Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

About: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is a education organization based out in Leuven, Belgium. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 61109 authors who have published 176584 publications receiving 6210872 citations.

A decrease of the butyrate-producing species Roseburia hominis and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii defines dysbiosis in patients with ulcerative colitis

Abstract: Objective Bacteria play an important role in the onset and perpetuation of intestinal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Unlike in Crohn9s disease (CD), in which dysbiosis has been better characterised, in ulcerative colitis (UC), only small cohorts have been studied and showed conflicting data. Therefore, we evaluated in a large cohort if the microbial signature described in CD is also present in UC, and if we could characterise predominant dysbiosis in UC. To assess the functional impact of dysbiosis, we quantified the bacterial metabolites. Design The predominant microbiota from 127 UC patients and 87 age and sex-matched controls was analysed using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis. Differences were quantitatively validated using real-time PCR. Metabolites were quantified using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Results Based on DGGE analysis, the microbial signature previously described in CD was not present in UC. Real-time PCR analysis revealed a lower abundance of Roseburia hominis (p Faecalibacterium prausnitzii (p Conclusions The composition of the fecal microbiota of UC patients differs from that of healthy individuals: we found a reduction in R hominis and F prausnitzii, both well-known butyrate-producing bacteria of the Firmicutes phylum. These results underscore the importance of dysbiosis in IBD but suggest that different bacterial species contribute to the pathogenesis of UC and CD.

International Society of Geriatric Oncology Consensus on Geriatric Assessment in Older Patients With Cancer

Abstract: Purpose To update the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) 2005 recommendations on geriatric assessment (GA) in older patients with cancer. Methods SIOG composed a panel with expertise in geriatric oncology to develop consensus statements after literature review of key evidence on the following topics: rationale for performing GA; findings from a GA performed in geriatric oncology patients; ability of GA to predict oncology treatment–related complications; association between GA findings and overall survival (OS); impact of GA findings on oncology treatment decisions; composition of a GA, including domains and tools; and methods for implementing GA in clinical care. Results GA can be valuable in oncology practice for following reasons: detection of impairment not identified in routine history or physical examination, ability to predict severe treatment-related toxicity, ability to predict OS in a variety of tumors and treatment settings, and ability to influence treatment choice and intensit...

Molcas 8: New capabilities for multiconfigurational quantum chemical calculations across the periodic table.

Abstract: In this report, we summarize and describe the recent unique updates and additions to the Molcas quantum chemistry program suite as contained in release version 8. These updates include natural and spin orbitals for studies of magnetic properties, local and linear scaling methods for the Douglas-Kroll-Hess transformation, the generalized active space concept in MCSCF methods, a combination of multiconfigurational wave functions with density functional theory in the MC-PDFT method, additional methods for computation of magnetic properties, methods for diabatization, analytical gradients of state average complete active space SCF in association with density fitting, methods for constrained fragment optimization, large-scale parallel multireference configuration interaction including analytic gradients via the interface to the Columbus package, and approximations of the CASPT2 method to be used for computations of large systems. In addition, the report includes the description of a computational machinery for nonlinear optical spectroscopy through an interface to the QM/MM package Cobramm. Further, a module to run molecular dynamics simulations is added, two surface hopping algorithms are included to enable nonadiabatic calculations, and the DQ method for diabatization is added. Finally, we report on the subject of improvements with respects to alternative file options and parallelization.