Extreme physiology

Microbial life is not restricted to any particular setting. Over the past several decades, it has been evident that microbial populations can exist in a wide range of environments, including those with extremes in temperature, pressure, salinity, and pH. Bacteria and Archaea are the two most reported types of microbes that can sustain in extreme environments, such as hot springs, ice caves, acid drainage, and salt marshes. Some can even grow in toxic waste, organic solvents, and heavy metals. These microbes are called extremophiles...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is an extremely aggressive primary brain tumor with poor prognosis, short survival time post-diagnosis and high recurrence. Currently, no cure for GBM exists. The identification of an effective therapeutic modality for GBM remains a high priority amongst medical professionals and researches. In recent studies, inhalant cannabidiol (CBD) has demonstrated promise in effectively inhibiting GBM tumor growth. However, exactly how CBD treatment affects the physiology of these tumor cells remains unclear...

Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) occurs when bony, ligamentous, and synovial elements of the lower axial spine degenerate and overgrow, compressing neural and vascular elements in the spinal canal. Compression can cause static back pain, radicular lower extremity pain, or neurogenic claudication. Radiological and clinical findings are needed to diagnose lumbar stenosis. In this framework, caudal epidural steroid injection (ESI) is a standard treatment. The volume injected and needle positioning are the main issues that could compromise the effectiveness of the epidural injection...

Native proteomics aims to measure endogenous proteoforms and protein complexes under a near physiological condition using native mass spectrometry (nMS) coupled with liquid-phase separation techniques. Native proteomics should provide the most accurate bird's-eye view of proteome dynamics within cells, which is fundamental for understanding almost all biological processes. nMS has been widely employed to characterize well-purified protein complexes. However, there are only very few trials of utilizing nMS to measure proteoforms and protein complexes in a complex sample (i...

Lung perfusion scintigraphy is a common nuclear medicine exam performed for the evaluation of pulmonary emboli, often in the emergency setting. There can be confusion when a radiotracer is located outside of the normal physiologic distribution. This can occur due to improper radionuclide tagging or may be due to anatomic variations. We present a case where a patient presented with bilateral lower extremity deep vein thrombosis and a nuclear medicine lung perfusion scintigraphy showing a complete right-to-left shunt related to a rare anatomical variant of a duplicated superior vena cava (SVC) with the right SVC draining directly into the systemic circulation via the left atrium...

BACKGROUND: Cadmium (Cd) is extremely toxic and non-essential for plants. Different soybean varieties differ greatly in their Cd accumulation ability, but little is known about the underlying molecular mechanisms. RESULTS: Here, we performed transcriptomic analysis using Illumina pair-end sequencing on root tissues from two soybean varieties (su8, high-Cd-accumulating (HAS) and su7, low Cd-accumulating (LAS)) grown with 0 or 50 μM CdSO4 . A total of 18...

Climate change, namely increased warming coupled with a rise in extreme events (e.g., droughts, storms, heatwaves), is negatively affecting forest ecosystems worldwide. In these ecosystems, growth dynamics and biomass accumulation are driven mainly by environmental constraints, inter-tree competition, and disturbance regimes. Usually, climate-growth relationships are assessed by linear correlation due to the simplicity and straightforwardness of modeling. However, applying this method may bias results, since the ecological and physiological responses of trees to environmental factors are non-linear, and usually bell-shaped...

BACKGROUND: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), which often presents with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), is among the most common morbidities affecting extremely premature infants and is a leading cause of severe vision impairment in children worldwide. Activations of the inflammasome cascade and microglia have been implicated in playing a role in the development of both ROP and BPD. Apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a caspase recruitment domain (ASC) is pivotal in inflammasome assembly...

Extreme heat alerts are the most common form of weather forecasting services used in Australia, yet very limited studies have documented their effectiveness in improving health outcomes. This study aimed to examine the temporal changes in temperature-related mortality in relation to the activation of the heat-health alert and response system (HARS) in the State of Victoria, Australia. We examined the relationship between temperatures and mortality using quasi-Poisson regression and the distributed lag non-linear model (dlnm) and compared the temperature-mortality association between the two periods: period 1- prior-HARS (1992-2009) and period 2- post-HARS (2010-2019)...

BACKGROUND: Autofluorescence-based imaging has the potential to non-destructively characterize the biochemical and physiological properties of plants regulated by genotypes using optical properties of the tissue. A comparative study of stress tolerant and stress susceptible genotypes of Brassica rapa with respect to newly introduced stress-based phenotypes using machine learning techniques will contribute to the significant advancement of autofluorescence-based plant phenotyping research...

One of the most vulnerable phases in the plant life cycle is sexual reproduction, which depends on effective pollen transfer, but also on the thermotolerance of pollen grains. Pollen thermotolerance is temperature-dependent and may be reduced by increasing temperature associated with global warming. A growing body of research has focused on the effect of increased temperature on pollen thermotolerance in crops to understand the possible impact of temperature extremes on yield. Yet, little is known about the effects of temperature on pollen thermotolerance of wild plant species...

The Women in Wilderness Medicine Research Committee of the Wilderness Medical Society conducted a narrative review to address considerations for pregnant individuals in wilderness environments. There is limited evidence behind many opinion-based recommendations on the safety of various environmental exposures in pregnancy. The authors reviewed the literature for the best available evidence, including observational studies, case series, limited controlled trials, and extrapolation from physiological data, as well as evaluating expert consensus statements...

BACKGROUND: Astragalus membranaceus is a plant of the Astragalus genus, which is used as a traditional Chinese herbal medicine with extremely high medicinal and edible value. Astragalus mongholicus, as one of the representative medicinal materials with the same origin of medicine and food, has a rising market demand for its raw materials, but the quality is different in different production areas. Growth-regulating factors (GRF) are transcription factors unique to plants that play important roles in plant growth and development...

The developed asymmetric monovalent bispecific IgG1 or Duet monoclonal antibody (Duet mAb) has two distinct fragment antigen-binding region (Fab) subunits that target two different epitope specificities sequentially or simultaneously. The design features include unique engineered disulfide bridges, knob-into-hole mutations, and kappa and lambda chains to produce Duet mAbs. These make it structurally and functionally complex, so one expects challenging developability linked to instability, degradation of products and pathways, and limited reports available...

The pond loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus) is an important aquaculture freshwater species, used as an ornamental fish, food source for humans and angling bait. Pond loaches are resistant to fasting and extreme environmental conditions, including temperature and low oxygen levels. Little is known about how these factors affect the feeding physiology and the endocrine regulation of feeding of loaches. In this study, we examined the effects of fasting, as well as increased temperature and decreased oxygen levels on food intake and transcript levels of appetite regulators...

Heated effluent injection, cold hypolimnetic water inputs from dams, and extreme weather events can lead to unpredictable temperature fluctuations in natural waters, impacting fish performance and fitness. We hypothesized that fish exposed to such unpredictable fluctuations would exhibit weaker growth and enhanced thermal tolerance compared to predictable conditions. Qingbo (Spinibarbus sinensis) was selected as the experimental subject in this study. The qingbo were divided into a constant temperature group (C, 22 ± 0...

CONTEXT: Elbow medial ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) injuries have become increasingly common in athletes. Despite this, rehabilitation protocols appear to vary drastically, which may explain the clinical equipoise regarding optimal management. OBJECTIVE: This systematic review reports rehabilitation characteristics reported after UCL injuries and compares reported outcomes based on early versus delayed rehabilitation. DATA SOURCES: Our search utilized PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane to identify all articles on UCL rehabilitation published between January 1, 2002 and October 1, 2022...

Arsenic (As) is one of the most important water pollutant of global concern due to its extreme hazard. In the present study, B. subtilis synthesized iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3 O4 NPs) were used for mitigation of harmful metalloid As from the aqueous solution. Initially, the arsenic removal efficiency was tested in a batch culture experiment across various concentrations (5, 10 and 15 ppm) of B. subtilis synthesized Fe3 O4 NPs at different pH, time interval and agitation speed. Optimal removal efficiency of As by using B...

PURPOSE: Impaired cerebral pressure autoregulation is common and detrimental after acute brain injuries. Based on the prevalence of delayed cerebral ischemia in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) patients compared to traumatic brain injury (TBI), we hypothesized that the type of autoregulatory disturbance and the optimal PRx range may differ between these two conditions. The aim of this study was to determine the optimal PRx ranges in relation to functional outcome following aSAH and TBI, respectively...

Population growth and climate change pose challenges to the sustainability of poultry farming. The emphasis on high-yield traits in commercialized breeds has led to a decline in their adaptability. Chicken varieties adapted to the local environment, possessing traits that facilitate adaptation to climate change, such as disease resistance and tolerance to extreme weather conditions, can improve hybridization outcomes. In this study, we conducted an analysis of the population structure and genetic diversity of 110 chickens representing indigenous breeds from southern China and two different commercial breeds...