Poly-l/d-Lactide Implant (RegJoint) Versus Tendon Interposition for Trapeziometacarpal Inflammatory Arthritis: A 15-Year Follow-up of a Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial.

Background: Traditional surgical management of trapeziometacarpal (TMC) joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis involves trapezial resection with tendon interposition. The poly-l-d-lactide RegJoint (Scaffdex, Tampere, Finland) implant offers an alternative with promising short-term results in rheumatoid patients.

Methods: This study reports long-term outcomes from a randomized controlled trial comparing partial trapeziectomy with the RegJoint versus tendon interposition TMC arthroplasties in patients with inflammatory arthritis, including seropositive and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, as well as a few cases of other inflammatory arthritis.

Development and external validation of prediction risk scores (STRISK and NOFA) to predict immediate surgical need in adhesive small bowel obstruction: an observational prospective multicentre study.

Background: Adhesive small bowel obstruction (SBO) is a common cause of emergency admission. Identification of patients at high risk of strangulation or failure of non-operative treatment is difficult. In this multicentre prospective observational study, prediction models for strangulation and non-operative treatment failure in adhesive SBO were developed.

Same same but different: sperm-activating EC1 and ECA1 gametogenesis-related family proteins.

During double fertilization in Arabidopsis thaliana, the egg cell secretes small cysteine-rich EC1 (egg cell 1) proteins, which enable the arriving sperm pair to rapidly interact with the two female gametes. EC1 proteins are members of the large and unexplored group of ECA1 (early culture abundant 1) gametogenesis-related family proteins, characterized by a prolamin-like domain with six conserved cysteine residues that may form three pairs of disulfide bonds. The distinguishing marks of egg-cell-expressed EC1 proteins are, however, two short amino acid sequence motifs present in all EC1-like proteins.

Catalase and NO CATALASE ACTIVITY1 promote autophagy-dependent cell death in Arabidopsis.

Programmed cell death often depends on generation of reactive oxygen species, which can be detoxified by antioxidative enzymes, including catalases. We previously isolated catalase-deficient mutants (cat2) in a screen for resistance to hydroxyurea-induced cell death. Here, we identify an Arabidopsis thaliana hydroxyurea-resistant autophagy mutant, atg2, which also shows reduced sensitivity to cell death triggered by the bacterial effector avrRpm1.