scholarly journals Ultra-resolution Metagenomics: When Enough Is Not Enough

mSystems ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Falk Hildebrand

Technological advances in community sequencing have steadily increased the taxonomic resolution at which microbes can be delineated. In high-resolution metagenomics, bacterial strains can now be resolved, enhancing medical microbiology and the description of microbial evolution in vivo .

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. e6689109141
Author(s):  
Natália Franco Brum ◽  
Mariana Sobreira Bezerra ◽  
Aline Sobreira Bezerra ◽  
Gabriela Scortegagna de Souza ◽  
Patricia Kolling Marquezan

The pathogenic dental biofilm formed by species presents itself as a serious problem, since it contributes to the development of oral and bodily diseases. In this sense, Dentistry stands out for expanding knowledge about the oral ecosystem and performing procedures aimed at reducing its pathogenicity and improving oral health. Thus, technological advances and indiscriminate application of antibiotics have made bacterial strains resistant, with a great search for safer, more natural and effective methods. Therefore, the use of plants for healthy treatments is an area of great study in Dentistry. In the present literature review, we sought to analyze the species Zingiber officinali with its antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity. For this study, materials were searched at the BIREME, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Embase, Google Schoolar, PubMed, Science Direct, published until August 2020. The search for the articles was carried out in August 2020, of the 3,401 studies were refined in 18. The findings showed that the plant Zingiber officinale has the capacity to inhibit certain bacteria in vitro, such as Bacillus sp., Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus mutans and fungi, like Candida albicans. Thus, studies in the area are still needed in order to prove its effectiveness in vivo, to analyze the toxicity, drug interactions and side effects of the plant.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 20130001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fränze Progatzky ◽  
Margaret J. Dallman ◽  
Cristina Lo Celso

Intravital microscopy has become increasingly popular over the past few decades because it provides high-resolution and real-time information about complex biological processes. Technological advances that allow deeper penetration in live tissues, such as the development of confocal and two-photon microscopy, together with the generation of ever-new fluorophores that facilitate bright labelling of cells and tissue components have made imaging of vertebrate model organisms efficient and highly informative. Genetic manipulation leading to expression of fluorescent proteins is undoubtedly the labelling method of choice and has been used to visualize several cell types in vivo . This approach, however, can be technically challenging and time consuming. Over the years, several dyes have been developed to allow rapid, effective and bright ex vivo labelling of cells for subsequent transplantation and imaging. Here, we review and discuss the advantages and limitations of a number of strategies commonly used to label and track cells at high resolution in vivo in mouse and zebrafish, using fluorescence microscopy. While the quest for the perfect label is far from achieved, current reagents are valuable tools enabling the progress of biological discovery, so long as they are selected and used appropriately.


Author(s):  
David J. Smith

The initial attractions of the high voltage electron microscope (HVEM) stemmed mainly from the possibility of considerable increases in electron penetration through thick specimens compared with conventional 100KV microscopes, although the potential improvement in resolution associated with the decrease in election wavelength had been fully appreciated for many years (eg. Cosslett, 1946)1, even if not realizable in practice. Subsequent technological advances enabled the performance of lower voltage machines to be brought closer to the theoretical limit, to be followed in turn by more recent projects which have been successful, eventually, in achieving even higher resolution with dedicated higher voltage instruments such as those at Kyoto (500KV)2, Munich (400KV)3, Ibaraki (1250KV)4 and Cambridge (600KV)5. It does not necessarily follow however that the performance of journal high voltage microscopes can be easily upgraded, retrospectively, to the same level, as will be discussed in detail below.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumiaki Nin ◽  
Samuel Choi ◽  
Takeru Ota ◽  
Zhang Qi ◽  
Hiroshi Hibino

AbstractSound evokes sub-nanoscale vibration within the sensory epithelium. The epithelium contains not only immotile cells but also contractile outer hair cells (OHCs) that actively shrink and elongate synchronously with the sound. However, the in vivo motion of OHCs has remained undetermined. The aim of this work is to perform high-resolution and -accuracy vibrometry in live guinea pigs with an SC-introduced spectral-domain optical coherence tomography system (SD-OCT). In this study, to reveal the effective contribution of SC source in the recording of the low reflective materials with the short total acquisition time, we compare the performances of the SC-introduced SD-OCT (SCSD-OCT) to that of the conventional SD-OCT. As inanimate comparison objects, we record a mirror, a piezo actuator, and glass windows. For the measurements in biological materials, we use in/ex vivo guinea pig cochleae. Our study achieved the optimization of a SD-OCT system for high-resolution in vivo vibrometry in the cochlear sensory epithelium, termed the organ of Corti, in mammalian cochlea. By introducing a supercontinuum (SC) light source and reducing the total acquisition time, we improve the axial resolution and overcome the difficulty in recording the low reflective material in the presence of biological noise. The high power of the SC source enables the system to achieve a spatial resolution of 1.72 ± 0.00 μm on a mirror and reducing the total acquisition time contributes to the high spatial accuracy of sub-nanoscale vibrometry. Our findings reveal the vibrations at the apical/basal region of OHCs and the extracellular matrix, basilar membrane.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana M. De Mendoza ◽  
Soňa Michlíková ◽  
Johann Berger ◽  
Jens Karschau ◽  
Leoni A. Kunz-Schughart ◽  
...  

AbstractRadiotherapy can effectively kill malignant cells, but the doses required to cure cancer patients may inflict severe collateral damage to adjacent healthy tissues. Recent technological advances in the clinical application has revitalized hyperthermia treatment (HT) as an option to improve radiotherapy (RT) outcomes. Understanding the synergistic effect of simultaneous thermoradiotherapy via mathematical modelling is essential for treatment planning. We here propose a theoretical model in which the thermal enhancement ratio (TER) relates to the cell fraction being radiosensitised by the infliction of sublethal damage through HT. Further damage finally kills the cell or abrogates its proliferative capacity in a non-reversible process. We suggest the TER to be proportional to the energy invested in the sensitisation, which is modelled as a simple rate process. Assuming protein denaturation as the main driver of HT-induced sublethal damage and considering the temperature dependence of the heat capacity of cellular proteins, the sensitisation rates were found to depend exponentially on temperature; in agreement with previous empirical observations. Our findings point towards an improved definition of thermal dose in concordance with the thermodynamics of protein denaturation. Our predictions well reproduce experimental in vitro and in vivo data, explaining the thermal modulation of cellular radioresponse for simultaneous thermoradiotherapy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hansol Lee ◽  
Myung Jun Lee ◽  
Eun-Joo Kim ◽  
Gi Yeong Huh ◽  
Jae-Hyeok Lee ◽  
...  

AbstractAbnormal iron accumulation around the substantia nigra (SN) is a diagnostic indicator of Parkinsonism. This study aimed to identify iron-related microarchitectural changes around the SN of brains with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) via postmortem validations and in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). 7 T high-resolution MRI was applied to two postmortem brain tissues, from one normal brain and one PSP brain. Histopathological examinations were performed to demonstrate the molecular origin of the high-resolution postmortem MRI findings, by using ferric iron staining, myelin staining, and two-dimensional laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) imaging. In vivo iron-related MRI was performed on five healthy controls, five patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), and five patients with PSP. In the postmortem examination, excessive iron deposition along the myelinated fiber at the anterior SN and third cranial nerve (oculomotor nerve) fascicles of the PSP brain was verified by LA-ICP-MS. This region corresponded to those with high R2* values and positive susceptibility from quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), but was less sensitive in Perls’ Prussian blue staining. In in vivo susceptibility-weighted imaging, hypointense pixels were observed in the region between the SN and red nucleus (RN) in patients with PSP, but not in healthy controls and patients with PD. R2* and QSM values of such region were significantly higher in patients with PSP compared to those in healthy controls and patients with PD as well (vs. healthy control: p = 0.008; vs. PD: p = 0.008). Thus, excessive iron accumulation along the myelinated fibers at the anterior SN and oculomotor nerve fascicles may be a pathological characteristic and crucial MR biomarker in a brain with PSP.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 764-777
Author(s):  
Sumaira Naz ◽  
Muhammad Zahoor ◽  
Muhammad Naveed Umar ◽  
Saad Alghamdi ◽  
Muhammad Umar Khayam Sahibzada ◽  
...  

AbstractThioureas and their derivatives are organosulfur compounds having applications in numerous fields such as organic synthesis and pharmaceutical industries. Symmetric thiourea derivatives were synthesized by the reaction of various anilines with CS2. The synthesized compounds were characterized using the UV-visible and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopic techniques. The compounds were screened for in vitro inhibition of α-amylase, α-glucosidase, acetylcholinesterase (AChE), and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) enzymes and for their antibacterial and antioxidant potentials. These compounds were fed to Swiss male albino mice to evaluate their toxicological effects and potential to inhibit glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) inhibition. The antibacterial studies revealed that compound 4 was more active against the selected bacterial strains. Compound 1 was more active against 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl and 2,2’-Azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) free radicals, AChE, BuChE, and α-glucosidase. Compound 2 was more potent against α-amylase and G6Pase. Toxicity studies showed that compound 4 is safe as it exerted no toxic effect on any of the hematological and biochemical parameters or on liver histology of the experimental animals at any studied dose rate. The synthesized compounds showed promising antibacterial and antioxidant potential and were very active (both in vitro and in vivo) against G6Pase and moderately active against the other selected enzymes used in this study.


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