Tau proteins and amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides are the current recognized cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers used as an aid in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, there is no consensus on their clinical use due to non-qualified cut-off values, probably related to the observed high pre-analytical and analytical variability. Standardized pre-analytical protocols have therefore been proposed. Importantly, these recommend the use of polypropylene collection/sampling tubes while, to date, no broad comparison of these types of tubes has been conducted. In this study, we first compared, as part of a real clinical workflow, the impact of four different collection tubes on the CSF concentration of Aβ peptides (Aβ42, Aβ40) and total (hTau) and phosphorylated (P-Tau181P) tau proteins measured using routine ELISA kits. We then extended this study to 11 polypropylene tubes used by different clinical laboratories, and investigated their plastic polymer composition using differential scanning calorimetry and Fourier Transformed Infrared spectroscopy. Significant concentration variations linked solely to the use of different types of tubes were observed. This was particularly marked for Aβ peptides, with >50% disparity occurring in less than five minutes. Polymer composition analysis revealed that most polypropylene tubes were in fact copolymers with at least polyethylene. There was no clear correlation between tube composition and pre-analytical behavior. Our results show that the use of polypropylene tubes does not guarantee satisfactory pre-analytical behavior. They also point to collection/sampling tubes being a major pre-analytical source of variability that could impact the significance of AD biological diagnosis.

IMPORTANCE Although typical forms of Alzheimer disease (AD) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) are clinically distinguishable, atypical AD phenotypes may pose a diagnostic challenge. The major biological diagnostic biomarker for identifying CJD, 14-3-3 protein in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), unfortunately lacks specificity when confronting a rapid dementia presentation. OBJECTIVE To assess the relevance of total CSF prion protein (t-PrP) levels in the differential biological diagnosis between atypical AD phenotypes and CJD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A retrospective study in an autopsy-confirmed cohort of 82 patients was performed to evaluate the relevance of CSF t-PrP to distinguish 30 definite cases of AD from 52 definite cases of CJD. Next, CSF t-PrP concentration was measured in a cohort of 104 patients including 55 patients with probable AD, 26 with probable sporadic CJD, and 23 control patients for whom 14-3-3 protein, total tau, phosphorylated tau 181 (P-tau 181), and Aβ1-42 were available. We investigated 46 patients diagnosed as having probable AD who presented atypical phenotypes. A diagnosis strategy was proposed to classify atypical AD phenotypes with suspicion of CJD based on a decision tree combining CSF biomarkers. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES We determined CSF t-PrP levels for all patients. We calculated the ratio of total tau and P-tau 181 and determined the diagnostic accuracy of each biomarker alone or in combination. We calculated the misclassification rate for each biomarker that corresponded to the percentage of patients within the group of atypical AD phenotypes wrongly classified as CJD. RESULTS In patients with CJD, CSF t-PrP concentrations were decreased compared with control participants and patients with AD. When considering the differential diagnosis of CJD compared with atypical AD phenotypes, CSF t-PrP determination reached 82.1% sensitivity and 91.3% specificity. The misclassification rate of atypical AD phenotypes decreased from 43.5%, obtained when using the CSF 14-3-3 protein determination alone, to only 4.3% when calculating the ratio total tau/(P-tau 181 × t-PrP). The proposed classification tree permitted correct classification of 98.4% of the patients. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE For unusual phenotypes of AD, especially cases presenting with a biological ambiguity suggesting CJD, determination of CSF t-PrP levels increased diagnostic accuracy. The use of CSF t-PrP levels may be beneficial in clinical practice in addition to the current classic biomarkers.

Abstract. Potential sterilization/disinfection of medical devices (MDs) is investigated using a specific plasma process developed at the Université de Montréal over the last decade. The inactivating medium of the microorganisms is the flowing afterglow of a reduced-pressure N2-O2 discharge, which provides, as the main biocidal agent, photons over a broad ultraviolet (UV) wavelength range. The flowing afterglow is considered less damaging to MDs than the discharge itself. Working at gas pressures in the 400-700 Pa range (a few torr) ensures, through species diffusion, the uniform filling of large volume chambers with the species outflowing from the discharge, possibly allowing batch processing within them. As a rule, bacterial endospores are used as bio-indicators (BI) to validate sterilization processes. Under the present operating conditions, Bacillus atrophaeus is found to be the most resistant one and is therefore utilized as BI. The current paper reviews the main experimental results concerning the operation and characterization of this sterilizer/disinfector, updating and completing some of our previously published papers. It uses modeling results as guidelines, which are particularly useful when the corresponding experimental data are not (yet) available, hopefully leading to more insight into this plasma afterglow system. The species flowing out of the N 2-O2 discharge can be divided into two groups, depending on the time elapsed after they left the discharge zone as they move toward the chamber, namely the early afterglow and the late afterglow. The early flowing afterglow from a pure N2 discharge (also called pink afterglow) is known to be comprised of N + 2 and N + 4 ions. In the present N2-O2 mixture discharge, NO + ions are additionally generated, with a lifetime that extends over a longer period than that of the nitrogen molecular ions. We shall suppose that the disappearance of the NO + ions marks the end of the early afterglow regime, thereby stressing our intent to work in an ion-free process chamber to minimize damage to MDs. Therefore, operating conditions should be set such that the sterilizer/disinfector chamber is predominantly filled by N and O atoms, possibly together with long-lived metastable-state O2( 1 Δg) (singlet-delta) molecules. Various aspects related to the observed survival curves are examined: the actual existence of two "phases" in the inactivation rate, the notion of UV irradiation dose (fluence) and its implications, the UV photon best wavelength range in terms of inactivation efficiency, the influence of substrate temperature and the reduction of UV intensity through surface recombination of N and O atoms on the object/packaging being processed. To preserve their on-shelf sterility, MDs are sealed/wrapped in packaging material. Porous packaging materials utilized in conventional sterilization systems (where MDs are packaged before being subjected to sterilization) were tested and found inadequate for the N 2-O2 afterglow system in contrast to a (non-porous) polyolefin polym...

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Lyme disease is caused by spirochetes of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato complex. They are transmitted mainly by Ixodes ricinus ticks. After a few hours of infestation, neutrophils massively infiltrate the bite site. They can kill Borrelia via phagocytosis, oxidative burst, and hydrolytic enzymes. However, factors in tick saliva promote propagation of the bacteria in the host even in the presence of a large number of neutrophils. The neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) consists in the extrusion of the neutrophil’s own DNA, forming traps that can retain and kill bacteria. The production of reactive oxygen species is apparently associated with the onset of NETs (NETosis). In this article, we describe NET formation at the tick bite site in vivo in mice. We show that Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto spirochetes become trapped and killed by NETs in humans and that the bacteria do not seem to release significant nucleases to evade this process. Saliva from I. ricinus did not affect NET formation by human neutrophils or its stability. However, it greatly decreased neutrophil reactive oxygen species production, suggesting that a strong decrease of hydrogen peroxide does not affect NET formation. Finally, round bodies trapped in NETs were observed, some of them staining as live bacteria. This observation could help contribute to a better understanding of the early steps of Borrelia invasion and erythema migrans formation after tick bite.

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Immuno-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an extremely sensitive detection method, combining the specificity of antibody detection and the sensitivity of PCR. We have developed an immuno-quantitative PCR (iqPCR), exploiting real-time PCR technology, in order to improve this immuno-detection method and make it quantitative. To illustrate the advantages of iqPCR, we have compared it with a conventional enzyme linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA) technique in experiments aimed at detecting the cellular and the resistant form of prion protein in bovine brain extract. The iqPCR technique proved to be more sensitive than ELISA, so it could be a technique of choice for the diagnosis of infected animals both at an ante mortem and post-mortem stage.

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