CREATE Research Symposium 2022 Book of Abstracts

This is the book of Abstracts for a recent symposium held by the CREATE research Group in TU Dublin

Cardiosphere-Derived Cells Improve Function in the Infarcted Rat Heart for at Least 16 Weeks – an MRI Study

Aims Endogenous cardiac progenitor cells, expanded from explants via cardiosphere formation, present a promising cell source to prevent heart failure following myocardial infarction. Here we used cine-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to track administered cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs) and to measure changes in cardiac function over four months in the infarcted rat heart. Methods and Results CDCs, cultured from neonatal rat heart, comprised a heterogeneous population including cells expressing the mesenchymal markers CD90 and CD105, the stem cell marker c-kit and the pluripotency markers Sox2, Oct3/4 and Klf-4. CDCs (2×106) expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP+) were labelled with fluorescent micron-sized particles of iron oxide (MPIO). Labelled cells were administered to the infarcted rat hearts (n = 7) by intramyocardial injection immediately following reperfusion, then by systemic infusion (4×106) 2 days later. A control group (n = 7) was administered cell medium. MR hypointensities caused by the MPIOs were detected at all times and GFP+ cells containing MPIO particles were identified in tissue slices at 16 weeks. At two days after infarction, cardiac function was similar between groups. By 6 weeks, ejection fractions in control hearts had significantly decreased (47±2%), but this was not evident in CDC-treated hearts (56±3%). The significantly higher ejection fractions in the CDC-treated group were maintained for a further 10 weeks. In addition, CDC-treated rat hearts had significantly increased capillary density in the peri-infarct region and lower infarct sizes. MPIO-labelled cells also expressed cardiac troponin I, von Willebrand factor and smooth muscle actin, suggesting their differentiation along the cardiomyocyte lineage and the formation of new blood vessels. Conclusions CDCs were retained in the infarcted rat heart for 16 weeks and improved cardiac function

Biomarkers to Distinguish Bacterial From Viral Pediatric Clinical Pneumonia in a Malaria-Endemic Setting.

BACKGROUND: Differential etiologies of pediatric acute febrile respiratory illness pose challenges for all populations globally, but especially in malaria-endemic settings because the pathogens responsible overlap in clinical presentation and frequently occur together. Rapid identification of bacterial pneumonia with high-quality diagnostic tools would enable appropriate, point-of-care antibiotic treatment. Current diagnostics are insufficient, and the discovery and development of new tools is needed. We report a unique biomarker signature identified in blood samples to accomplish this. METHODS: Blood samples from 195 pediatric Mozambican patients with clinical pneumonia were analyzed with an aptamer-based, high-dynamic-range, quantitative assay (~1200 proteins). We identified new biomarkers using a training set of samples from patients with established bacterial, viral, or malarial pneumonia. Proteins with significantly variable abundance across etiologies (false discovery rate 90% sensitivity and >80% specificity, regardless of number of pathogen classes. Bacterial pneumonia was strongly associated with neutrophil markers-in particular, degranulation including HP, LCN2, LTF, MPO, MMP8, PGLYRP1, RETN, SERPINA1, S100A9, and SLPI. CONCLUSIONS: Blood protein signatures highly associated with neutrophil biology reliably differentiated bacterial pneumonia from other causes. With appropriate technology, these markers could provide the basis for a rapid diagnostic for field-based triage for antibiotic treatment of pediatric pneumonia

Lithic technological responses to Late Pleistocene glacial cycling at Pinnacle Point Site 5-6, South Africa

There are multiple hypotheses for human responses to glacial cycling in the Late Pleistocene, including changes in population size, interconnectedness, and mobility. Lithic technological analysis informs us of human responses to environmental change because lithic assemblage characteristics are a reflection of raw material transport, reduction, and discard behaviors that depend on hunter-gatherer social and economic decisions. Pinnacle Point Site 5-6 (PP5-6), Western Cape, South Africa is an ideal locality for examining the influence of glacial cycling on early modern human behaviors because it preserves a long sequence spanning marine isotope stages (MIS) 5, 4, and 3 and is associated with robust records of paleoenvironmental change. The analysis presented here addresses the question, what, if any, lithic assemblage traits at PP5-6 represent changing behavioral responses to the MIS 5-4-3 interglacial-glacial cycle? It statistically evaluates changes in 93 traits with no a priori assumptions about which traits may significantly associate with MIS. In contrast to other studies that claim that there is little relationship between broad-scale patterns of climate change and lithic technology, we identified the following characteristics that are associated with MIS 4: increased use of quartz, increased evidence for outcrop sources of quartzite and silcrete, increased evidence for earlier stages of reduction in silcrete, evidence for increased flaking efficiency in all raw material types, and changes in tool types and function for silcrete. Based on these results, we suggest that foragers responded to MIS 4 glacial environmental conditions at PP5-6 with increased population or group sizes, 'place provisioning', longer and/or more intense site occupations, and decreased residential mobility. Several other traits, including silcrete frequency, do not exhibit an association with MIS. Backed pieces, once they appear in the PP5-6 record during MIS 4, persist through MIS 3. Changing paleoenvironments explain some, but not all temporal technological variability at PP5-6.Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; NORAM; American-Scandinavian Foundation; Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia [SFRH/BPD/73598/2010]; IGERT [DGE 0801634]; Hyde Family Foundations; Institute of Human Origins; National Science Foundation [BCS-9912465, BCS-0130713, BCS-0524087, BCS-1138073]; John Templeton Foundation to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State Universit

An integrated systems biology approach to the study of preterm birth using "-omic" technology - a guideline for research

Preterm birth is the leading cause of neonatal mortality and perinatal morbidity. The etiology of preterm is multi-factorial and still unclear. As evidence increases for a genetic contribution to PTB, so does the need to explore genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics in its study. This review suggests research guidelines for the conduct of high throughput systems biology investigations into preterm birth with the expectation that this will facilitate the sharing of samples and data internationally through consortia, generating the power needed to study preterm birth using integrated "-omics" technologies. The issues to be addressed include: (1) integrated "-omics" approaches, (2) phenotyping, (3) sample collection, (4) data management-integrative databases, (5) international consortia and (6) translational feasibility. This manuscript is the product of discussions initiated by the "-Omics" Working Group at the Preterm Birth International Collaborative Meeting held at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland in April 2009

Re-examining the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT): Towards a Revised Theoretical Model

YesBased on a critical review of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), this study first formalized an alternative theoretical model for explaining the acceptance and use of information system (IS) and information technology (IT) innovations. The revised theoretical model was then empirically examined using a combination of meta-analysis and structural equation modelling (MASEM) techniques. The meta-analysis was based on 1600 observations on 21 relationships coded from 162 prior studies on IS/IT acceptance and use. The SEM analysis showed that attitude: was central to behavioural intentions and usage behaviours, partially mediated the effects of exogenous constructs on behavioural intentions, and had a direct influence on usage behaviours. A number of implications for theory and practice are derived based on the findings

Autobiographical thinking interferes with episodic memory consolidation

New episodic memories are retained better if learning is followed by a few minutes of wakeful rest than by the encoding of novel external information. Novel encoding is said to interfere with the consolidation of recently acquired episodic memories. Here we report four experiments in which we examined whether autobiographical thinking, i.e. an 'internal' memory activity, also interferes with episodic memory consolidation. Participants were presented with three wordlists consisting of common nouns; one list was followed by wakeful rest, one by novel picture encoding and one by autobiographical retrieval/future imagination, cued by concrete sounds. Both novel encoding and autobiographical retrieval/future imagination lowered wordlist retention significantly. Follow-up experiments demonstrated that the interference by our cued autobiographical retrieval/future imagination delay condition could not be accounted for by the sound cues alone or by executive retrieval processes. Moreover, our results demonstrated evidence of a temporal gradient of interference across experiments. Thus, we propose that rich autobiographical retrieval/future imagination hampers the consolidation of recently acquired episodic memories and that such interference is particularly likely in the presence of external concrete cues

Search for relativistic magnetic monopoles with five years of the ANTARES detector data

[EN] A search for magnetic monopoles using five years of data recorded with the ANTARES neutrino telescope from January 2008 to December 2012 with a total live time of 1121 days is presented. The analysis is carried out in the range b>0.6 of magnetic monopole velocities using a strategy based on run-by-run Monte Carlo simulations. No signal above the background expectation from atmospheric muons and atmospheric neutrinos is observed, and upper limits are set on the magnetic monopole flux ranging from 5.7x10-16 to 1.5x10-18 cm-2 . s-1.sr-1.The authors acknowledge the financial support of the funding agencies: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commissariat a l'energie atomique et aux energies alternatives (CEA), Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund and Marie Curie Program), Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), IdEx program and UnivEarthS Labex program at Sorbonne Paris Cite (ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02), Labex OCEVU (ANR-11-LABX-0060) and the A*MIDEX project (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02), Region Ile-de-France (DIM-ACAV), Region Alsace (contrat CPER), Region Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, Departement du Var and Ville de La Seyne-sur-Mer, France; Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM), Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands; Council of the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and leading scientific schools supporting grants, Russia; National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS), Romania; Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO): Plan Estatal de Investigacion (refs. FPA2015-65150-C3-1-P, -2-P and -3-P, (MINECO/FEDER)), Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence and MultiDark Consolider (MINECO), and Prometeo and Grisolia programs (Generalitat Valenciana), Spain; Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Professional Training, Morocco. We also acknowledge the technical support of Ifremer, AIM and Foselev Marine for the sea operation and the CC-IN2P3 for the computing facilitiesAlbert, A.; Andre, M.; Anghinolfi, M.; Anton, G.; Ardid Ramírez, M.; Aubert, J.; Avgitas, T.... (2017). Search for relativistic magnetic monopoles with five years of the ANTARES detector data. Journal of High Energy Physics (Online). (7):1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2017)054S1167P.A.M. Dirac, Quantized Singularities in the Electromagnetic Field, Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 133 (1931) 60 [ INSPIRE ].G. ’t Hooft, Magnetic Monopoles in Unified Gauge Theories, Nucl. Phys. B 79 (1974) 276 [ INSPIRE ].A.M. Polyakov, Particle Spectrum in the Quantum Field Theory, JETP Lett. 20 (1974) 194 [ INSPIRE ].G. Lazarides, C. Panagiotakopoulos and Q. Shafi, Magnetic Monopoles From Superstring Models, Phys. Rev. Lett. 58 (1987) 1707 [ INSPIRE ].Y.M. Cho and D. Maison, Monopoles in Weinberg-Salam model, Phys. Lett. B 391 (1997) 360 [ hep-th/9601028 ] [INSPIRE].Particle Data Group collaboration, C. Patrignani et al., Review of Particle Physics, Chin. Phys. C 40 (2016) 100001 [ INSPIRE ].L. Patrizii and M. Spurio, Status of Searches for Magnetic Monopoles, Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 65 (2015) 279 [ arXiv:1510.07125 ] [INSPIRE].ATLAS collaboration, Search for magnetic monopoles and stable particles with high electric charges in 8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector, Phys. Rev. D 93 (2016) 052009 [ arXiv:1509.08059 ] [ INSPIRE ].MoEDAL collaboration, B. Acharya et al., Search for magnetic monopoles with the MoEDAL prototype trapping detector in 8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the LHC, JHEP 08 (2016) 067 [ arXiv:1604.06645 ] [INSPIRE].MoEDAL collaboration, B. Acharya et al., Search for Magnetic Monopoles with the MoEDAL Forward Trapping Detector in 13 TeV Proton-Proton Collisions at the LHC, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118 (2017) 061801 [ arXiv:1611.06817 ] [INSPIRE].T.W.B. Kibble, Topology of Cosmic Domains and Strings, J. Phys. A 9 (1976) 1387 [ INSPIRE ].J. Preskill, Cosmological Production of Superheavy Magnetic Monopoles, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43 (1979) 1365 [ INSPIRE ].A.H. Guth, The Inflationary Universe: A Possible Solution to the Horizon and Flatness Problems, Phys. Rev. D 23 (1981) 347 [ INSPIRE ].D. Ryu, H. Kang and P.L. Biermann, Cosmic magnetic fields in large scale filaments and sheets, Astron. Astrophys. 335 (1998) 19 [ astro-ph/9803275 ] [ INSPIRE ].E.N. Parker, The Origin of Magnetic Fields, Astrophys. J 160 (1970) 383.ANTARES collaboration, M. Ageron et al., ANTARES: the first undersea neutrino telescope, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 656 (2011) 11 [ arXiv:1104.1607 ] [INSPIRE].ANTARES collaboration, S. Adrian-Martinez et al., Search for Relativistic Magnetic Monopoles with the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope, Astropart. Phys. 35 (2012) 634 [ arXiv:1110.2656 ] [ INSPIRE ].IceCube collaboration, M.G. Aartsen et al., Searches for Relativistic Magnetic Monopoles in IceCube, Eur. Phys. J. C 76 (2016) 133 [ arXiv:1511.01350 ] [INSPIRE].ANTARES collaboration, J.A. Aguilar et al., The data acquisition system for the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 570 (2007) 107 [ astro-ph/0610029 ] [INSPIRE].D.R. Tompkins, Total energy loss and Čerenkov emission from monopoles, Phys. Rev. 138 (1965) B248.Y. Kazama, C.N. Yang and A.S. Goldhaber, Scattering of a Dirac Particle with Charge Ze by a Fixed Magnetic Monopole, Phys. Rev. D 15 (1977) 2287 [ INSPIRE ].S.P. Ahlen, Monopole Track Characteristics in Plastic Detectors, Phys. Rev. D 14 (1976) 2935 [ INSPIRE ].S.P. Ahlen, Stopping Power Formula for Magnetic Monopoles, Phys. Rev. D 17 (1978) 229 [ INSPIRE ].J. Derkaoui et al., Energy losses of magnetic monopoles and of dyons in the earth, Astropart. Phys. 9 (1998) 173 [ INSPIRE ].CERN Application Software Group, GEANT 3.21 Detector Description and Simulation Tool, CERN Program Library Long Writeup W5013 (1993).G. Carminati, A. Margiotta and M. Spurio, Atmospheric MUons from PArametric formulas: A fast GEnerator for neutrino telescopes (MUPAGE), Comput. Phys. Commun. 179 (2008) 915 [ arXiv:0802.0562 ] [INSPIRE].Y. Becherini, A. Margiotta, M. Sioli and M. Spurio, A parameterisation of single and multiple muons in the deep water or ice, Astropart. Phys. 25 (2006) 1 [ hep-ph/0507228 ] [INSPIRE].J. Brunner, ANTARES simulation tools, in proceedings of The VLVnT workshop, Amsterdam (2003), http://www.vlvnt.nl/proceedings.pdf .ANTARES collaboration, A. Margiotta, Common simulation tools for large volume neutrino detectors, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 725 (2013) 98 [ INSPIRE ].V. Agrawal, T.K. Gaisser, P. Lipari and T. Stanev, Atmospheric neutrino flux above 1-GeV, Phys. Rev. D 53 (1996) 1314 [ hep-ph/9509423 ] [INSPIRE].G.D. Barr, T.K. Gaisser, S. Robbins and T. Stanev, Uncertainties in Atmospheric Neutrino Fluxes, Phys. Rev. D 74 (2006) 094009 [ astro-ph/0611266 ] [INSPIRE].L. Fusco and A. Margiotta, The Run-by-Run Monte Carlo simulation for the ANTARES experiment, EPJ Web Conf. 116 (2016) 02002.ANTARES collaboration, J.A. Aguilar et al., A fast algorithm for muon track reconstruction and its application to the ANTARES neutrino telescope, Astropart. Phys. 34 (2011) 652 [ arXiv:1105.4116 ] [INSPIRE].ANTARES collaboration, S. Adrian-Martinez et al., Searches for Point-like and extended neutrino sources close to the Galactic Centre using the ANTARES neutrino Telescope, Astrophys. J. 786 (2014) L5 [ arXiv:1402.6182 ] [INSPIRE].G.J. Feldman and R.D. Cousins, A unified approach to the classical statistical analysis of small signals, Phys. Rev. D 57 (1998) 3873 [ physics/9711021 ] [INSPIRE].G.C. Hill and K. Rawlins, Unbiased cut selection for optimal upper limits in neutrino detectors: The model rejection potential technique, Astropart. Phys. 19 (2003) 393 [ astro-ph/0209350 ] [ INSPIRE ].ANTARES collaboration, J.A. Aguilar et al., Zenith distribution and flux of atmospheric muons measured with the 5-line ANTARES detector, Astropart. Phys. 34 (2010) 179 [ arXiv:1007.1777 ] [ INSPIRE ].ANTARES collaboration, S. Adrian-Martinez et al., Measurement of the atmospheric ν μ energy spectrum from 100 GeV to 200 TeV with the ANTARES telescope, Eur. Phys. J. C 73 (2013) 2606 [ arXiv:1308.1599 ] [INSPIRE].ANTARES collaboration, S. Adrian-Martinez et al., First Search for Point Sources of High Energy Cosmic Neutrinos with the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope, Astrophys. J. 743 (2011) L14 [ arXiv:1108.0292 ] [INSPIRE].ANTARES collaboration, P. Amram et al., The ANTARES optical module, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 484 (2002) 369 [ astro-ph/0112172 ] [INSPIRE].ANTARES collaboration, J.A. Aguilar et al., Transmission of light in deep sea water at the site of the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope, Astropart. Phys. 23 (2005) 131 [ astro-ph/0412126 ] [ INSPIRE ].MACRO collaboration, M. Ambrosio et al., Final results of magnetic monopole searches with the MACRO experiment, Eur. Phys. J. C 25 (2002) 511 [ hep-ex/0207020 ] [INSPIRE].BAIKAL collaboration, K. Antipin et al., Search for relativistic magnetic monopoles with the Baikal Neutrino Telescope, Astropart. Phys. 29 (2008) 366 [ INSPIRE ].KM3Net collaboration, S. Adrian-Martinez et al., Letter of intent for KM3NeT 2.0, J. Phys. G 43 (2016) 084001 [ arXiv:1601.07459 ] [INSPIRE]

Genome Characterization of the Oleaginous Fungus Mortierella alpina

Mortierella alpina is an oleaginous fungus which can produce lipids accounting for up to 50% of its dry weight in the form of triacylglycerols. It is used commercially for the production of arachidonic acid. Using a combination of high throughput sequencing and lipid profiling, we have assembled the M. alpina genome, mapped its lipogenesis pathway and determined its major lipid species. The 38.38 Mb M. alpina genome shows a high degree of gene duplications. Approximately 50% of its 12,796 gene models, and 60% of genes in the predicted lipogenesis pathway, belong to multigene families. Notably, M. alpina has 18 lipase genes, of which 11 contain the class 2 lipase domain and may share a similar function. M. alpina's fatty acid synthase is a single polypeptide containing all of the catalytic domains required for fatty acid synthesis from acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA, whereas in many fungi this enzyme is comprised of two polypeptides. Major lipids were profiled to confirm the products predicted in the lipogenesis pathway. M. alpina produces a complex mixture of glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids. In contrast, only two major sterol lipids, desmosterol and 24(28)-methylene-cholesterol, were detected. Phylogenetic analysis based on genes involved in lipid metabolism suggests that oleaginous fungi may have acquired their lipogenic capacity during evolution after the divergence of Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Chytridiomycota and Mucoromycota. Our study provides the first draft genome and comprehensive lipid profile for M. alpina, and lays the foundation for possible genetic engineering of M. alpina to produce higher levels and diverse contents of dietary lipids

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection