(C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3552981]“
“Background: The poor cardiovascular survival of patients with renal insufficiency is improved by transplantation. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) is able to predict independently
overall and cardiovascular mortality. PWV is elevated in renal insufficiency. Consequently, PWV may change according to the improvement in renal function after kidney transplantation.
Methods: In a cross-sectional setting, PWV was determined in 40 renal transplant recipients (RTx) and compared to the PWV of 40 age- and gender-matched patients with comparable renal insufficiency (CKD) and 40 age-and gender-matched hemodialysis patients (HD).
Results: RTx and CKD patients had comparable eGFR (RTx: 42.9 +/- 18.4, CKD: 48.3 +/- 29.1 mL/min/1.73 m(2)) and protein/creatinine ratio (RTx: median Vactosertib 172.5, 25th percentile 97.75, 75th percentile 344.5, CKD: median 183.272, 25th percentile 100.00, 75th percentile 470.00 mg/g creatinine). There was no significant difference in PWV between RTx 3-12 months post-transplant and CKD or HD patients (RTx: 9.65 +/- 1.57, CKD: 9.98 +/- 3.91, HD: 10.27 +/- 2.89 m/s; n = 20 pairs). Similarly, PWV in transplant patients
> 12-month post-transplant was similar to that of CKD and HD patients (RTx: 9.71 +/- 2.23, CKD: 9.36 +/- 2.74, HD: 9.84 +/- 3.41 m/s; n = 20 pairs).
Discussion: We could not detect significant differences in PWV comparing RTx with age-and gender-matched CKD patients.”
“Natronomonas Selleck BEZ235 pharaonis is an archaeon adapted to two extreme conditions: high salt concentration and alkaline pH. It has become one of the model organisms for the study of extremophilic life. Here, we present a genome-scale, manually curated metabolic reconstruction for the microorganism. The reconstruction itself check details represents a knowledge base of the haloalkaliphile’s
metabolism and, as such, would greatly assist further investigations on archaeal pathways. In addition, we experimentally determined several parameters relevant to growth, including a characterization of the biomass composition and a quantification of carbon and oxygen consumption. Using the metabolic reconstruction and the experimental data, we formulated a constraints-based model which we used to analyze the behavior of the archaeon when grown on a single carbon source. Results of the analysis include the finding that Natronomonas pharaonis, when grown aerobically on acetate, uses a carbon to oxygen consumption ratio that is theoretically near-optimal with respect to growth and energy production. This supports the hypothesis that, under simple conditions, the microorganism optimizes its metabolism with respect to the two objectives. We also found that the archaeon has a very low carbon efficiency of only about 35%. This inefficiency is probably due to a very low P/O ratio as well as to the other difficulties posed by its extreme environment.