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Context: Sustained hyperglycemia triggers chronic disease, including type 2 diabetes. A considerable volume of research has explored the effects of brown seaweed on plasma glucose control, but equivocal findings have been reported., Objective: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to assess the evidence from human randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effects of brown seaweed on plasma glucose in healthy, at-risk, and individuals with type 2 diabetes., Data Sources: MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library were searched for reports published between 2000 and 2020., Data Extraction: Population, intervention, comparator, outcome, and study design data were extracted., Data Analysis: Eighteen RCTs met our inclusion criteria. The reported results varied across and between populations. Meta-analyses showed a significant effect, favoring the intervention group for both fasting (mean difference -4.6 [95% CI -7.88, -1.33]) and postprandial (mean difference -7.1 [95% CI -7.4, -6.9]) plasma glucose., Conclusion: Brown seaweed and its extracts show potential for preventing and managing hyperglycemia. Our meta-analysis confirms that brown seaweed positively affects plasma glucose homeostasis, with particularly promising postprandial plasma glucose effects. However, further research is needed because no high-quality RCT was identified. Species-specific and dose-response research is also required., Systematic Review Registration: PROSPERO registration no. CRD42020187849., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Life Sciences Institute.)

Mass spectrometry (MS)-based immunopeptidomics investigates the repertoire of peptides presented at the cell surface by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. The broad clinical relevance of MHC-associated peptides, e.g. in precision medicine, provides a strong rationale for the large-scale generation of immunopeptidomic datasets and recent developments in MS-based peptide analysis technologies now support the generation of the required data. Importantly, the availability of diverse immunopeptidomic datasets has resulted in an increasing need to standardize, store and exchange this type of data to enable better collaborations among researchers, to advance the field more efficiently and to establish quality measures required for the meaningful comparison of datasets. Here we present the SysteMHC Atlas (https://systemhcatlas.org), a public database that aims at collecting, organizing, sharing, visualizing and exploring immunopeptidomic data generated by MS. The Atlas includes raw mass spectrometer output files collected from several laboratories around the globe, a catalog of context-specific datasets of MHC class I and class II peptides, standardized MHC allele-specific peptide spectral libraries consisting of consensus spectra calculated from repeat measurements of the same peptide sequence, and links to other proteomics and immunology databases. The SysteMHC Atlas project was created and will be further expanded using a uniform and open computational pipeline that controls the quality of peptide identifications and peptide annotations. Thus, the SysteMHC Atlas disseminates quality controlled immunopeptidomic information to the public domain and serves as a community resource toward the generation of a high-quality comprehensive map of the human immunopeptidome and the support of consistent measurement of immunopeptidomic sample cohorts., (© The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.)

Aims: The control of Salmonella in pig production is necessary for public and animal health, and vaccination was evaluated as a strategy to decrease pig prevalence., Methods and Results: The study examined the efficacy of a live Salmonella Typhimurium vaccine, administered to sows on eight commercial farrow-to-finish herds experiencing clinical salmonellosis or Salmonella carriage associated with S. Typhimurium or its monophasic variants. Results of longitudinal Salmonella sampling were compared against eight similarly selected and studied control farms. At the last visit (~14 months after the start of vaccination), when all finishing stock had been born to vaccinated sows, both faecal shedding and environmental prevalence of Salmonella substantially declined on the majority of vaccinated farms in comparison to the controls. A higher proportion of vaccine farms resolved clinical salmonellosis than controls. However, Salmonella counts in positive faeces samples were similar between nonvaccinated and vaccinated herds., Conclusions: The results suggest that maternal vaccination is a suitable option for a Salmonella Typhimurium reduction strategy in farrow-to-finish pig herds., Significance and Impact of the Study: Salmonella vaccines have the potential to reduce the prevalence of Salmonella in pigs and result in a reduction of human cases attributed to pork., (© 2017 Crown copyright. Journal of Applied Microbiology © 2017 The Society for Applied Microbiology. This article is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.)

Background: A key aspect of monitoring and evaluating health programs is ensuring that benefits are reaching their target population. We conducted a benefit incidence analysis (BIA) of a Shell-sponsored community health insurance scheme in Nigeria to determine the extent to which the target group (the poor) was benefitting., Methods: We examined a sample of 616 patients' hospital attendance, financial and administrative records from 2012-2013. We estimated annual utilization rates and average unit costs for inpatient and outpatient services. We multiplied the two to produce a total cost per patient, then deducted annual out-of-pocket expenditures to estimate the total community-based health insurance scheme benefit per person. Benefits were multiplied by the total number of persons in each socioeconomic group to aggregate benefits. We used concentration curves and dominance tests to determine statistical significance at 5% and 10% levels of significance., Results: Collectively, the poorest 20% of the population received 12% of benefits while the richest quintile received the largest share (23%). Inpatient and outpatient benefits are weakly regressive (pro-rich), statistically significant at a 10% level of significance., Conclusions: Although the poor were found to benefit, this BIA revealed a tendency towards pro-rich distributions. Removing co-payments for the poorest, reducing long wait and visit times and using community volunteers to help increase access to health services may improve benefits for the poor., (© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Aims: This paper demonstrates a rapid, simple method for the detection of Helicobacter pylori in water that eliminates the need for recovery of cells or DNA extraction prior to PCR., Methods and Results: Direct polymerase chain reaction (DPCR) with primers specific for H. pylori ureA (urease, subunit A) were used to detect H. pylori added to groundwater. DPCR also detected H. pylori in a naturally contaminated water sample., Conclusions: DPCR should provide an improved method to assess contamination of water by H. pylori., Significance and Impact of the Study: This simple, rapid method for detection of H. pylori in water will provide an improved means to investigate the possible role of water as a disease vector.

A very simple method of computer-assisted reporting of surgical pathology (including gross description, microscopic description, and diagnosis) has been developed. This method is based on a modification of the existing microbiology program and files in the comprehensive MedLab Company Pathlab computer system, with the use of mark sense cards for entering surgical number, gross and microscopic description, diagnosis and pathologist's name. The chief advantages of this system compared with other computerized surgical pathology reporting methods are its speed and simplicity of operation, reduction in clerical time, and production of concise reports for the patients' charts.

Fluorescence polarization immunoassay of 5-hydroxy-3-indoleacetic acid in urine is described and compared with liquid chromatography (electrochemical detection) and colorimetry. Reports of in-house performance data and results of clinical trials are included to emphasize the usefulness of the assay for routine work.

The synthesis of a new series of 3-azidomethyl-3-methyl-1-aryltriazenes is described. 3-Acetoxymethyl-3-methyl-1-aryltriazenes react with a large molar excess of sodium azide in aqueous acetone to afford the 3-azidomethyltriazenes in high yield. The rate of formation of the azidomethyltriazene increasing azide concentration, suggesting either an SN2 mechanism or a significant ionic strength effect on an SN1 reaction. In the absence of azide ion, the acetoxymethyltriazene undergoes a slow hydrolysis to give a bis-anilinomethane, which presumably arises via hydrolysis of the triazene to the aniline followed by condensation with formaldehyde released during the hydrolysis. The azidomethyltriazenes undergo facile hydrolysis in aqueous buffer solution with identical kinetic parameters to those of the hydrolysis of hydroxymethyltriazenes, suggesting that the azides may be good pro-drugs for the cytotoxic monomethyltriazene, the hydrolysis product derived from the hydroxymethyltriazene. Indeed, the azidomethyltriazenes have comparable anti-tumour activity against the P388 and PC6 tumours to other triazenes in this series. Furthermore, the azidomethyltriazenes display selective toxicity towards a human tumour cell line (the BE cell line) which is deficient in the repair of O6-methylguanine lesions, suggesting that these triazenes are capable of generating the monomethyltriazene without the need for metabolic activation.

A series of derivatives of the anti-tumour hydroxymethyltriazenes have been investigated for activity in vivo and in vitro. Acetoxymethyltriazenes are active in vivo against the TLX5, P388 and PC6 tumours in mice, and inhibit the growth of TLX5, Np and Li cells in vitro without metabolic activation. The acetoxymethyltriazenes are comparable with the hydroxymethyltriazenes and monomethyltriazenes in their spectrum of activity and thus appear to be prodrugs for these species. On the other hand, a methoxymethyltriazene was found to be active on the TLX5 tumour in vivo, but did not inhibit the growth of Np cells in vitro. This latter observation is consistent with the anticipated chemical stability of the methoxymethyltriazene and the requirement for metabolic O-demethylation to generate an active species. Acetoxymethyltriazenes do not require metabolic intervention and break down chemically in phosphate buffer to the hydroxymethyltriazene, which in turn loses formaldehyde to give the incipient methylating agent, the monomethyltriazene.

N,N-Bis-[(1-aryl-3-methyltriazen-3-yl)-methyl]-methylamines, 'bistriazenes', have anti-tumour activity against the TLX5 and PC6 mouse tumours and inhibit the growth of tumour cells growing in culture, without metabolic activation. The biological activity of the bistriazene appears to derive from facile hydrolysis to the cytotoxic monomethyltriazene, Ar-N = N-NHMe, and it is suggested that the bistriazene may be a good prodrug from for the 'active' metabolite of the anti-tumour dimethyltriazene, Ar-N-N = N-NME2. A kinetic study of the bistriazene hydrolysis shows that the reaction is retarded by electron-withdrawing substituents in the aryl group. The results can be interpreted by a mechanism in which the bistriazene behaves as an 'animal' (i.e. N-CH2-N) and undergoes anchimerically assisted fragmentation, via an iminium ion intermediate, to the monomethyltriazene.