Liver fatty acid binding protein (LFABP) transfers fatty acids and fatty acyl coas to membranes

The objective of this work was to analyze LFABP´s capacity to transfer acyl CoAs to artificial membranes and compare it to LCFA transfer employing natural ligands, in order to better understand the specific physiological role of LFABP in the cell.Facultad de Ciencias Médica

Using the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) to optimize an HIV care continuum intervention for vulnerable populations : a study protocol

Abstract: Background. More than half of persons living with HIV (PLWH) in the United States are insufficiently engaged in HIV primary care and not taking antiretroviral therapy (ART), mainly African Americans/Blacks and Hispanics. In the proposed project, a potent and innovative research methodology, the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), will be employed to develop a highly efficacious, efficient, scalable, and cost-effective intervention to increase engagement along the HIV care continuum. Whereas randomized controlled trials are valuable for evaluating the efficacy of multi-component interventions as a package, they are not designed to evaluate which specific components contribute to efficacy. MOST, a pioneering, engineering-inspired framework, addresses this problem through highly efficient randomized experimentation to assess the performance of individual intervention components and their interactions. We propose to use MOST to engineer an intervention to increase engagement along the HIV care continuum for African American/Black and Hispanic PLWH not well engaged in care and not taking ART. Further, the intervention will be optimized for cost-effectiveness. A similar set of multi-level factors impede both HIV care and ART initiation for African American/Black and Hispanic PLWH, primary among them individual- (e.g., substance use, distrust, fear), social- (e.g., stigma), and structural-level barriers (e.g., difficulties accessing ancillary services). Guided by a multi-level social cognitive theory, the study will evaluate five distinct intervention components (i.e., Motivational Interviewing counseling sessions, pre-adherence preparation, support groups, peer mentorship, and patient navigation), each designed to address a specific barrier to HIV care and ART initiation. These components are well-grounded in the empirical literature and were found acceptable, feasible, and promising with respect to efficacy in a preliminary study. Methods/design. Study aims are: 1) using a highly efficient fractional factorial experimental design, identify which of five intervention components contribute meaningfully to improvement in HIV viral suppression, and secondary outcomes of ART adherence and engagement in HIV primary care; 2) identify mediators and moderators of intervention component efficacy; and 3) using a mathematical modeling approach, build the most cost-effective and efficient intervention package from the efficacious components. A heterogeneous sample of African American/Black and Hispanic PLWH (with respect to age, substance use, and sexual minority status) will be recruited with a proven hybrid sampling method using targeted sampling in community settings and peer recruitment (N=512). Discussion. This is the first study to apply the MOST framework in the field of HIV prevention and treatment. This innovative study will produce an HIV care continuum intervention for the nation's most vulnerable PLWH, optimized for cost-effectiveness, and with exceptional levels of efficacy, efficiency, and scalability

Breast cancer in lesbians and bisexual women: Systematic review of incidence, prevalence and risk studies

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. © 2013 Meads and Moore; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: The UK Parliamentary Enquiry and USA Institute of Medicine state that lesbians may be at a higher risk of breast cancer but there is insufficient information. Lesbians and bisexual (LB) women have behavioural risk-factors at higher rates compared to heterosexuals such as increased alcohol intake and higher stress levels. Conversely, breast cancer rates are higher in more affluent women yet income levels in LB women are relatively low. This systematic review investigated all evidence on whether there is, or likely to be, higher rates of breast cancer in LB women. Methods: Cochrane library (CDSR, CENTRAL, HTA, DARE, NHSEED), MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychINFO, CAB abstracts, Web of Science (SCI, SSCI), SIGLE and Social Care Online databases were searched to October 2013. Unpublished research and specific lesbian, gay and bisexual websites were checked, as were citation lists of relevant papers. Included were studies in LB populations reporting breast cancer incidence or prevalence rates, risk model results or risk-factor estimates. Inclusions, data-extraction and quality assessment were by two reviewers with disagreements resolved by discussion. Results: Searches found 198 references. No incidence rates were found. Nine studies gave prevalence estimates - two showed higher, four showed no differences, one showed mixed results depending on definitions, one had no comparison group and one gave no sample size. All studies were small with poor methodological and/or reporting quality. One incidence modelling study suggested a higher rate. Four risk modelling studies were found, one Rosner-Colditz and three Gail models. Three suggested higher and one lower rate in LB compared to heterosexual women. Six risk-factor estimates suggested higher risk and one no difference between LB and heterosexual women. Conclusions: The only realistic way to establish rates in LB women would be to collect sexual orientation within routine statistics, including cancer registry data, or from large cohort studies

Evaluation of machine-learning methods for ligand-based virtual screening

Machine-learning methods can be used for virtual screening by analysing the structural characteristics of molecules of known (in)activity, and we here discuss the use of kernel discrimination and naive Bayesian classifier (NBC) methods for this purpose. We report a kernel method that allows the processing of molecules represented by binary, integer and real-valued descriptors, and show that it is little different in screening performance from a previously described kernel that had been developed specifically for the analysis of binary fingerprint representations of molecular structure. We then evaluate the performance of an NBC when the training-set contains only a very few active molecules. In such cases, a simpler approach based on group fusion would appear to provide superior screening performance, especially when structurally heterogeneous datasets are to be processed

Sex Hormone Status in Women With Chronic Kidney Disease: Survey of Nephrologists’ and Renal Allied Health Care Providers’ Perceptions

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) in reproductive-age women is accompanied by menstrual and fertility disorders and premature menopause. Objective: We sought to determine nephrologists’ and allied health care providers’ perceptions on management of sex hormone status in women with CKD. Methods: An anonymous, Internet-based survey was sent to nephrology society members from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and the Canadian Association of Nephrology Nurses and Technologists (February-November 2015). We assessed reported perceptions and management of sex hormone status in women with CKD. Results: One hundred seventy-five nephrologists (21% response rate) and 121 allied health care providers (30%; 116 nurses, 5 pharmacists) responded. Sixty-eight percent of nephrologists and 46% of allied providers were between the ages of 30 and 50 years, and 38% of nephrologists and 89% of allied workers were female. Ninety-five percent of nephrologists agreed that kidney function impacts sex hormone status, although only a minority of nephrologists reported often discussing fertility (35%, female vs male nephrologists, P = .06) and menstrual irregularities with their patients (15%, female vs male nephrologists,P = .02). Transplant nephrologists reported discussing fertility more often than did nontransplant nephrologists (53% vs 30%, P = .03). Physicians were more likely to report discussing fertility (33% vs 7.5%, P < .001) and menstrual irregularities (15% vs 9%, P = .04) with patients than allied health care providers. Forty-three percent of physicians reported uncertainty about the role for postmenopausal hormone therapy in women with CKD. Conclusion: Nephrologists and allied health care providers recognize an impact of CKD on sex hormones in women but report not frequently discussing sex hormone–related issues with patients. Our international survey highlights an important knowledge gap in nephrology

Fish Assemblage Relationships with Physical Habitat in Wadeable Iowa Streams

Fish assemblages play a key role in stream ecosystems and are influenced by physical habitat. We analyzed fish assemblages and physical habitat at 93 randomly selected sites on second- through fifth-order wadeable Iowa streams to explore fish assemblage relationships with reach-scale physical habitat in this agriculturally dominated landscape. Sites were sampled using DC electrofishing and the wadeable streams physical habitat protocol of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u27s Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program. In all, 82 species were collected, with species richness at sites averaging 14. Over 80% of the sites had fish assemblages rated as fair (53%) or poor (32%) based on a fish index of biotic integrity (FIBI). Ordination separated sites from the two major river drainages along an axis of impairment, with sites in the Missouri River drainage exhibiting lower FIBI scores than sites in the Mississippi River drainage. Physical habitat at most sites exhibited fine substrates, eroding banks, and low-gradient, nonmeandering channel and was dominated by glides. Thirty physical habitat variables describing channel morphology, channel cross section and bank morphology, fish cover, human disturbance, large woody debris, relative bed stability, residual pool, riparian vegetation, and substrate differed significantly between sites with FIBI scores rated as poor and those with FIBI scores rated as good or excellent. Eighteen physical habitat variables were significant predictors of fish assemblage metrics and FIBI in multiple linear regression models, with adjusted R 2 values ranging from 0.12 to 0.58. Seventy percent of the model coefficients reflected substrate (40%), residual pool (21%), and fish cover (9%) variables. Fish assemblages in wadeable Iowa streams are strongly associated with the quality of physical habitat. Thus, understanding and addressing the determinants of physical habitat are crucial for managing streams in Iowa and other agricultural regions

Measurement of inclusive D*+- and associated dijet cross sections in photoproduction at HERA

Inclusive photoproduction of D*+- mesons has been measured for photon-proton centre-of-mass energies in the range 130 < W < 280 GeV and a photon virtuality Q^2 < 1 GeV^2. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 37 pb^-1. Total and differential cross sections as functions of the D* transverse momentum and pseudorapidity are presented in restricted kinematical regions and the data are compared with next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD calculations using the "massive charm" and "massless charm" schemes. The measured cross sections are generally above the NLO calculations, in particular in the forward (proton) direction. The large data sample also allows the study of dijet production associated with charm. A significant resolved as well as a direct photon component contribute to the cross section. Leading order QCD Monte Carlo calculations indicate that the resolved contribution arises from a significant charm component in the photon. A massive charm NLO parton level calculation yields lower cross sections compared to the measured results in a kinematic region where the resolved photon contribution is significant.Comment: 32 pages including 6 figure