Microstructured blood vessel surrogates reveal structural tropism of motile malaria parasites

Plasmodium sporozoites, the highly motile forms of the malaria parasite, are transmitted naturally by mosquitoes and traverse the skin to find, associate with, and enter blood capillaries. Research aimed at understanding how sporozoites select blood vessels is hampered by the lack of a suitable experimental system. Arrays of uniform cylindrical pillars can be used to study small cells moving in controlled environments. Here, an array system displaying a variety of pillars with different diameters and shapes is developed in order to investigate how Plasmodium sporozoites associate to the pillars as blood vessel surrogates. Investigating the association of sporozoites to pillars in arrays displaying pillars of different diameters reveals that the crescent-shaped parasites prefer to associate with and migrate around pillars with a similar curvature. This suggests that after transmission by a mosquito, malaria parasites may use a structural tropism to recognize blood capillaries in the dermis in order to gain access to the blood stream

Graduate Medical Education on the Frontlines during the COVID-19 Pandemic in New York City- A Response to Promote Well-being

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has driven many health care institutions in the United States beyond their capacity. Physicians-in-training in graduate medical education programs have suffered the strain of providing patient care during this unprecedented time of crisis. The significant prevalence of pre-existing resident and fellow burnout and depression makes the need for action by institutions to support the well-being of residents and fellows even more urgent. We aim to describe innovative adaptations our Office of Graduate Medical Education implemented with the support of institutional leadership as responses to promote the well-being of residents and fellows on the frontlines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The Office of Graduate Medical Education (GME), in collaboration with the Office of Well-being and Resilience, developed a set of resources and interventions to support trainees during the pandemic based on four major categories: workplace culture, personal factors and health, mental health support, and workplace efficiency and function. Examination of the capacity of existing services and gaps that needed to be filled in the rapidly evolving early days of the COVID pandemic led to a robust growth in resources. For example, the already established Student and Trainee Mental Health program was able to expand and adapt its role to serve trainee needs more effectively. Results: We expanded resources to target trainee well-being across a broad array of domains within a short time frame. With investment in access to the Student and Trainee Mental Health program, utilization increased by 25.7%, with 1,231 more visits in 2020 compared to the number of visits in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The creation of Recharge Rooms had a positive impact on the well-being of health care workers. After a single fifteen-minute experience in the Recharge Room, an average 59.6% reduction in self-reported stress levels was noted by users. Other interventions were noted to be helpful in regular town hall meetings with trainees. Conclusion: Addressing trainee well-being is an essential aspect of a crisis response. The Mount Sinai Health System was able to care for the physical, mental, psychosocial, and safety needs of our trainees thanks to the collaborative effort of a pre-existing institutional well-being program and the GME Office. The ability to implement such a response was enabled by our well-being foundation, which allowed leadership at the highest institutional level and the Office of GME to provide support in response to this unprecedented crisis

Four Phosphates at One Blow: Access to Pentaphosphorylated Magic Spot Nucleotides and Their Analysis by Capillary Electrophoresis

The complex phosphorylation pattern of natural and modified pentaphosphorylated magic spot nucleotides is generated in a highly efficient way. A cyclic pyrophosphoryl phosphoramidite (cPyPA) reagent is used to introduce four phosphates on nucleosides regioselectively in a one-flask key transformation. The obtained magic spot nucleotides are used to develop a capillary electrophoresis UV detection method, enabling nucleotide assignment in complex bacterial extracts

PeroxisomeDB: a database for the peroxisomal proteome, functional genomics and disease

Peroxisomes are essential organelles of eukaryotic origin, ubiquitously distributed in cells and organisms, playing key roles in lipid and antioxidant metabolism. Loss or malfunction of peroxisomes causes more than 20 fatal inherited conditions. We have created a peroxisomal database () that includes the complete peroxisomal proteome of Homo sapiens and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, by gathering, updating and integrating the available genetic and functional information on peroxisomal genes. PeroxisomeDB is structured in interrelated sections ‘Genes’, ‘Functions’, ‘Metabolic pathways’ and ‘Diseases’, that include hyperlinks to selected features of NCBI, ENSEMBL and UCSC databases. We have designed graphical depictions of the main peroxisomal metabolic routes and have included updated flow charts for diagnosis. Precomputed BLAST, PSI-BLAST, multiple sequence alignment (MUSCLE) and phylogenetic trees are provided to assist in direct multispecies comparison to study evolutionary conserved functions and pathways. Highlights of the PeroxisomeDB include new tools developed for facilitating (i) identification of novel peroxisomal proteins, by means of identifying proteins carrying peroxisome targeting signal (PTS) motifs, (ii) detection of peroxisomes in silico, particularly useful for screening the deluge of newly sequenced genomes. PeroxisomeDB should contribute to the systematic characterization of the peroxisomal proteome and facilitate system biology approaches on the organelle

Using fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) to diagnose steroid-responsive disease and guide asthma management in routine care

Acknowledgements We thank Robin Taylor for his informative thinking and publications on FeNO, which have helped to influence and direct the thinking of the authors. Funding Extraction of the real-life dataset was funded by Research in Real Life Limited, the analysis of the dataset and the writing of this manuscript were co-funded (50:50) by Research in Real Life Limited and Aerocrine.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Evolutionary analysis of the ENTH/ANTH/VHS protein superfamily reveals a coevolution between membrane trafficking and metabolism

BACKGROUND: Membrane trafficking involves the complex regulation of proteins and lipids intracellular localization and is required for metabolic uptake, cell growth and development. Different trafficking pathways passing through the endosomes are coordinated by the ENTH/ANTH/VHS adaptor protein superfamily. The endosomes are crucial for eukaryotes since the acquisition of the endomembrane system was a central process in eukaryogenesis. RESULTS: Our in silico analysis of this ENTH/ANTH/VHS superfamily, consisting of proteins gathered from 84 complete genomes representative of the different eukaryotic taxa, revealed that genomic distribution of this superfamily allows to discriminate Fungi and Metazoa from Plantae and Protists. Next, in a four way genome wide comparison, we showed that this discriminative feature is observed not only for other membrane trafficking effectors, but also for proteins involved in metabolism and in cytokinesis, suggesting that metabolism, cytokinesis and intracellular trafficking pathways co-evolved. Moreover, some of the proteins identified were implicated in multiple functions, in either trafficking and metabolism or trafficking and cytokinesis, suggesting that membrane trafficking is central to this co-evolution process. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that membrane trafficking and compartmentalization were not only key features for the emergence of eukaryotic cells but also drove the separation of the eukaryotes in the different taxa

Measurement of Semileptonic Branching Fractions of B Mesons to Narrow D** States

Using the data accumulated in 2002-2004 with the DO detector in proton-antiproton collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron collider with centre-of-mass energy 1.96 TeV, the branching fractions of the decays B -> \bar{D}_1^0(2420) \mu^+ \nu_\mu X and B -> \bar{D}_2^{*0}(2460) \mu^+ \nu_\mu X and their ratio have been measured: BR(\bar{b}->B) \cdot BR(B-> \bar{D}_1^0 \mu^+ \nu_\mu X) \cdot BR(\bar{D}_1^0 -> D*- pi+) = (0.087+-0.007(stat)+-0.014(syst))%; BR(\bar{b}->B)\cdot BR(B->D_2^{*0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X) \cdot BR(\bar{D}_2^{*0} -> D*- \pi^+) = (0.035+-0.007(stat)+-0.008(syst))%; and (BR(B -> \bar{D}_2^{*0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X)BR(D2*0->D*- pi+)) / (BR(B -> \bar{D}_1^{0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X)\cdot BR(\bar{D}_1^{0}->D*- \pi^+)) = 0.39+-0.09(stat)+-0.12(syst), where the charge conjugated states are always implied.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Measurement of the Lifetime Difference in the B_s^0 System

We present a study of the decay B_s^0 -> J/psi phi We obtain the CP-odd fraction in the final state at time zero, R_perp = 0.16 +/- 0.10 (stat) +/- 0.02 (syst), the average lifetime of the (B_s, B_sbar) system, tau (B_s^0) =1.39^{+0.13}_{-0.16} (stat) ^{+0.01}_{-0.02} (syst) ps, and the relative width difference between the heavy and light mass eigenstates, Delta Gamma/Gamma = (Gamma_L - Gamma_H)/Gamma =0.24^{+0.28}_{-0.38} (stat) ^{+0.03}_{-0.04} (syst). With the additional constraint from the world average of the B_s^0$lifetime measurements using semileptonic decays, we find tau (B_s^0)= 1.39 +/- 0.06 ~ps and Delta Gamma/\Gamma = 0.25^{+0.14}_{-0.15}. For the ratio of the B_s^0 and B^0 lifetimes we obtain tau(B_s^0)/tau(B^0)} = 0.91 +/- 0.09 (stat) +/- 0.003 (syst).Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. FERMILAB-PUB-05-324-