Features of Anesthesiologists-Reanimatologists’ Emotional States in Different COVID-19 Pandemic Periods in Russia

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most stressful events in recent times. Medical professionals, including anesthesiologists-reanimatologists, suffered the main blow in this difficult and stressful environment. Aims: This study aimed at identifying the features of anesthesiologists-reanimatologists’ emotional states in different COVID-19 pandemic periods. Methods: The study was conducted through an anonymous questionnaire among anesthesiologists-reanimatologists in two periods. In the First stage – which was carried out in May 2020 (during the first COVID-19 pan¬demic wave) – 58 anesthesiologists-reanimatologists in the Arkhangelsk region took part. During the Second segment – which took place in October 2020 (in the second COVID-19 pandemic wave) – 43 anesthesiologists-reanimatologists were examined. Repeated questioning was carried out among the same participants. Results: In October 2020, compared to May, the number of doctors who noted a high intensity of professional activity increased. Regardless of the study period, one-third of the subjects experienced constant pronounced anxiety. Anesthesiologists-reanimatologists, whose professional activity was directly related to the patients in COVID-19 care, noted a poorer emo¬tional state more frequently in October, accompanied by anxiety, depressed mood, irritability and a high burnout level, which may indicate a depletion of internal resources in this group. Conclusions: The study results showed that for anesthesiologists-reanimatologists, a further depletion of emotional resources accompanied the second pandemic wave. The anesthesiologists-reanimatologists’ emotional state was mediated by a number of social and gender factors, as well as specific labor organization features

Bioprospecting Red Sea Coastal Ecosystems for Culturable Microorganisms and Their Antimicrobial Potential

Microorganisms that inhabit unchartered unique soil such as in the highly saline and hot Red Sea lagoons on the Saudi Arabian coastline, represent untapped sources of potentially new bioactive compounds. In this study, a culture-dependent approach was applied to three types of sediments: mangrove mud (MN), microbial mat (MM), and barren soil (BS), collected from Rabigh harbor lagoon (RHL) and Al-Kharrar lagoon (AKL). The isolated bacteria were evaluated for their potential to produce bioactive compounds. The phylogenetic characterization of 251 bacterial isolates based on the 16S rRNA gene sequencing, supported their assignment to five different phyla: Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Planctomycetes. Fifteen putative novel species were identified based on a 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to other strain sequences in the NCBI database, being ≤98%. We demonstrate that 49 of the 251 isolates exhibit the potential to produce antimicrobial compounds. Additionally, at least one type of biosynthetic gene sequence, responsible for the synthesis of secondary metabolites, was recovered from 25 of the 49 isolates. Moreover, 10 of the isolates had a growth inhibition effect towards Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhimurium and Pseudomonas syringae. We report the previously unknown antimicrobial activity of B. borstelensis, P. dendritiformis and M. salipaludis against all three indicator pathogens. Our study demonstrates the evidence of diverse cultured microbes associated with the Red Sea harbor/lagoon environments and their potential to produce antimicrobial compounds

C\u3csub\u3e60\u3c/sub\u3e fullerenes selectively inhibit BK\u3csub\u3eCa\u3c/sub\u3e but not K\u3csub\u3ev\u3c/sub\u3e channels in pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. Possessing unique physical and chemical properties, C60 fullerenes are arising as a potential nanotechnological tool that can strongly affect various biological processes. Recent molecular modeling studies have shown that C60 fullerenes can interact with ion channels, but there is lack of data about possible effects of C60 molecule on ion channels expressed in smooth muscle cells (SMC). Here we show both computationally and experimentally that water-soluble pristine C60 fullerene strongly inhibits the large conductance Ca2+-dependent K+ (BKCa), but not voltage-gated K+ (Kv) channels in pulmonary artery SMC. Both molecular docking simulations and analysis of single channel activity indicate that C60 fullerene blocks BKCa channel pore in its open state. In functional tests, C60 fullerene enhanced phenylephrine-induced contraction of pulmonary artery rings by about 25% and reduced endothelium-dependent acetylcholine-induced relaxation by up to 40%. These findings suggest a novel strategy for biomedical application of water-soluble pristine C60 fullerene in vascular dysfunction

Aneuploidy and Confined Chromosomal Mosaicism in the Developing Human Brain

BACKGROUND: Understanding the mechanisms underlying generation of neuronal variability and complexity remains the central challenge for neuroscience. Structural variation in the neuronal genome is likely to be one important mechanism for neuronal diversity and brain diseases. Large-scale genomic variations due to loss or gain of whole chromosomes (aneuploidy) have been described in cells of the normal and diseased human brain, which are generated from neural stem cells during intrauterine period of life. However, the incidence of aneuploidy in the developing human brain and its impact on the brain development and function are obscure. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To address genomic variation during development we surveyed aneuploidy/polyploidy in the human fetal tissues by advanced molecular-cytogenetic techniques at the single-cell level. Here we show that the human developing brain has mosaic nature, being composed of euploid and aneuploid neural cells. Studying over 600,000 neural cells, we have determined the average aneuploidy frequency as 1.25-1.45% per chromosome, with the overall percentage of aneuploidy tending to approach 30-35%. Furthermore, we found that mosaic aneuploidy can be exclusively confined to the brain. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our data indicates aneuploidization to be an additional pathological mechanism for neuronal genome diversification. These findings highlight the involvement of aneuploidy in the human brain development and suggest an unexpected link between developmental chromosomal instability, intercellural/intertissular genome diversity and human brain diseases

Stromal Cell-Derived Factor-1/CXCL12 Contributes to MMTV-Wnt1 Tumor Growth Involving Gr1+CD11b+ Cells

BACKGROUND: Histological examinations of MMTV-Wnt1 tumors reveal drastic differences in the tumor vasculature when compared to MMTV-Her2 tumors. However, these differences have not been formally described, nor have any angiogenic factors been implicated to be involved in the Wnt1 tumors. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here, we show that MMTV-Wnt1 tumors were more vascularized than MMTV-Her2 tumors, and this correlated with significantly higher expression of a CXC chemokine, stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF1/CXCL12) but not with VEGFA. Isolation of various cell types from Wnt1 tumors revealed that SDF1 was produced by both tumor myoepithelial cells and stromal cells, whereas Her2 tumors lacked myoepithelial cells and contained significantly less stroma. The growth of Wnt1 tumors, but not Her2 tumors, was inhibited by a neutralizing antibody to SDF1, but not by neutralization of VEGFA. Anti-SDF1 treatment decreased the proportion of infiltrating Gr1(+) myeloid cells in the Wnt1 tumors, which correlated with a decrease in the percentage of endothelial cells. The involvement of Gr1(+) cells was evident from the retardation of Wnt1 tumor growth following in vivo depletion of these cells with an anti-Gr1-specific antibody. This degree of inhibition on Wnt1 tumor growth was comparable, but not additive, to the effect observed with anti-SDF1, indicative of overlapping mechanisms of inhibition. In contrast, Her2 tumors were not affected by the depletion of Gr1(+) cells. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We demonstrated that SDF1 is important for Wnt1, but not for HER2, in inducing murine mammary tumor and the role of SDF1 in tumorigenesis involves Gr1(+) myeloid cells to facilitate growth and/or angiogenesis

Safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma for COVID-19: the preliminary results of a clinical trial

Background. The lack of effective etiotropic therapy for COVID-19 has prompted researchers around the globe to seekr various methods of SARS-CoV-2 elimination, including the use of convalescent plasma. Aim. The aim of this work was to study the safety and efficacy of the convalescence plasma treatment of severe COVID-19 using the plasma containing specific antibodies to the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 S protein in a titer of at least 1:1000. Methods. A single-center, randomized, prospective clinical study was performed at the FRCC FMBA of Russia with the participation of 86 patients who were stratified in two groups. The first group included 20 critically ill patients who were on mechanical ventilation the second group included 66 patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 and with spontaneous respiration. The patients in the second group were randomized into two cohorts in a ratio of 2:1. In the first cohort (46 patients), pathogen-reduced convalescent plasma was transfused (twice, 320 ml each), in the second cohort (20 patients) a similar amount of non-immune freshly frozen plasma was transfused to the patients. Results. The use of plasma of convalescents in patients with severe COVID-19 being on mechanical ventilation does not affect the disease outcome in these patients. The mortality rate in this group was 60%, which corresponds to the average mortality of COVID patients on mechanical ventilation in our hospital. In the second group, clinical improvement was detected in 75% and 51%, for convalescent and non-immune plasma, respectively. Of the 46 people who received convalescent plasma, three patients (6.5%) were transferred to mechanical ventilation, two of them died. In the group receiving non-immune plasma, the need for mechanical ventilation also arose in three patients (15%), of which two died. The hospital mortality in the group of convalescent plasma was 4.3%, which is significantly lower than the average COVID-19 hospital mortality at our Center (6.73%) and more than two times lower than the hospital mortality in the control group (n=150), matched by age and by the disease severity. Conclusions. Thus, we demonstrated a relative safety of convalescent plasma transfusion and the effectiveness of such therapy for COVID-19 at least in terms of the survival of hospitalized patients with severe respiratory failure without mechanical ventilation. In the absence of bioengineered neutralizing antibodies and effective etiotropic therapy, the use of hyperimmune convalescent plasma is the simplest and most effective method of specific etiopathogenetic therapy of severe forms of COVID-19

Biological Earth observation with animal sensors

Space-based tracking technology using low-cost miniature tags is now delivering data on fine-scale animal movement at near-global scale. Linked with remotely sensed environmental data, this offers a biological lens on habitat integrity and connectivity for conservation and human health; a global network of animal sentinels of environmen-tal change

Restoration of vegetation cover in reclaimed areas with coal preparation waste in Kuzbass

The paper presents the results of research and assessment of the degree of restoration of vegetation cover in reclaimed areas with the use of coal preparation waste in Kuzbass. Reclamation of disturbed lands was carried out by backfilling the depleted pits of the former coal mine with coal preparation waste and forming a root layer on the leveled surface of the waste using materials of the fertile soil layer (FSL) and potentially fertile rocks (PFR). During the field survey of reclamation sites, it was found that when sowing perennial grasses (Bromopsis inermis, Medicago sativa, etc.) or planting trees and shrubs (Hippophae rhamnoides, Pinus sylvestris, etc.) on the root layer formed of FSL and/or PFR, favorable conditions are created in the reclaimed areas for the formation of the primary phytocenosis. Studies have also shown that in reclaimed areas where a fertile soil layer was used to form a root layer, a gradual restoration of soil properties is recorded in the surface fill layers, which in some parameters are close to natural soils common in the adjacent territories

Grain size composition of sediments from ODP Leg 164 sites

This research was designed to check the assumption of the grain-size control on a gas hydrate presence in the Blake Ridge sediments; the assumption had originated from the data gained at Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 533. Granulometric analysis (the combined pipette-sieve method) of the 345 sediment samples obtained after pore-water squeezing from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Sites 994, 995, and 997 has provided support for this assumption. The zone of negative anomalies of pore-water chlorinity, which is generally recognized to be gas hydrate bearing, is confined, as a whole, to the interval of comparatively coarse-grained sediments in each of the three site columns because content of the fine fractions <0.05, <0.01, <0.005, and <0.001 mm is lower there (although the character of this control changes from site to site). The individual chlorinity anomalies also coincide, for the most part, with relatively coarse-grained sediments