Draft Genome Sequence of Lactobacillus plantarum Strain A6, a Strong Acid Producer Isolated from a Vietnamese Fermented Sausage (Nem Chua).

Lactobacillus plantarum strain A6, a strong acid producer, was isolated from a Vietnamese fermented sausage (nem chua). Here, we report the genome sequence of this strain (3,368,579 bp).

Evidence that asthma is a developmental origin disease influenced by maternal diet and bacterial metabolites.

Asthma is prevalent in Western countries, and recent explanations have evoked the actions of the gut microbiota. Here we show that feeding mice a high-fibre diet yields a distinctive gut microbiota, which increases the levels of the short-chain fatty acid, acetate. High-fibre or acetate-feeding led to marked suppression of allergic airways disease (AAD, a model for human asthma), by enhancing T-regulatory cell numbers and function. Acetate increases acetylation at the Foxp3 promoter, likely through HDAC9 inhibition. Epigenetic effects of fibre/acetate in adult mice led us to examine the influence of maternal intake of fibre/acetate. High-fibre/acetate feeding of pregnant mice imparts on their adult offspring an inability to develop robust AAD. High fibre/acetate suppresses expression of certain genes in the mouse fetal lung linked to both human asthma and mouse AAD. Thus, diet acting on the gut microbiota profoundly influences airway responses, and may represent an approach to prevent asthma, including during pregnancy.

A comparison of radiostereometric analysis and computed tomography for the assessment of lumbar spinal fusion in a sheep model.

Study Design Prospective animal study. Objective The aim of this animal study is to evaluate the accuracy of radiostereometric analysis (RSA) compared with computed tomographic (CT) scan in the assessment of spinal fusion after anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) using histology as a gold standard. Methods Three non-adjacent ALIFs (L1-L2, L3-L4, and L5-L6) were performed in nine sheep. The sheep were divided into three groups of three sheep. All the animals were humanely killed immediately after having the last scheduled RSA. The lumbar spine was removed and in vitro fine cut CT and histopathology were performed. Results Using histological assessment as the gold standard for assessing fusion, RSA demonstrated better results (100% sensitivity and 66.7% specificity; positive predictive value [PPV] = 27.3%, negative predictive value [NPV] =100.0%) compared with CT (66.7% sensitivity and 60.0% specificity [PPV = 16.7%, NPV = 93.8%]). Conclusions RSA demonstrated higher sensitivity and specificity when compared with CT. Furthermore, RSA has the advantage of much lower radiation exposure compared with fine cut CT. Further studies are required to see if RSA remains superior to CT scan for the assessment spinal fusion in the clinical setting. [Table: see text].