Heart failure is a multifactorial disease with poor prognosis. There are many hypotheses regarding the cause of heart failure. Leading among them are the hemodynamic and the neuro-hormonal hypotheses. Although the energy depletion hypothesis has been fairly recent, there is evidence suggesting that declining bioenergy plays a major role in heart failure. This review explored the myocardial energy depletion hypothesis from the role of micronutrients in correcting and alleviating symptoms of heart failure. Even though focus was on key nutrients such as coenzyme Q10, thiamine, riboflavin, L-carnitine, and taurine, emphasis was on the combined effect of multiple micronutrients as a whole. Search from databases from 2000 to 2015 produced four clinical studies using multiple micronutrients on heart failure. Evidence from the studies show that using high doses of multiple micronutrients may have positive effects on heart failure and simultaneously support the myocardial energy depletion hypothesis.
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease characterized by thickened, silvery-scaled patches. There is currently no cure and treatments only attempt to reduce the severity of symptoms. This study reports the case of a 36-year-old female who presented to the clinic with severe psoriasis and had been treated with topical steroid cream for the past 14 years. After adherence to prescribed dietary changes for 6 months, including abundant intake of vegetables, minimal consumption of meat, and avoidance of junk food and sugar in food or drinks, as well as nutritional supplementation with Vitacor Plus, ProLysinC, VitaCforte and LysinC Drink mix, the patient experienced complete resolution of psoriatic patches on her body.
The mycoheterotrophic lifestyle has enabled some plant lineages to obtain carbon from their mycorrhizal symbionts. The mycoheterotrophic genus Epirixanthes (Polygalaceae) consists of six species from tropical Asia. Although it is probably closely related to the chlorophyllous genus Salomonia and linked to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, lack of DNA sequence data has thus far prevented these hypotheses from being tested. Therefore, the evolutionary history of Epirixanthes remains largely unknown.
In recent years, the availability of reduced representation library (RRL) methods has catalysed an expansion of genome-scale studies to characterize both model and non-model organisms. Most of these methods rely on the use of restriction enzymes to obtain DNA sequences at a genome-wide level. These approaches have been widely used to sequence thousands of markers across individuals for many organisms at a reasonable cost, revolutionizing the field of population genomics. However, there are still some limitations associated with these methods, in particular the high molecular weight DNA required as starting material, the reduced number of common loci among investigated samples, and the short length of the sequenced site-associated DNA. Here, we present MobiSeq, a RRL protocol exploiting simple laboratory techniques, that generates genomic data based on PCR targeted enrichment of transposable elements and the sequencing of the associated flanking region. We validate its performance across 103 DNA extracts derived from three mammalian species: grey wolf (Canis lupus), red deer complex (Cervus sp.) and brown rat (Rattus norvegicus). MobiSeq enables the sequencing of hundreds of thousands loci across the genome and performs SNP discovery with relatively low rates of clonality. Given the ease and flexibility of MobiSeq protocol, the method has the potential to be implemented for marker discovery and population genomics across a wide range of organisms-enabling the exploration of diverse evolutionary and conservation questions.
The ABC and ACMG variant classification systems were compared by asking mainly European clinical laboratories to classify variants in 10 challenging cases using both systems, and to state if the variant in question would be reported as a relevant result or not as a measure of clinical utility. In contrast to the ABC system, the ACMG system was not made to guide variant reporting but to determine the likelihood of pathogenicity. Nevertheless, this comparison is justified since the ACMG class determines variant reporting in many laboratories. Forty-three laboratories participated in the survey. In seven cases, the classification system used did not influence the reporting likelihood when variants labeled as "maybe report" after ACMG-based classification were included. In three cases of population frequent but disease-associated variants, there was a difference in favor of reporting after ABC classification. A possible reason is that ABC step C (standard variant comments) allows a variant to be reported in one clinical setting but not another, e.g., based on Bayesian-based likelihood calculation of clinical relevance. Finally, the selection of ACMG criteria was compared between 36 laboratories. When excluding criteria used by less than four laboratories (<10%), the average concordance rate was 46%. Taken together, ABC-based classification is more clear-cut than ACMG-based classification since molecular and clinical information is handled separately, and variant reporting can be adapted to the clinical question and phenotype. Furthermore, variants do not get a clinically inappropriate label, like pathogenic when not pathogenic in a clinical context, or variant of unknown significance when the significance is known.