Search

BACKGROUND Functional dyspepsia (FD) is a common gastrointestinal condition of poorly understood pathophysiology. While symptoms' overlap with other conditions may indicate common pathogenetic mechanisms, genetic predisposition is suspected but has not been adequately investigated. METHODS Using healthcare, questionnaire, and genetic data from three large population-based biobanks (UK Biobank, EGCUT, and MGI), we surveyed FD comorbidities, heritability, and genetic correlations across a wide spectrum of conditions and traits in 10,078 cases and 351,282 non-FD controls of European ancestry. KEY RESULTS In UK Biobank, 281 diagnoses were detected at increased prevalence in FD, based on healthcare records. Among these, gastrointestinal conditions (OR = 4.0, p 0.344), mostly overlapping with those also enriched in FD patients. Suggestive (p

8 páginas, 1 tabla, 5 figuras, Benthic Prorocentrum species can produce toxins that adversely affect animals and human health. They are known to co-occur with other bloom-forming, potentially toxic, benthic dinoflagellates of the genera Ostreopsis, Coolia, and Gambierdiscus. In this study, we report on the presence of P. elegans M.Faust and P. levis M.A.Faust, Kibler, Vandersea, P.A. Tester & Litaker from the southeastern Bay of Biscay. Sampling was carried out in the Summer-Autumn 2010–2012 along the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, but these two species were only found in the northeastern part of the Peninsula. Strains were isolated from macroalgae collected from rocky-shore areas bordering accessible beaches. Morphological traits of isolated strains were analyzed by LM and SEM, whereas molecular analyses were performed using the LSU and internal transcribed spacer (ITS)1-5.8S-ITS2 regions of the rDNA. A bioassay with Artemia fransciscana and liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry analyses were used to check the toxicity of the species, whose results were negative. The strains mostly corresponded to their species original morphological characterization, which is supported by the phylogenetic analyses in the case of P. levis, whereas for P. elegans, this is the first known molecular characterization. This is also the second known report of P. elegans, Financial support for this research was provided by the Department for Environment of Bizkaiko Foru Aldundia, the Bilbao-Bizkaia Water Consortium, and the Basque Government (project IT-417-07). A grant from the University of the Basque Country to H. David and a specialization fellowship for PhD researchers awarded by the University of the Basque Country to A. Laza-Martínez also supported this study. And also Project PIE 201270E032.

Summary Host-commensal relationships in the skin are a complex system governed by variables related to the host, the bacteria and the environment. A disruption of this system may lead to new steady states, which, in turn, may lead to disease. We have studied one such disruption by characterizing the skin micro- biota in healthy and immunodepressed (ID) mice. A detailed anatomopathological study failed to reveal any difference between the skin of healthy and ID mice. We sequenced the 16S rDNA V1-V2 gene region to saturation in 10 healthy and 10 ID 8 week- old mice, and found than all of the healthy and two of the ID mice had bacterial communities that were similar in composition to that of human skin, although, presumably because of the uniform raising conditions, less interindividual variation was found in mice. However, eight ID mice showed microbiota dominated by Staphylococcus epidermidis. Quantita- tive PCR amplification of 16S rDNA gene and of the Staphylococcus-specific TstaG region confirmed the previous results and indicated that the quantitative levels of Staphylococcus were similar in both groups while the total number of 16S copies was greater in the healthy mice. Thus, it is possible that, under long-term immunodeficiency, which removes the acquired but not the native immune system, S. epi- dermidis may inhibit the growth of other bacteria but does not cause a pathogenic state.

The variability of the sheep major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II DRB1 locus has been analyzed in this work. Exon 2 of Ovar-DRB1 was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the primers designed by Amills et al. for goats. In a total of 187 sheep of Latxa breed, we identified by PCR-single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) 19 alleles, eight of them previously unpublished. Moreover, the observed heterozygosity reached 91-95%. A new allelic type named DRB*14 was defined, which brings to light once more the discussion as to the ancestor of the domestic sheep. Although all the defined alleles can be discriminated by PCR-SSCP, sequence-based typing is proposed as the technique of choice for sheep DRB1 gene typing.