Motility Screen Identifies Drosophila IGF-II mRNA-Binding Protein—Zipcode-Binding Protein Acting in Oogenesis and Synaptogenesis

The localization of specific mRNAs can establish local protein gradients that generate and control the development of cellular asymmetries. While all evidence underscores the importance of the cytoskeleton in the transport and localization of RNAs, we have limited knowledge of how these events are regulated. Using a visual screen for motile proteins in a collection of GFP protein trap lines, we identified the Drosophila IGF-II mRNA-binding protein (Imp), an ortholog of Xenopus Vg1 RNA binding protein and chicken zipcode-binding protein. In Drosophila, Imp is part of a large, RNase-sensitive complex that is enriched in two polarized cell types, the developing oocyte and the neuron. Using time-lapse confocal microscopy, we establish that both dynein and kinesin contribute to the transport of GFP-Imp particles, and that regulation of transport in egg chambers appears to differ from that in neurons. In Drosophila, loss-of-function Imp mutations are zygotic lethal, and mutants die late as pharate adults. Imp has a function in Drosophila oogenesis that is not essential, as well as functions that are essential during embryogenesis and later development. Germline clones of Imp mutations do not block maternal mRNA localization or oocyte development, but overexpression of a specific Imp isoform disrupts dorsal/ventral polarity. We report here that loss-of-function Imp mutations, as well as Imp overexpression, can alter synaptic terminal growth. Our data show that Imp is transported to the neuromuscular junction, where it may modulate the translation of mRNA targets. In oocytes, where Imp function is not essential, we implicate a specific Imp domain in the establishment of dorsoventral polarity

Comparison of Outcomes Following a Switch from a Brand to an Authorized vs. Independent Generic Drug

Authorized generics are identical in formulation to brand drugs, manufactured by the brand company but marketed as a generic. Generics, marketed by generic manufacturers, are required to demonstrate pharmaceutical and bioequivalence to the brand drug, but repetition of clinical trials is not required. This retrospective cohort study compared outcomes for generics and authorized generics, which serves as a generic vs. brand proxy that minimizes bias against generics. For the seven drugs studied between 1999-2014, 5,234 unique patients were on brand drug prior to generic entry and 4,900 (93.6%) switched to a generic. During the 12-months following the brand-to-generic switch, patients using generics vs. authorized generics were similar in terms of outpatient visits, urgent care visits, hospitalizations, and medication discontinuation. The likelihood of emergency department visits was slightly higher for authorized generics compared with generics. These data suggest that generics were clinically no worse than their proxy brand comparator

The adoption of generic immunosuppressant medications in kidney, liver, and heart transplantation among recipients in Colorado or nationally with Medicare part D

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144701/1/ajt14722.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144701/2/ajt14722_am.pd

Risk of Arterial and Venous Thrombotic Events Among Patients with COVID-19:A Multi-National Collaboration of Regulatory Agencies from Canada, Europe, and United States

Purpose: Few studies have examined how the absolute risk of thromboembolism with COVID-19 has evolved over time across different countries. Researchers from the European Medicines Agency, Health Canada, and the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration established a collaboration to evaluate the absolute risk of arterial (ATE) and venous thromboembolism (VTE) in the 90 days after diagnosis of COVID-19 in the ambulatory (eg, outpatient, emergency department, nursing facility) setting from seven countries across North America (Canada, US) and Europe (England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain) within periods before and during COVID-19 vaccine availability. Patients and Methods: We conducted cohort studies of patients initially diagnosed with COVID-19 in the ambulatory setting from the seven specified countries. Patients were followed for 90 days after COVID-19 diagnosis. The primary outcomes were ATE and VTE over 90 days from diagnosis date. We measured country -level estimates of 90 -day absolute risk (with 95% confidence intervals) of ATE and VTE. Results: The seven cohorts included 1,061,565 patients initially diagnosed with COVID-19 in the ambulatory setting before COVID19 vaccines were available (through November 2020). The 90 -day absolute risk of ATE during this period ranged from 0.11% (0.09- 0.13%) in Canada to 1.01% (0.97-1.05%) in the US, and the 90 -day absolute risk of VTE ranged from 0.23% (0.21-0.26%) in Canada to 0.84% (0.80-0.89%) in England. The seven cohorts included 3,544,062 patients with COVID-19 during vaccine availability (beginning December 2020). The 90 -day absolute risk of ATE during this period ranged from 0.06% (0.06-0.07%) in England to 1.04% (1.01-1.06%) in the US, and the 90 -day absolute risk of VTE ranged from 0.25% (0.24-0.26%) in England to 1.02% (0.99- 1.04%) in the US. Conclusion: There was heterogeneity by country in 90 -day absolute risk of ATE and VTE after ambulatory COVID-19 diagnosis both before and during COVID-19 vaccine availability. Plain Language Summary: Cohort studies of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in both the ambulatory and hospital settings have suggested that SARS-CoV-2 infection promotes hypercoagulability that could lead to arterial or venous thromboembolism. However, few studies have examined how the risk of thromboembolism with COVID-19 has evolved over time across different countries. A new collaboration was established among the regulatory authorities of Canada, Europe, and the US within the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities to evaluate the 90 -day risk of both arterial and venous thromboembolism after initial diagnosis of COVID-19 in the ambulatory or hospital setting from seven countries across North America (Canada, US) and Europe (England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain) within periods before and during COVID-19 vaccine availability. The study found that there was variability in the risk of both arterial and venous thromboembolism by month across the countries among patients initially diagnosed with COVID-19 in the ambulatory or hospital setting. Differences in the healthcare systems, prevalence of comorbidities in the study cohorts, and approaches to the case definitions of thromboembolism likely contributed to the variability in estimates of thromboembolism risk across the countries

Increased Prevalence of Albuminuria in HIV-Infected Adults with Diabetes

HIV and type 2 diabetes are known risk factors for albuminuria, but no previous reports have characterized albuminuria in HIV-infected patients with diabetes.We performed a cross-sectional study including 73 HIV-infected adults with type 2 diabetes, 82 HIV-infected non-diabetics, and 61 diabetic control subjects without HIV. Serum creatinine >1.5 mg/dL was exclusionary. Albuminuria was defined as urinary albumin/creatinine ratio >30 mg/g.The prevalence of albuminuria was significantly increased among HIV-infected diabetics (34% vs. 13% of HIV non-diabetic vs. 16% diabetic control, p = 0.005). HIV status and diabetes remained significant predictors of albuminuria after adjusting for age, race, BMI, and blood pressure. Albumin/creatinine ratio correlated significantly with HIV viral load (r = 0.28, p = 0.0005) and HIV-infected subjects with albuminuria had significantly greater cumulative exposure to abacavir (p = 0.01). In an adjusted multivariate regression analysis of HIV-infected subjects, the diagnosis of diabetes (p = 0.003), higher HIV viral load (p = 0.03) and cumulative exposure to abacavir (p = 0.0009) were significant independent predictors of albuminuria.HIV and diabetes appear to have additive effects on albuminuria which is also independently associated with increased exposure to abacavir and HIV viral load. Future research on the persistence, progression and management of albuminuria in this unique at-risk population is needed

The Simons Observatory microwave SQUID multiplexing detector module design

Advances in cosmic microwave background (CMB) science depend on increasing the number of sensitive detectors observing the sky. New instruments deploy large arrays of superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers tiled densely into ever larger focal planes. High multiplexing factors reduce the thermal loading on the cryogenic receivers and simplify their design. We present the design of focal-plane modules with an order of magnitude higher multiplexing factor than has previously been achieved with TES bolometers. We focus on the novel cold readout component, which employs microwave SQUID multiplexing ($\mu$mux). Simons Observatory will use 49 modules containing 60,000 bolometers to make exquisitely sensitive measurements of the CMB. We validate the focal-plane module design, presenting measurements of the readout component with and without a prototype detector array of 1728 polarization-sensitive bolometers coupled to feedhorns. The readout component achieves a $95\%$ yield and a 910 multiplexing factor. The median white noise of each readout channel is 65 $\mathrm{pA/\sqrt{Hz}}$. This impacts the projected SO mapping speed by $< 8\%$, which is less than is assumed in the sensitivity projections. The results validate the full functionality of the module. We discuss the measured performance in the context of SO science requirements, which are exceeded.Comment: Accepted to The Astrophysical Journa

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

In Situ Characterization of Differences in the Viscoelastic Response of Individual Gram-Negative and Gram-Positive Bacterial Cells▿

We used a novel atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based technique to compare the local viscoelastic properties of individual gram-negative (Escherichia coli) and gram-positive (Bacillus subtilis) bacterial cells. We found that the viscoelastic properties of the bacterial cells are well described by a three-component mechanical model that combines an instantaneous elastic response and a delayed elastic response. These experiments have allowed us to investigate the relationship between the viscoelastic properties and the structure and composition of the cell envelope. In addition, this is the first report in which the mechanical role of Lpp, the major peptidoglycan-associated lipoprotein and one of the most abundant outer membrane proteins in E. coli cells, has been quantified. We expect that our findings will be helpful in increasing the understanding of the structure-property relationships of bacterial cell envelopes