the application of point-of-care diagnosis.
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Dispositivos Laboratorio en un Chip , Técnicas de Amplificación de Ácido Nucleico , Escherichia coli/aislamiento & purificación , Humanos , Técnicas Biosensibles , Límite de Detección , Centrifugación , Técnicas de Diagnóstico MolecularRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Quality assurance of deformable image registration (DIR) is challenging because the ground truth is often unavailable. In addition, current approaches that rely on artificial transformations do not adequately resemble clinical scenarios encountered in adaptive radiotherapy. PURPOSE: We developed an atlas-based method to create a variety of patient-specific serial digital phantoms with CBCT-like image quality to assess the DIR performance for longitudinal CBCT imaging data in adaptive lung radiotherapy. METHODS: A library of deformations was created by extracting the longitudinal changes observed between a planning CT and weekly CBCT from an atlas of lung radiotherapy patients. The planning CT of an inquiry patient was first deformed by mapping the deformation pattern from a matched atlas patient, and subsequently appended with CBCT artifacts to imitate a weekly CBCT. Finally, a group of digital phantoms around an inquiry patient was produced to simulate a series of possible evolutions of tumor and adjacent normal structures. We validated the generated deformation vector fields (DVFs) to ensure numerically and physiologically realistic transformations. The proposed framework was applied to evaluate the performance of the DIR algorithm implemented in the commercial Eclipse treatment planning system in a retrospective study of eight inquiry patients. RESULTS: The generated DVFs were inverse consistent within less than 3 mm and did not exhibit unrealistic folding. The deformation patterns adequately mimicked the observed longitudinal anatomical changes of the matched atlas patients. Worse Eclipse DVF accuracy was observed in regions of low image contrast or artifacts. The structure volumes exhibiting a DVF error magnitude of equal or more than 2 mm ranged from 24.5% (spinal cord) to 69.2% (heart) and the maximum DVF error exceeded 5 mm for all structures except the spinal cord. Contour-based evaluations showed a high degree of alignment with dice similarity coefficients above 0.8 in all cases, which underestimated the overall DVF accuracy within the structures. CONCLUSIONS: It is feasible to create and augment digital phantoms based on a particular patient of interest using multiple series of deformation patterns from matched patients in an atlas. This can provide a semi-automated procedure to complement the quality assurance of CT-CBCT DIR and facilitate the clinical implementation of image-guided and adaptive radiotherapy that involve longitudinal CBCT imaging studies.
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Tomografía Computarizada de Haz Cónico Espiral , Humanos , Estudios Retrospectivos , Tomografía Computarizada de Haz Cónico/métodos , Planificación de la Radioterapia Asistida por Computador/métodos , Fantasmas de Imagen , Pulmón/diagnóstico por imagen , Procesamiento de Imagen Asistido por Computador/métodos , AlgoritmosRESUMEN
The harmful algal blooms (HABs) can damage the ecological equilibrium of aquatic ecosystems and threaten human health. The bio-degradation of algal by algicidal bacteria is an environmentally friendly and economical approach to control HABs. This study applied an aerobic denitrification synchronization algicidal strain Streptomyces sp. LJH-12-1 (L1) to control HABs. The cell-free filtrate of the strain L1 showed a great algolytic effect on bloom-forming cyanobacterium, Microcystis aeruginosa (M. aeruginosa). The optimal algicidal property of strain L1 was indirect light-dependent algicidal with an algicidal rate of 85.0%. The functional metabolism, light-trapping, light-transfer efficiency, the content of pigments, and inhibition of photosynthesis of M. aeruginosa decreased after the addition of the supernatant of the strain L1 due to oxidative stress. Moreover, 96.05% nitrate removal rate synchronized with algicidal activity was achieved with the strain L1. The relative abundance of N cycling functional genes significantly increased during the strain L1 effect on M. aeruginosa. The algicidal efficiency of the strain L1 in the raw water was 76.70% with nitrate removal efficiency of 81.4%. Overall, this study provides a novel route to apply bacterial strain with the property of denitrification coupled with algicidal activity in treating micro-polluted water bodies.
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Desnitrificación , Floraciones de Algas Nocivas , Microcystis , Microcystis/metabolismo , Nitrógeno/metabolismo , Streptomyces/metabolismo , Nitratos/metabolismo , FotosíntesisRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that different hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotypes may have distinct virological characteristics that correlate with clinical outcomes during antiviral therapy and the natural course of infection. Hydrodynamic injection (HI) of HBV in the mouse model is a useful tool for study of HBV replication in vivo. However, only HBV genotype A has been used for studies with HI. METHODS: We constructed 3 replication-competent clones containing 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 fold overlength of a HBV genotype B genome and tested them both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, A HBV genotype B clone based on the pAAV-MCS vector was constructed with the 1.3 fold HBV genome, resulting in the plasmid pAAV-HBV1.3B and tested by HI in C57BL/6 mice. Application of siRNA against HBx gene was tested in HBV genotype B HI mouse model. RESULTS: The 1.3 fold HBV clone showed higher replication and gene expression than the 1.1 and 1.2 fold HBV clones. Compared with pAAV-HBV1.2 (genotype A), the mice HI with pAAV-HBV1.3B showed higher HBsAg and HBeAg expression as well as HBV DNA replication level but a higher clearance rate. Application of two plasmids pSB-HBxi285 and pSR-HBxi285 expressing a small/short interfering RNA (siRNA) to the HBx gene in HBV genotype B HI mouse model, leading to an inhibition of HBV gene expression and replication. However, HBV gene expression may resume in some mice despite an initial delay, suggesting that transient suppression of HBV replication by siRNA may be insufficient to prevent viral spread, particularly if the gene silencing is not highly effective. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, the HI mouse model with a HBV genotype B genome was successfully established and showed different characteristics in vivo compared with the genotype A genome. The effectiveness of gene silencing against HBx gene determines whether HBV replication may be sustainably inhibited by siRNA in vivo.
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Regulación Viral de la Expresión Génica , Silenciador del Gen , Virus de la Hepatitis B/fisiología , Hepatitis B/virología , Transactivadores/metabolismo , Replicación Viral , Animales , Modelos Animales de Enfermedad , Femenino , Genotipo , Virus de la Hepatitis B/genética , Ratones , Ratones Endogámicos BALB C , Transactivadores/genética , Proteínas Reguladoras y Accesorias ViralesRESUMEN
We present SizePairs, a new technique to create stable and balanced treemap layouts that visualize values changing over time in hierarchical data. To achieve an overall high-quality result across all time steps in terms of stability and aspect ratio, SizePairs employs a new hierarchical size-based pairing algorithm that recursively pairs two nodes that complement their size changes over time and have similar sizes. SizePairs maximizes the visual quality and stability by optimizing the splitting orientation of each internal node and flipping leaf nodes, if necessary. We also present a comprehensive comparison of SizePairs against the state-of-the-art treemaps developed for visualizing time-dependent data. SizePairs outperforms existing techniques in both visual quality and stability, while being faster than the local moves technique.
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Rapid detection of nucleic acids is integral for clinical diagnostics, especially if a major public-health emergency occurs. However, such detection cannot be carried out efficiently in remote areas limited by medical resources. Herein, a dual-labeled fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) lateral flow assay (LFA) based on one-pot enzyme-free cascade amplification was developed for rapid, convenient, and sensitive detection of open reading frame (ORF)1ab of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2. The catalyzed hairpin assembly (CHA) reaction of two well-designed hairpin probes was initiated by a target sequence and generated a hybridization chain reaction (HCR) initiator. Then, HCR probes modified with biotin were initiated to produce long DNA nanowires. After two-level amplification, the cascade-amplified product was detected by dual-labeled lateral flow strips. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)-streptavidin combined with the product and then ran along a nitrocellulose membrane under the action of capillary force. After binding with fluorescent microsphere-labeled-specific probes on the T line, a positive signal (red color) could be observed. Meanwhile, AuNPs could quench the fluorescence of the T line, and an inverse relationship between fluorescence intensity and the concentration of the CHA-HCR-amplified product was formed. The proposed strategy achieved a satisfactory limit of detection of 2.46 pM for colorimetric detection and 174 fM for fluorescent detection, respectively. Benefitting from the features of being one-pot, enzyme-free, low background, high sensitivity, and selectivity, this strategy shows great potential in bioanalysis and clinical diagnostics upon further development.
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COVID-19 , Nanopartículas del Metal , Humanos , Oro , COVID-19/diagnóstico , ADN/análisis , Hibridación de Ácido NucleicoRESUMEN
Despite the growing interest in using mixed-culture aerobic denitrifying fungal flora (mixed-CADFF) for water remediation, there is limited research on their nitrogen removal performance in low C/N polluted water bodies. To address this knowledge gap, we isolated three mixed-CADFFs from overlying water in urban lakes to evaluate their removal performance. The total nitrogen (TN) removal efficiencies were 93.60 %, 94.64 %, and 95.18 %, while the dissolved organic carbon removal efficiencies were 96.64 %, 95.12 %, and 96.70 % for mixed-CADFF LN3, LN7, and LN15, respectively in the denitrification medium under aerobic conditions at 48 h cultivation. The three mixed-CADFFs could utilize diverse types of low molecular weight carbon sources to drive the aerobic denitrification processes efficiently. The optimal C/N ratio for the mixed-CADFFs were C/N = 10, and then C/N = 15, 7, 5, and 2. The high-throughput sequencing analysis of three mixed-CADFFs indicated that Eurotiomycetes, Cystobasidiomycetes, and Sordariomycetes were the dominant class in the communities at class level. The network analysis showed that the rare fungal species, such as Scedosporium dehoogii Saitozyma, and Candida intermedia presented positively co-occurred with the TN removal and organic matter reduction capacity. Immobilization mixed-CADFFs treatment raw water experiments indicated that three mixed-CADFFs could reduce nearly 62.73 % of TN in the low C/N micro-polluted raw water treatment. Moreover, the cell density and cell metabolism indexes were also increased during the raw water treatment. This study will provides new insight into resource utilization of the mixed-culture aerobic denitrifying fungal community in field of environment restoration.
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Desnitrificación , Micobioma , Aerobiosis , Nitrógeno/metabolismo , Carbono , NitratosRESUMEN
The recently proposed fermion-bag approach is a powerful technique to solve some four-fermion lattice field theories. Because of the existence of a duality between strong and weak couplings, the approach leads to efficient Monte Carlo algorithms in both these limits. The new method allows us for the first time to accurately compute quantities close to the quantum critical point in the three dimensional lattice Thirring model with massless fermions on large lattices. The critical exponents at the quantum critical point are found to be ν=0.85(1), η=0.65(1), and η(ψ)=0.37(1).
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OBJECTIVE: To explore the mitochondrial toxicities induced by zidovudine (AZT) and adefovir dipivoxil (ADV) antiviral drugs using a rat model system. METHODS: Twelve healthy Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into three equal groups and treated by oral gavage with zidovudine (125 mg/kg/day), adefovir (40 mg/kg/day), or saline (equal volume) for 28 days. The rats' body weights were measured once a week, and blood was collected every two weeks for blood and biochemical tests. All animals were sacrificed at the end of treatment, and liver, kidney, skeletal muscle, and cardiac muscle were collected by necropsy. Mitochondria were isolated from the respective tissue samples, and the activities of respiratory chain complexes were measured. DNA was purified from each sample and the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) content was monitored by quantitative real time PCR. Mitochondrial morphology was analyzed under electron microscope. RESULTS: No significant adverse effects, including body weight loss, abnormal blood or biochemistry, were observed in rats treated with AZT or ADV. The activities of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase in liver and cardiac muscle were slightly decreased in rats treated with AZT (liver: 9.44+/-3.09 vs. 17.8+/-12.38, P?=?0.21; cardiac muscle: 32.74+/-5.52 vs. 24.74+/-20.59, P?=?0.28; kidney: 4.42+/-1.53 vs. 14.45+/-13.75, P?=?0.18; skeletal muscle: 33.75+/-8.74 vs. 40.04+/-2.49, P?=?0.45). The mtDNA content was significantly decreased in cardiac muscle of AZT-treated rats (cardiac muscle: 0.15+/-0.13 vs. 0.32+/-0.42, P?=?0.85). The morphology of mitochondria in liver, kidney, skeletal muscle, and cardiac muscle was significantly altered in the AZT-treated rats and included disappearance of the outer membrane, severely damaged structure, and swollen or completely absent cristae. No obvious effects were noted in the ADV- or saline-treated rats. CONCLUSION: Significant adverse effects related to mitochondrial toxicity were observed in rats treated with AZT. The slightly decreased mtDNA content in ADV-treated rats may suggest that this antiviral drug can also cause mitochondrial toxic effects.
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Adenina/análogos & derivados , Mitocondrias/efectos de los fármacos , Organofosfonatos/efectos adversos , Zidovudina/efectos adversos , Adenina/efectos adversos , Animales , ADN Mitocondrial/efectos de los fármacos , Complejo IV de Transporte de Electrones/metabolismo , Femenino , Riñón/enzimología , Hígado/enzimología , Mitocondrias/metabolismo , Mitocondrias Cardíacas/efectos de los fármacos , Mitocondrias Hepáticas/efectos de los fármacos , Mitocondrias Musculares/efectos de los fármacos , Músculo Esquelético/enzimología , Miocardio/enzimología , Ratas , Ratas Sprague-DawleyRESUMEN
Purpose: Commercial independent monitor unit (IMU) check systems for high-magnetic-field MR-guided radiation therapy (RT) systems are lacking. We investigated the feasibility of adopting an existing treatment planning system (TPS) as an IMU check for online adaptive radiotherapy using 1.5-Tesla MR-Linac. Methods: The 7-MV flattening filter free (FFF) beam and multi-leaf collimator (MLC) models of a 1.5-T Elekta Unity MR-Linac within Monte Carlo-based Monaco TPS were used to generate an optimized beam model in Eclipse TPS. The MLC dosimetric leaf gap of the beam in Eclipse was determined by matching the dose distribution of Eclipse-generated intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plans using the Analytical Anisotropic Algorithm (AAA) algorithm to Monaco plans. The plans were automatically adjusted for different source-to-axis distances (SADs) between the two systems. For IMU check, the treatment plans developed in Monaco were transferred to Eclipse to recalculate the dose using AAA. A plug-in within Eclipse was created to perform a 2D gamma analysis of the AAA and Monte Carlo dose distribution on a beam's eye view parallel plane. Monaco dose distribution was shifted laterally by 2 mm during gamma analysis to account for the impact of magnetic field on electron trajectories. Eclipse doses for posterior beams were corrected for both the Unity couch and the posterior MR coil attenuation. Thirteen patients, each with 4-5 fractions for a variety of tumor sites (pancreas, rectum, and prostate), were tested. Results: After thorough commissioning, the method was implemented as part of the standard clinical workflow. A total of 62 online plans, each with approximately 15 beams, were evaluated. The average per-beam gamma (3%/3 mm) pass rate for plans was 97.9% (range, 95.9% to 98.8%). The average pass rate per beam for all 932 beams used in these plans was 97.9% ± 1.9%, with the lowest per-beam gamma pass rate at 88.4%. The time for the process was within 3.2 ± 0.9 min. Conclusion: The use of a second planning system provides an efficient way to perform IMU checks with clinically acceptable accuracy for online adaptive plans on Unity MR-Linac. This is essential for meeting the safety requirements for second checks as outlined in American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group (AAPM TG) reports 114 and 219.
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BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To develop a novel deep learning algorithm of sequential analysis, Seq2Seq, for predicting weekly anatomical changes of lung tumor and esophagus during definitive radiotherapy, incorporate the potential tumor shrinkage into a predictive treatment planning paradigm, and improve the therapeutic ratio. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Seq2Seq starts with the primary tumor and esophagus observed on the planning CT to predict their geometric evolution during radiotherapy on a weekly basis, and subsequently updates the predictions with new snapshots acquired via weekly CBCTs. Seq2Seq is equipped with convolutional long short term memory to analyze the spatial-temporal changes of longitudinal images, trained and validated using a dataset including sixty patients. Predictive plans were optimized according to each weekly prediction and made ready for weekly deployment to mitigate the clinical burden of online weekly replanning. RESULTS: Seq2Seq tracks structural changes well: DICE between predicted and actual weekly tumor and esophagus were (0.83 ± 0.10, 0.79 ± 0.14, 0.78 ± 0.12, 0.77 ± 0.12, 0.75 ± 0.12, 0.71 ± 0.17), and (0.72 ± 0.16, 0.73 ± 0.11, 0.75 ± 0.08, 0.74 ± 0.09, 0.72 ± 0.14, 0.71 ± 0.14), respectively, while the average Hausdorff distances were within 2 mm. Evaluating dose to the actual weekly tumor and esophagus, a 4.2 Gy reduction in esophagus mean dose while maintaining 60 Gy tumor coverage was achieved with the predictive weekly plans, compared to the plan optimized using the initial tumor and esophagus alone, primarily due to noticeable tumor shrinkage during radiotherapy. CONCLUSION: It is feasible to predict the longitudinal changes of tumor and esophagus with the Seq2Seq, which could lead to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of lung adaptive radiotherapy.