Environmental determinants of the urinary concentrations of herbicides during pregnancy: The PELAGIE mother–child cohort (France)

International audienceHerbicides are generally the most extensively used of the pesticides applied to agricultural crops. However, the literature contains little evidence useful in assessing the potential sources of the general population's exposure to herbicides, including by residential proximity to crops.The objective of this study was to take advantage of data from the PELAGIE mother–child cohort to identify the main determinants of the body burden of exposure to the chloroacetanilide and triazine herbicides commonly used on corn crops in Brittany, France, before 2006. Urine samples from a randomly selected subcohort of women in the first trimester of pregnancy (n=579) were assayed for herbicide metabolites. The residential exposure resulting from proximity to corn crops was assessed with satellite-image-based scores combined with meteorological data. Data on diet, drinking tap water (from the public water supply), occupations, and household herbicide use were collected by questionnaires.Herbicides were quantified in 5.3% to 39.7% of urine samples. Alachlor and acetochlor were found most frequently in the urine of women living in rural areas. The presence of dealkylated triazine metabolites in urine samples was positively associated with residential proximity to corn crops (OR=1.38, 95% CI: 1.05–1.80). Urinary metabolites of both atrazine and dealkylated triazine were correlated with tap water consumption (OR=2.94, 1.09–7.90, and OR=1.82, 1.10–3.03, respectively); hydroxylated triazine metabolites were correlated with fish intake (OR=1.48, 1.09–1.99).This study reinforces previous results that suggest that environmental contamination resulting from agricultural activities may contribute to the general population's exposure to herbicides

Common mitochondrial deletions in RNA-Seq: evaluation of bulk, single-cell, and spatial transcriptomic datasets

Abstract Common mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) deletions are large structural variants in the mitochondrial genome that accumulate in metabolically active tissues with age and have been investigated in various diseases. We applied the Splice-Break2 pipeline (designed for high-throughput quantification of mtDNA deletions) to human RNA-Seq datasets and describe the methodological considerations for evaluating common deletions in bulk, single-cell, and spatial transcriptomics datasets. A robust evaluation of 1570 samples from 14 RNA-Seq studies showed: (i) the abundance of some common deletions detected in PCR-amplified mtDNA correlates with levels observed in RNA-Seq data; (ii) RNA-Seq library preparation method has a strong effect on deletion detection; (iii) deletions had a significant, positive correlation with age in brain and muscle; (iv) deletions were enriched in cortical grey matter, specifically in layers 3 and 5; and (v) brain regions with dopaminergic neurons (i.e., substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, and caudate nucleus) had remarkable enrichment of common mtDNA deletions

B-meson decays to eta ' rho, eta ' f(0), and eta ' K*

We present measurements of B-meson decays to the final states eta'rho, eta'f(0), and eta'K*, where K* stands for a vector, scalar, or tensor strange meson. We observe a significant signal or evidence for eta'rho(+) and all the eta'K* channels. We also measure, where applicable, the charge asymmetries, finding results consistent with no direct CP violation in all cases. The measurements are performed on a data sample consisting of 467 X 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs, collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e(+)e(-) collider at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Our results favor the theoretical predictions from perturbative QCD and QCD factorization and we observe an enhancement of the tensor K-2*(1430) with respect to the vector K*(892) component