No abstract

The male-specific Fruitless proteins (FruM) act to establish the potential for male courtship behavior in Drosophila melanogaster and are expressed in small groups of neurons throughout the nervous system. We screened ∼1000 GAL4 lines, using assays for general courtship, male–male interactions, and male fertility to determine the phenotypes resulting from the GAL4-driven inhibition of FruM expression in subsets of these neurons. A battery of secondary assays showed that the phenotypic classes of GAL4 lines could be divided into subgroups on the basis of additional neurobiological and behavioral criteria. For example, in some lines, restoration of FruM expression in cholinergic neurons restores fertility or reduces male–male courtship. Persistent chains of males courting each other in some lines results from males courting both sexes indiscriminately, whereas in other lines this phenotype results from apparent habituation deficits. Inhibition of ectopic FruM expression in females, in populations of neurons where FruM is necessary for male fertility, can rescue female infertility. To identify the neurons responsible for some of the observed behavioral alterations, we determined the overlap between the identified GAL4 lines and endogenous FruM expression in lines with fertility defects. The GAL4 lines causing fertility defects generally had widespread overlap with FruM expression in many regions of the nervous system, suggesting likely redundant FruM-expressing neuronal pathways capable of conferring male fertility. From associations between the screened behaviors, we propose a functional model for courtship initiation.

Existing ECG criteria to predict the IRA in STEMI have modest diagnostic performance when externally validated, and lower than in the original reports. Distinguishing the level of obstruction in the left anterior descending artery remains especially challenging. Hence, their use should be pragmatic when selecting an initial catheter for treating STEMI, since discordances will occur when compared to the actual angiogram.

All patients in both groups showed marked improvement in IPSS, Qmax, and PVR after 3 months postoperative.CONCLUSIONS: ThuVaRP represents a valuable option for the management of BPH with satisfactory outcomes in terms of safety, blood loss and acceptable complications, but with longer operative time in comparison to B-TURP.

Background. Drug-eluting stents (DES) have proven clinical superiority to bare-metal stents (BMS) for the treatment of patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Decision to implant BMS or DES is dependent on the patient's ability to take dual antiplatelet therapy. This study investigated factors associated with DES placement in STEMI patients. Methods. Retrospective analysis was performed on 193 patients who presented with STEMI and were treated with percutaneous coronary intervention at an urban, tertiary care hospital. Independent factors associated with choice of stent type were determined using stepwise multivariate logistic regression. Odds ratio (OR) was used to evaluate factors significantly associated with DES and BMS. Results. 128 received at least one DES, while 65 received BMS. BMS use was more likely in the setting of illicit drug or alcohol abuse ([OR] 0.15, 95% CI 0.05–0.48, p ≤ 0.01), cardiogenic shock (OR 0.26, 95% CI 0.10–0.73, p = 0.01), and larger stent diameter (OR 0.28, 95% CI 0.11–0.68, p ≤ 0.01). Conclusions. In this analysis, BMS implantation was associated with illicit drug or alcohol abuse and presence of cardiogenic shock. This study did not confirm previous observations that non-White race, insurance, or income predicts BMS use.