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Tony Zitek,1 Mani Hashemi,2 Sara Zagroba,2 Valori H Slane2 1Department of Emergency Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami Beach, FL, USA; 2Department of Emergency Medicine, Kendall Regional Medical Center, Miami, FL, USACorrespondence: Tony Zitek, Department of Emergency Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center, 4300 Alton Road, Miami Beach, FL, 33140, USA, Tel +1-305-674-2121 Ext 56632, Email Zitek10@gmail.comPurpose: Acute aortic dissection (AAD) is a highly fatal disorder if not promptly diagnosed. Some international studies have suggested that serum d-dimer levels may be used to exclude AAD, but data are limited. We sought to confirm that d-dimer levels are elevated in American patients with AAD. Additionally, we sought to estimate the test characteristics of the d-dimer for AAD.Patients and Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of patients in the Hospital Corporation of America database who arrived at the hospital between 2015 and 2019. We queried the database to find patients who had a diagnosis of AAD or (nonspecific) chest pain, and who also had a d-dimer performed within 24 hours of arrival at the hospital. The median d-dimer was compared in those diagnosed with AAD versus chest pain. We estimated the test characteristics of d-dimer for AAD at the standard cutoff value of 500 ng/mL.Results: In total, 48,902 patients met the criteria for analysis, including 572 with AAD and 48,330 with chest pain. The median d-dimers were 2455 ng/mL and 385 ng/mL for the AAD and chest pain groups, respectively (p < 0.0001). Using a cutoff of 500 ng/mL, the sensitivity of the d-dimer was 91.1% and the specificity was 71.4%.Conclusion: Serum d-dimer values are higher in patients with AAD than in those with nonspecific chest pain. At the standard cutoff of 500 ng/mL, the serum d-dimer has a high sensitivity for AAD, but not high enough that d-dimer levels alone can be used in isolation to exclude AAD.Keywords: aorta, dissection, d-dimer, diagnosis

Introduction: In order to take advantage of breeding programs and productivity of poultry and other domesticated animals, it is essential to assess genetic variability and study the strategies to preserve genetic diversity. The Japanese quail is widely used as a model for animal research purposes in laboratory studies because of its small body size, short intergeneration interval, high growth rate, production of more eggs and meat. Although, Japanese quail has various benefits as a laboratory bird, but its genome sequence is not accessible now. The genome sequence of Japanese quail will deliver important genomic resources to accelerate different studies and to authenticate divergent lines of Japanese quail. Growth is a complex physiological pathway that occurs from fertilization until maturity in birds. Insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) gene is one of the most important candidate genes in different species which can affect the performance traits because of its function in metabolism and growth. IGF-I is a 70 amino acid polypeptide hormone with endocrine, paracrine, and autocrine effects. It has been reported that there is association of genetic polymorphisms of the IGF-I gene with growth traits in the poultry. There are relatively few reported studies about the relation between genetic markers of the IGF-I gene and body weights in quails. The objective of this study was undertaken to identify polymorphisms of the IGF-I gene using PCR single-strand conformational polymorphism (PCR–SSCP) analysis and to evaluate association of these polymorphisms with body weight in the Japanese quail. Material and methods: For doing this research, body weight of the 110 quails under study (46 males and 64 females) in different ages were collected. All data were collected from the Natural Resources Research Center of East Azerbaijan. The data included the identification of the animal, year of birth, sex, body weights at 15, 30, 45 and 60 days. Genomic DNA was extracted from 10 μl of blood in presence of Pronase (Bailes et al. 2007) and stored in EDTA-coated tubes and placed immediately inside an ice box and transferred to the laboratory. The samples were stored at -20 until DNA has been extracted. The quality and quantity of extracted DNA were measured by %0/8 agarose gel electrophoresis. PCR was done for amplifying a fragment in size of 465 bp of IGF-I gene. The PCR primers for the IGF1 gene were designed based on GenBank. PCR primers of IGF-I gene was mentioned in Table 1. The PCRs were carried out in 25 μl volumes containing 1 unit Taq DNA Polymerase, reaction buffer 1X (Sina Gene, Tehran, Iran), 1/5 mM MgCl2, 0/2 μM each of dNTPs, 10 μM of each primer (Sina Gene, Tehran, Iran) and 30 ng of genomic extracted DNA as template. PCR was performed using the T-professional thermal cycler. The thermal profile consisted of 3 min at 95°C, followed by 35 cycles of 40 s at 95°C, 30 s at 58°C and 40 s at 72°C, with a final extension of 5 min at 72°C. Amplification was carried out in Mastercycler (Bailes et al. 2007). PCR products were detected by electrophoresis on %1/5 agarose gel containing ethidium bromide and were visualized in a gel documentation system with a UV transilluminator. PCR products were mixed with 20 μl of denaturing loading dye [95% deionized formamide, %0/35 xylene cyanol, %0/25 bromophenol blue and 10 mM EDTA] in a total volume of 10 μl. The mixture was denatured at 95°C for 15 min and was snap chilled on ice. The electrophoresis was performed in 0.5X TBE buffer (Tris 100 mM, boric acid 9 mM, EDTA 1 mM) at room temperature (18°C) and constant 110 V for 16 h. Polyacrylamide gels were stained with silver according to the protocol described (Benbouza et al. 2006). A statistical model included the mean of population, fixed effect of the sex, random effect of the genotype patterns and residual random term was done by using GLM of SAS software to find the association between the SSCP genotype patterns of PCR products with the body weights. Significant differences among means of different genotypes were calculated using Duncan method in the GLM program and P-values of 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results and discussion: The investigation of candidate genes is one of the foremost techniques to reveal whether definite genes are associated with the economic traits in animals. We successfully amplified the exon 4 of the IGF-I gene. All extracted DNAs from quail blood samples yielded a specific single band PCR product without any nonspecific band. Therefore, the PCR products were directly used for SSCP analysis. The results of SSCP showed that this population was polymorphic at the studied loci and three different genotypes with frequencies of 7.27%, 50.91% and 41.82%, respectively were observed in the examined quails (Figure 3). The results indicated that the exon-4 of IGF-1 gene is polymorph and there was a significant difference (P

Kate Nguyen,1 Dinh Bui,2 Mahak Hashemi,1,3 Dianna M Hocking,4 Priyan Mendis,3 Richard A Strugnell,4 Shyamali C Dharmage2 1School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; 2Centre of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; 3ARC Training Centre on Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; 4Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, Victoria, AustraliaCorrespondence: Shyamali C Dharmage Email s.dharmage@unimelb.edu.auAbstract: This work is part of a project on the development of a smart prefabricated sanitising chamber (SPSC) to provide extra measures against the transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Stabilised hypochlorous acid (HOCl) is an approved disinfectant against SARS-CoV-2 by the Environmental Protection Association US in its liquid form on non-porous surfaces. This review is extended to cover its viricidal/bactericidal efficacy in aerosolised or sprayed form which showed an effective dose of as low as 20 ppm and the exposure duration of at least 60 s. The aerosolised application was also recommended with particle size of less than 200 μm to increase the contact with pathogens. The review also includes the safety and toxicity of HOCl with different concentrations. The review calls for more investigations into the effect of HOCl in mist and fog form on the respiratory system when transitioning through the proposed SPSC.Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, Sanitiser, occupational health, cross-contamination, healthcare management