Multidimensional Sternal Fixation to Overcome a “Floating” Sternum

This case report describes the repair of a complete sternal dehiscence of the lower right sternum using sternal wires, manubrial plates, and a Talon closure device for rigid, multidimensional sternal fixation. Sternal dehiscence is a rare but significant cause of morbidity for patients undergoing median sternotomy. The risk factors for this complication are well described and although sternal wires have traditionally been used for primary closure, rigid fixation with sternal plates is a viable alternative to avoid dehiscence in this high-risk cohort

Case Report Multidimensional Sternal Fixation to Overcome a ''Floating'' Sternum

This case report describes the repair of a complete sternal dehiscence of the lower right sternum using sternal wires, manubrial plates, and a Talon closure device for rigid, multidimensional sternal fixation. Sternal dehiscence is a rare but significant cause of morbidity for patients undergoing median sternotomy. The risk factors for this complication are well described and although sternal wires have traditionally been used for primary closure, rigid fixation with sternal plates is a viable alternative to avoid dehiscence in this high-risk cohort

Identification of General and Heart-Specific miRNAs in Sheep (<i>Ovis aries</i>)

<div><p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) are small regulatory RNAs crucial for modulation of signaling pathways in multiple organs. While the link between miRNAs and heart disease has grown more readily apparent over the past three years, these data are primarily limited to small animal models or cell-based systems. Here, we performed a high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNAseq) analysis of left ventricle and other tissue from a pre-clinical ovine model. We identified 172 novel miRNA precursors encoding a total of 264 mature miRNAs. Notably, 84 precursors were detected in both the left ventricle and other tissues. However, 10 precursors, encoding 11 mature sequences, were specific to the left ventricle. Moreover, the total 168 novel miRNA precursors included 22 non-conserved ovine-specific sequences. Our data identify and characterize novel miRNAs in the left ventricle of sheep, providing fundamental new information for our understanding of protein regulation in heart and other tissues.</p></div

An example of the miRDeep2 output.

<p>The figure illustrates the output for the novel oar-miR-7134. The upper part shows the scores assigned to the miRNA, the reads count for the mature, star and loop sequences and the total count. The predicted secondary structure of the hairpin is also depicted, with the mature, star and loop sequences highlighted in different colors (red, purple and yellow, respectively). The bottom part of the figure shows all the reads associated to the miRNA, aligned to the mature, star and loop sequences of the predicted precursor on the genome (obs line) and the experimental sequence as reported in miRBase (exp line). For each sequence, the frequency (reads column) and mismatches with the genomic sequence (mm column) are given. The mismatches are also highlighted in capital letters. The different isomiRs, discussed in the Results and Discussion section, are extracted from this alignment data.</p

Validation of known and novel miRNAs by Stem-Loop qRT-PCR.

<p>The experiments confirmed the expression of 10 novel and 4 known miRNAs in the left ventricle (LV). For each miRNA and the control U6, the table reports the threshold cycle (Ct) and the standard deviation (Std Dev).</p><p>Validation of known and novel miRNAs by Stem-Loop qRT-PCR.</p

isomiRs distribution.

<p>(a) The figure shows the distribution of the different types of isomiRs calculated on the total of mapped reads from both samples (LV and global library). The reference form was predominant (57.54%), while the most frequent isomiR types were the templated and non-templated (NT) 3’ isomiR and the polymorphic isomiR. (b) The predicted precursor structure for oar-miR-1a. (c) The mature and star sequences of miR-1a identified by miRDeep2. (d) The dominant mature product of miR-1a is encoded in the 3p arm (oar-miR-1a-3p). It is a 5' isomiR of the conserved miR-1-3p, which lacks the first nucleotide (human and cow sequences are reported for comparison).</p

Computational pipeline of data analysis.

<p>The figure illustrates the four steps of the computational pipeline employed to analyze the RNAseq data. Pre-Processing: raw data were processed by the ACGT101-miR v4.2 pipeline in order to obtain good quality mappable reads. miRNA detection/prediction: this step was carried out by applying miRDeep2 to the mappable reads. The tool returned the lists of known and novel miRNA precursors identified. Filtering: the output of miRDeep2 was further analyzed by BLAST against different databases in order to assess evolutionary conservation of the predicted miRNAs and remove sequences matching other kinds of small RNAs. Data Analysis: last step consisted of the application of a series of ad-hoc scripts for the extraction of descriptive statistics. The tool IPA was used to perform the functional enrichment analysis of the targets of the identified miRNAs, which were predicted by the software miRiam.</p

Summary of novel sheep miRNAs.

<p>The table contains a detailed summary of the novel miRNAs discovered. It shows the number of precursors, and relative mature sequences, found in the Left Ventricle library (LV), the Global Library (GL) or both libraries (LV + GL).</p><p>Summary of novel sheep miRNAs.</p