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Background Electrospun (ES) poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL) is widely used to provide critical mechanical support in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. Therefore, there is a clear need for understanding the change in the mechanical response of the membranes as the material degrades in physiological conditions. Study Design ES membranes with fiber diameters from 1.6 to 6.7 mu m were exposed to in vitro conditions at 37 degrees C in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) or dry for up to 6 months. Methods During this period, the mechanical properties were assessed using cyclic mechanical loading, and material properties such as crystallinity and ester bond degradation were measured. Results No significant difference was found for any parameters between samples kept dry and in DMEM. The increase in crystallinity was linear with time, while the ester bond degradation showed an inverse logarithmic correlation with time. All samples showed an increase in modulus with exposure time for the first loading cycle. Modulus changes for the consecutive loading cycles showed a nonlinear relationship to the exposure time that depended on membrane type and maximum strain. In addition, the recovered elastic range showed an expected increase with the maximum strain reached. The mechanical response of ES membranes was compared to experimental tensile properties of the human annulus fibrosus tissue and an in silico model of the intervertebral disk. The modulus of the tested membranes was at the lower range of the values found in literature, while the elastically recoverable strain after preconditioning for all membrane types lies within the desired strain range for this application. Conclusion The long-term assessment under application-specific conditions allowed to establish the mechanical competence of the electrospun PCL membranes. It can be concluded that with the use of appropriate fixation, the membranes can be used to create a seal on the damaged AF., JOR Spine, 4 (1), ISSN:2572-1143

Additional file 1. Clinical data of the participants.

Computational science has recently emerged as a third essential scientific tool along with theoretical study and experiment. Despite its substantial success and increasing popularity, computational science offers a multi- tude of challenges. A crucial one is the problem of efficient hardware uti- lization for elaborate physical simulations. As the microprocessors are get- ting more specialized and computers – more complex and diverse, the gap between offered and attained performance widens, reaching orders of magnitude. Our first goal within this work is to close this gap. Our second goal is to explore unique features of microfluidic flows with possibly millions of suspended cells or objects, within complex geometries and for extended periods of time. Spanning different spatial and temporal scales, these flows not only raise many scientific questions, but also pose significant computational challenges. In this thesis we develop a feature-packed particle based code for meso- scale flows, reaching unprecedented time-to-solution and scaling. It allows to simulate bigger problems, on larger clusters, at faster rates than state- of-the art software, enabling previously impossible exploration of systems and phenomena. With the help of our software, we study inertial particle migration and report several previously unexplored features and configurations, that may guide future development of microfluidic devices for focusing and separat- ing living cells. Finally, we evaluate parametrization of our numerical mod- els in Bayesian manner, which can be used for more accurate and robust future simulations.

Figure S2. Manually curated vitamin biosynthesis pathways used in the analysis. (PDF 1598 kb)

Figure S1. An architecture of Knomics-Biota web service. (PDF 31 kb)

Phage sensitivity test of E. coli CD-isolates (see Methods). (DOC 45Â kb)

(A) Mauve alignment of CD-E. coli isolates from one patient (alignment made for RCE01, RCE02, RCE03, RCE03 and RCE06). (B) Heatmap of the phylogenetic distance between E. coli strains. Distances between strains are calculated as the median distance of core genes (see Methods). Phylogroups of E. coli are designated (A, B1, E, B2, D, F). RCE03 is not shown because of its low similarity to other E. coli strains. (DOC 4350Â kb)

Competition co-culture of CD-E. coli and isolates from healthy individuals. (DOC 56Â kb)

Pairwise dissimilarity of the gut metagenomes of the ADS, ALC and control groups obtained using MetaFast algorithm (Wardâ s linkage, Bray-Curtis metric). (PDF 228 kb)

plLF82 homologs in CD-associated E. coli. (A) Sequence similarity of CD isolates with the plasmid pLF82 (100Â kb), (B) and (C) functions of proteins common between pLF82 or pJJ1886_4 and CD isolates The functions were obtained from original annotation, complemented by Prokka annotation and BLAST protein similarity search. (D) Sequence similarity of commensal E. coli isolates with plasmids plLF82 and pJJ1886_4 (script for the data is described in supplementary data https://github.com/paraslonic/Rakitina_etal_Crohn_paper/tree/master/plasmidCoverage [41]. (DOC 228Â kb)

Heatmap displaying the relative abundance of the major microbial species for the gut metagenomes of ADS and ALC patients. Only the species with the abundance of >5% in at least one sample are shown. (PDF 115 kb)

Test of non randomness of the operon enrichment. (DOC 871Â kb)

A multitude of metagenomic studies has brought to light an enormous richness of human gut microbiota compositions. In this space of possible configurations, clinical specialists are trying to mine the markers of healthy microbiota via case-control and longitudinal studies. We have discovered potentially beneficial communities while examining the microbial diversity in rural Russians in comparison with the urban dwellers. In this addendum, we further examine the data by elaborating on some of the less common types and suggesting the possible co-metabolism of their drivers. In the light of the first validated clinically effective bacterial transplantation, we discuss the concept of a reference healthy microbiota, outline the problems encountered on the way to its restoration in the developed world, and speculate if rural communities can serve as a source for its prototype.