Correlations between microbiota and metabolites after faecal microbiota transfer in irritable bowel syndrome.

Faecal microbiota transfer (FMT) consists of the infusion of donor faecal material into the intestine of a patient with the aim to restore a disturbed gut microbiota. In this study, it was investigated whether FMT has an effect on faecal microbial composition, its functional capacity, faecal metabolite profiles and their interactions in 16 irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients. Faecal samples from eight different time points before and until six months after allogenic FMT (faecal material from a healthy donor) as well as autologous FMT (own faecal material) were analysed by 16S RNA gene amplicon sequencing and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GS-MS). The results showed that the allogenic FMT resulted in alterations in the microbial composition that were detectable up to six months, whereas after autologous FMT this was not the case. Similar results were found for the functional profiles, which were predicted from the phylogenetic sequencing data. While both allogenic FMT as well as autologous FMT did not have an effect on the faecal metabolites measured in this study, correlations between the microbial composition and the metabolites showed that the microbe-metabolite interactions seemed to be disrupted after allogenic FMT compared to autologous FMT. This shows that FMT can lead to altered interactions between the gut microbiota and its metabolites in IBS patients. Further research should investigate if and how this affects efficacy of FMT treatments.

Determination of the Pu240/Pu239 ratio by alpha spectrometry using the WinALPHA program.

The isotopic ratio of 240Pu to 239Pu is an important parameter in identifying the origin of plutonium in a given radioactive sample. High-resolution mass spectrometry is generally accepted as an accurate technique for determining this ratio, but this is a very costly method. Alternatives to this method are alpha- and gamma-spectrometry studies but the problem with these low-cost method lies with the analysis of the spectrum. Recently, Noy et al. [2004. Nucl. Instrum. Methods in Phys. Res. A 525, 522-528] developed a computer program code called WinALPHA to quantitatively analyze the alpha spectrum; the program is available from the IAEA website. In this paper, we report the results obtained from the analysis of the alpha spectrum of plutonium from power bearing product samples from power reactor fuel reprocessing plant using the WinALPHA program. The results are found to be in good agreement (within 1-2%) with results from mass spectrometry.

Cardiovascular function in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus: a study using noninvasive methods.

This study used noninvasive methods to assess disturbance in cardiovascular function in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) patients. Cardiovascular function and the autonomic nervous system of 38 IDDM patients were assessed, and the presence or absence of left ventricular dysfunction was determined. Fifty-six percent of the patients were found to have autonomic neuropathy. Twelve percent had left ventricular diastolic dysfunction; none had left ventricular systolic dysfunction. Heart disease in IDDM patients was found to constitute a separate entity, termed diabetic cardiomyopathy. All IDDM patients with left ventricular diastolic dysfunction had evidence of autonomic neuropathy. However, there was no correlation with left ventricular systolic dysfunction. Also, there was no correlation between left ventricular dysfunction and microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus.