A bioassay was developed to measure the minimum concentration of an antimicrobial drug that disrupts the colonization resistance mediated by model human intestinal microbiota against Salmonella invasion of Caco-2 intestinal cells. The bioassay was used to measure the minimum disruptive concentrations (MDCs) of drugs used in animal agriculture. The MDCs varied from 0.125 microg/ml for some broad...

The alternating direction implicit (ADI) method is an attractive option to use in avoiding the CourantFriedrichs-Lewy (CFL) condition that limits the size of the time step required by explicit finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods for stability. Implicit methods like Crank-Nicholson offer the same advantages as ADI methods but they do not rely on simple, one-dimensional, tridiagonal syst...

Streptococcus lactis metabolizes arginine by the arginine deiminase (ADI) pathway. Resting cells of S. lactis grown in the presence of galactose and arginine maintain a high intracellular ornithine pool in the absence of arginine and other exogenous energy sources. Addition of arginine results in a rapid release of ornithine concomitant with the uptake of arginine. Subsequent arginine metabolis...

Due to the absolute need for arginine that certain cancer cells have, arginine depletion is a therapy in clinical trials to treat several types of cancers. Arginine is an amino acids utilized not only as a precursor for other important molecules, but also for protein synthesis. Because arginine depletion can potentially exacerbate the progressive loss of body weight, and especially lean body ma...

Background Anecdotal evidence suggests that a high proportion of patients diagnosed with HIV in Guatemala present with AIDS. There remain limited data on the epidemiology of AIDS-defining illnesses (ADIs) in Central America. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all patients living with HIV at the largest HIV clinic in Guatemala. Charts were analyzed for clinical and demographi...

This study was suggested by previous work on the simulation of evolution equations with scale-dependent processes, e.g., wave-propagation or heat-transfer, that are modeled by wave equations or heat equations. Here, we study both parabolic and hyperbolic equations. We focus on ADI (alternating direction implicit) methods and LOD (locally one-dimensional) methods, which are standard splitting me...

BACKGROUND Multivitamin/multimineral (MVM) supplements are commonly consumed by the general population, but little is known regarding their composition and compliance with local regulations. We assessed the composition and compliance with regulations [no indication in the label of vitamin/minerals amounting <15% of the acceptable daily intake (ADI)] of MVM available in Switzerland. METHODS Th...

Adipose tissue dysfunction related to obesity is overwhelmingly associated with increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. In the setting of obesity, (pro)renin receptor (PRR) is increased in adipose tissue of mice. We sought to determine the physiological consequences of adipocyte-PRR deficiency using adiponectin-Cre mice. We report a unique model of adipocyte-PRR-deficient mice (PR...

BACKGROUND There is great interest in the relationship between polyunsaturated fatty acids and health. Yet, the combinatory effect of factors such as sex, ethnicity, genetic polymorphisms and hormonal contraceptives (HC) on the concentrations of these fatty acids is unknown. Therefore, we sought to determine the effects of FADS polymorphisms, and HC use in females, on aggregate desaturase indic...