Parasites threaten human and animal health globally. It is estimated that more than 60% of people on planet Earth carry at least one parasite, many of them several different species. Unfortunately, parasite studies suffer from duplications and inconsistencies between different investigator groups. Hence, groups need to collaborate in an integrated manner in areas including parasite control, improved therapy strategies, diagnostic and surveillance tools, and public awareness. Parasite studies will be better served if there is coordinated management of field data and samples across multidisciplinary approach plans, among academic and non-academic organizations worldwide. In this paper we report the first 'Living organism-World Molecular Network', with the cooperation of 167 parasitologists from 88 countries on all continents. This integrative approach, the 'Sarcoptes-World Molecular Network', seeks to harmonize Sarcoptes epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, and molecular studies from all over the world, with the aim of decreasing mite infestations in humans and animals.
An animal study to evaluate dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and spectroscopy for measurement of neonatal body composition was performed. Twenty-three piglets with body weights ranging from 848 to 7550 g were used. After measuring total body water, animals were killed and body composition was assessed using DXA and MR (1.5 T; MR imaging, T1-weighted sagittal spin-echo sequence; MR spectroscopy, three-dimensional chemical shift imaging) as well as chemical carcass analysis (standard methods) after homogenization. Body composition by chemical analysis (percent of body weight, mean +/- SD) was as follows: body water, 75.3 +/- 3.9%; total protein, 13.9 +/- 8.8%; and total fat, 6.5 +/- 3.7%. Absolute content of fat and total ash was 7-674 and 35-237 g, respectively. Mean hydration of fat-free mass was 0.804 +/- 0.011 g/kg and decreased with increasing body weight (r2 = 0.419) independent of age. Using DXA, bone mineral content was highly correlated with calcium content (r2 = 0.992), and calcium per bone mineral content was 44.1 +/- 4.2%. DXA fat mass correlated with total fat (r2 = 0.961). Using MR, spectroscopy and chemical analysis were highly correlated with fat-to-water ratio (r2 = 0.984) and absolute fat content (r2 = 0.988). Total fat by MR imaging volumetry showed a lower correlation (r2 = 0.913) and overestimated total fat by a factor of 2.46. Conversion equations for DXA were developed (total fat = 1.31 x fat mass measured by DXA--68.8; calcium = 0.402 x bone mineral content + 1.7), which improved precision and accuracy of DXA measurements. In conclusion, both DXA and MR spectroscopy give accurate and precise estimates of neonatal body composition and may become valuable tools for the noninvasive assessment of neonatal growth and nutritional status.
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