Extensive Copy-Number Variation of Young Genes across Stickleback Populations

MM received funding from the Max Planck innovation funds for this project. PGDF was supported by a Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant (proposal nr 270891). CE was supported by German Science Foundation grants (DFG, EI 841/4-1 and EI 841/6-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Savannahs of Asia: Antiquity, biogeography, and an uncertain future

The savannahs of Asia remain locally unrecognized as distinctive ecosystems, and continue to be viewed as degraded forests or seasonally dry tropical forests. These colonial-era legacies are problematic, because they fail to recognize the unique diversity of Asian savannahs and the critical roles of fire and herbivory in maintaining ecosystem health and diversity. In this review, we show that: the palaeo-historical evidence suggests that the savannahs of Asia have existed for at least 1 million years, long before widespread landscape modification by humans; savannah regions across Asia have levels of C4 grass endemism and diversity that are consistent with area-based expectations for non-Asian savannahs; there are at least three distinct Asian savannah communities, namely deciduous broadleaf savannahs, deciduous fine-leafed and spiny savannahs and evergreen pine savannahs, with distinct functional ecologies consistent with fire- and herbivory-driven community assembly. Via an analysis of savannah climate domains on other continents, we map the potential extent of savannahs across Asia. We find that the climates of African savannahs provide the closest analogues for those of Asian deciduous savannahs, but that Asian pine savannahs occur in climates different to any of the savannahs in the southern continents. Finally, we review major threats to the persistence of savannahs in Asia, including the mismanagement of fire and herbivory, alien woody encroachment, afforestation policies and future climate uncertainty associated with the changing Asian monsoon. Research agendas that target these issues are urgently needed to manage and conserve these ecosystems. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’

Tribbles homolog 3 denotes a poor prognosis in breast cancer and is involved in hypoxia response

Hypoxia in solid tumors is associated with treatment resistance, resulting in poor prognosis. Tribbles homolog 3 (TRIB3) is induced during hypoxia and is involved in multiple cellular pathways involved in cell survival. Here, we investigated the role of TRIB3 in breast cancer. TRIB3 mRNA expression was measured in breast tumor tissue from 247 patients and correlated with clinicopathological parameters and clinical outcome. Furthermore, we studied TRIB3 expression regulation in cell lines, xenografts tissues and human breast cancer material using Reverse transcriptase, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and immunohistochemical staining. Finally, the effect of small interfering RNA (siRNA) mediated TRIB3 knockdown on hypoxia tolerance was assessed. Breast cancer patients with low, intermediate or high TRIB3 expression exhibited a mean disease free survival (DFS) of 80 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 74 to 86), 74 (CI = 67 to 81), and 63 (CI = 55 to 71) months respectively (P = .002, Mantel-Cox log-rank). The prognostic value of TRIB3 was limited to those patients that had received radiotherapy as part of their primary treatment (n = 179, P = .005) and remained statistically significant after correction for other clinicopathological parameters (DFS, Hazard Ratio = 1.90, CI = 1.17 to 3.08, P = .009). In breast cell lines TRIB3 expression was induced by hypoxia, nutrient starvation, and endoplasmic reticulum stress in an hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) independent manner. TRIB3 induction after hypoxia did not increase with decreasing oxygen levels. In breast tumor xenografts and human breast cancer tissues TRIB3 co-localized with the hypoxic cell marker pimonidazole. The induction of TRIB3 by hypoxia was shown to be regulated via the PERK/ATF4/CHOP pathway of the unfolded protein response and knockdown of TRIB3 resulted in a dose-dependent increase in hypoxia sensitivity. TRIB3 is independently associated with poor prognosis of breast cancer patients, possibly through its association with tumor cell hypoxi

Complications and pitfalls of lumbar interlaminar and transforaminal epidural injections

Lumbar interlaminar and transforaminal epidural injections are used in the treatment of lumbar radicular pain and other lumbar spinal pain syndromes. Complications from these procedures arise from needle placement and the administration of medication. Potential risks include infection, hematoma, intravascular injection of medication, direct nerve trauma, subdural injection of medication, air embolism, disc entry, urinary retention, radiation exposure, and hypersensitivity reactions. The objective of this article is to review the complications of lumbar interlaminar and transforaminal epidural injections and discuss the potential pitfalls related to these procedures. We performed a comprehensive literature review through a Medline search for relevant case reports, clinical trials, and review articles. Complications from lumbar epidural injections are extremely rare. Most if not all complications can be avoided by careful technique with accurate needle placement, sterile precautions, and a thorough understanding of the relevant anatomy and contrast patterns on fluoroscopic imaging

Mapping inequalities in exclusive breastfeeding in low- and middle-income countries, 2000–2018

Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF)-giving infants only breast-milk for the first 6 months of life-is a component of optimal breastfeeding practices effective in preventing child morbidity and mortality. EBF practices are known to vary by population and comparable subnational estimates of prevalence and progress across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are required for planning policy and interventions. Here we present a geospatial analysis of EBF prevalence estimates from 2000 to 2018 across 94 LMICs mapped to policy-relevant administrative units (for example, districts), quantify subnational inequalities and their changes over time, and estimate probabilities of meeting the World Health Organization's Global Nutrition Target (WHO GNT) of ≥70% EBF prevalence by 2030. While six LMICs are projected to meet the WHO GNT of ≥70% EBF prevalence at a national scale, only three are predicted to meet the target in all their district-level units by 2030.This work was primarily supported by grant no. OPP1132415 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Co-authors used by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (E.G.P. and R.R.3) provided feedback on initial maps and drafts of this manuscript. L.G.A. has received support from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Brasil (CAPES), Código de Financiamento 001 and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (grant nos. 404710/2018-2 and 310797/2019-5). O.O.Adetokunboh acknowledges the National Research Foundation, Department of Science and Innovation and South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis. M.Ausloos, A.Pana and C.H. are partially supported by a grant from the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNDS-UEFISCDI, project no. PN-III-P4-ID-PCCF-2016-0084. P.C.B. would like to acknowledge the support of F. Alam and A. Hussain. T.W.B. was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through the Alexander von Humboldt Professor award, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. K.Deribe is supported by the Wellcome Trust (grant no. 201900/Z/16/Z) as part of his international intermediate fellowship. C.H. and A.Pana are partially supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNDS-UEFISCDI, project no. PN-III-P2-2.1-SOL-2020-2-0351. B.Hwang is partially supported by China Medical University (CMU109-MF-63), Taichung, Taiwan. M.Khan acknowledges Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University for their support. A.M.K. acknowledges the other collaborators and the corresponding author. Y.K. was supported by the Research Management Centre, Xiamen University Malaysia (grant no. XMUMRF/2020-C6/ITM/0004). K.Krishan is supported by a DST PURSE grant and UGC Centre of Advanced Study (CAS II) awarded to the Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. M.Kumar would like to acknowledge FIC/NIH K43 TW010716-03. I.L. is a member of the Sistema Nacional de Investigación (SNI), which is supported by the Secretaría Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENACYT), Panamá. M.L. was supported by China Medical University, Taiwan (CMU109-N-22 and CMU109-MF-118). W.M. is currently a programme analyst in Population and Development at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Office in Peru, which does not necessarily endorses this study. D.E.N. acknowledges Cochrane South Africa, South African Medical Research Council. G.C.P. is supported by an NHMRC research fellowship. P.Rathi acknowledges support from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India. Ramu Rawat acknowledges the support of the GBD Secretariat for supporting the reviewing and collaboration of this paper. B.R. acknowledges support from Manipal College of Health Professions, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. A.Ribeiro was supported by National Funds through FCT, under the programme of ‘Stimulus of Scientific Employment—Individual Support’ within the contract no. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/CEEC IND 2018/CEECIND/02386/2018/CP1538/CT0001/PT. S.Sajadi acknowledges colleagues at Global Burden of Diseases and Local Burden of Disease. A.M.S. acknowledges the support from the Egyptian Fulbright Mission Program. F.S. was supported by the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (grant no. KQTD20190929172835662). A.Sheikh is supported by Health Data Research UK. B.K.S. acknowledges Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal for all the academic support. B.U. acknowledges support from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. C.S.W. is supported by the South African Medical Research Council. Y.Z. was supported by Science and Technology Research Project of Hubei Provincial Department of Education (grant no. Q20201104) and Outstanding Young and Middle-aged Technology Innovation Team Project of Hubei Provincial Department of Education (grant no. T2020003). The funders of the study had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. The corresponding author had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication. All maps presented in this study are generated by the authors and no permissions are required to publish them

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD 2017) includes a comprehensive assessment of incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 354 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. Previous GBD studies have shown how the decline of mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 has led to an increase in life expectancy, an ageing global population, and an expansion of the non-fatal burden of disease and injury. These studies have also shown how a substantial portion of the world's population experiences non-fatal health loss with considerable heterogeneity among different causes, locations, ages, and sexes. Ongoing objectives of the GBD study include increasing the level of estimation detail, improving analytical strategies, and increasing the amount of high-quality data. Methods: We estimated incidence and prevalence for 354 diseases and injuries and 3484 sequelae. We used an updated and extensive body of literature studies, survey data, surveillance data, inpatient admission records, outpatient visit records, and health insurance claims, and additionally used results from cause of death models to inform estimates using a total of 68 781 data sources. Newly available clinical data from India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, China, Brazil, Norway, and Italy were incorporated, as well as updated claims data from the USA and new claims data from Taiwan (province of China) and Singapore. We used DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool, as the main method of estimation, ensuring consistency between rates of incidence, prevalence, remission, and cause of death for each condition. YLDs were estimated as the product of a prevalence estimate and a disability weight for health states of each mutually exclusive sequela, adjusted for comorbidity. We updated the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary development indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and total fertility rate. Additionally, we calculated differences between male and female YLDs to identify divergent trends across sexes. GBD 2017 complies with the Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting. Findings: Globally, for females, the causes with the greatest age-standardised prevalence were oral disorders, headache disorders, and haemoglobinopathies and haemolytic anaemias in both 1990 and 2017. For males, the causes with the greatest age-standardised prevalence were oral disorders, headache disorders, and tuberculosis including latent tuberculosis infection in both 1990 and 2017. In terms of YLDs, low back pain, headache disorders, and dietary iron deficiency were the leading Level 3 causes of YLD counts in 1990, whereas low back pain, headache disorders, and depressive disorders were the leading causes in 2017 for both sexes combined. All-cause age-standardised YLD rates decreased by 3·9% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 3·1-4·6) from 1990 to 2017; however, the all-age YLD rate increased by 7·2% (6·0-8·4) while the total sum of global YLDs increased from 562 million (421-723) to 853 million (642-1100). The increases for males and females were similar, with increases in all-age YLD rates of 7·9% (6·6-9·2) for males and 6·5% (5·4-7·7) for females. We found significant differences between males and females in terms of age-standardised prevalence estimates for multiple causes. The causes with the greatest relative differences between sexes in 2017 included substance use disorders (3018 cases [95% UI 2782-3252] per 100 000 in males vs 1400 [1279-1524] per 100 000 in females), transport injuries (3322 [3082-3583] vs 2336 [2154-2535]), and self-harm and interpersonal violence (3265 [2943-3630] vs 5643 [5057-6302]). Interpretation: Global all-cause age-standardised YLD rates have improved only slightly over a period spanning nearly three decades. However, the magnitude of the non-fatal disease burden has expanded globally, with increasing numbers of people who have a wide spectrum of conditions. A subset of conditions has remained globally pervasive since 1990, whereas other conditions have displayed more dynamic trends, with different ages, sexes, and geographies across the globe experiencing varying burdens and trends of health loss. This study emphasises how global improvements in premature mortality for select conditions have led to older populations with complex and potentially expensive diseases, yet also highlights global achievements in certain domains of disease and injury

One Year of Surface-Based Temperature Inversions at Dome C, Antarctica

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