Isolation and Characterization of Twelve Polymorphic Microsatellite Loci for the Cocoa Mirid Bug Sahlbergella Singularis

Mirids are the primary pests affecting cocoa production in Africa, but no genetic studies have been conducted on these insects. Here we report the isolation and characterization of 12 polymorphic microsatellite loci for Sahlbergella singularis. A microsatellite-enriched genomic DNA library was developed and screened to identify marker loci. Twelve polymorphic loci were identified by screening 28 individuals collected from one presumed population in cocoa plantations in Southern Cameroon. The number of alleles ranged from 5 to 25, whereas the observed and the expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.179 to 0.786 and from 0.671 to 0.946, respectively. Tests showed significant deviations from HW equilibrium for four loci, but no linkage disequilibrium was detected at any of the loci. No cross-species amplification was observed in two other mirid pests in Africa

The fingerprint of tropospheric ozone on broadleaved forest vegetation in Europe

Tropospheric ozone (O3) increased globally in the 20th century, contributes to climate change and can have adverse effects on terrestrial ecosystems. The response of forest vegetation to ozone is modulated by species- and site-specific factors and visible foliar symptoms (VFS) are the only direct evidence of ozone effects on vegetation. VFS have been observed and reproduced under (semi-) controlled conditions and their field assessment has been largely harmonized in Europe. We analyzed ozone concentration and VFS data as measured at (respectively) 118 and 91 intensive monitoring sites of the International Co-Operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests) spanning over five European biogeographic regions from 2005 to 2018. Average values for VFS were calculated accounting for the number of species present and their observed frequency. Spatial and temporal variation of ozone concentrations, VFS, and their relationships across Europe were then investigated by applying Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) and combined GLMMs. Ozone concentrations exceeded 40 ppb on 37.3 % of the sites and were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the Alpine and the Mediterranean regions. Over the 2005–2018 period there was a substantial stagnation of ozone concentrations with a tendency towards decreasing values in the Alpine-Boreal sites and increasing values in the Atlantic sites. Ozone left a “fingerprint” in terms of VFS on 38 % of the observed broadleaved woody species across Europe, with no significant difference among biogeographic regions. Overall, and again with the exception of an increase at the Atlantic sites, the frequency of VFS remained unchanged or has been slightly declining over the investigated period. We found positive relationship between ozone concentrations and VFS across Europe (p < 0.05), while their temporal trends (both insignificant) were not related. The species with the highest frequency of VFS were those classified as sensitive species under controlled/semi-controlled experimental conditions. Frequency of VFS tends to be modulated by vegetation traits such as specific leaf area and leaf thickness (p < 0.10). Our results showed that, although ozone levels suggested a North-to-South gradient of increasing potential risk to vegetation with hot spots in the Alps and in the Mediterranean, VFS observed on the actual species assemblage at the sites modifies this picture. According to frequency of VFS, ozone risk for vegetation may be higher in parts of the Alpine and Continental Europe than in the Mediterranean regio

Oseltamivir-Resistant Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Virus Infection in England and Scotland, 2009–2010

Monitoring of antiviral resistance is strongly recommended for immunocompromised patients

Synthesis, radiolabelling and in vitro imaging of multifunctional nanoceramics

Molecular imaging has become a powerful technique in preclinical and clinical research aiming towards the diagnosis of many diseases. In this work, we address the synthetic challenges in achieving lab‐scale, batch‐to‐batch reproducible copper‐64‐ and gallium‐68‐radiolabelled metal nanoparticles (MNPs) for cellular imaging purposes. Composite NPs incorporating magnetic iron oxide cores with luminescent quantum dots were simultaneously encapsulated within a thin silica shell, yielding water‐dispersible, biocompatible and luminescent NPs. Scalable surface modification protocols to attach the radioisotopes 64Cu (t1/2=12.7 h) and 68Ga (t1/2=68 min) in high yields are reported, and are compatible with the time frame of radiolabelling. Confocal and fluorescence lifetime imaging studies confirm the uptake of the encapsulated imaging agents and their cytoplasmic localisation in prostate cancer (PC‐3) cells. Cellular viability assays show that the biocompatibility of the system is improved when the fluorophores are encapsulated within a silica shell. The functional and biocompatible SiO2 matrix represents an ideal platform for the incorporation of 64Cu and 68Ga radioisotopes with high radiolabelling incorporation

Investigation of the influence of calibration practices on cytogenetic laboratory performance for dose estimation

Purpose: In the frame of the QA program of RENEB, an inter-laboratory comparison (ILC) of calibration sources used in biological dosimetry was achieved to investigate the influence of calibration practices and protocols on the results of the dose estimation performance as a first step to harmonization and standardization of dosimetry and irradiation practices in the European biological dosimetry network. Materials and methods: Delivered doses by irradiation facilities used by RENEB partners were determined with EPR/alanine dosimetry system. Dosimeters were irradiated in the same conditions as blood samples. A short survey was also performed to collect the information needed for the data analysis and evaluate the diversity of practices. Results: For most of partners the deviation of delivered dose from the targeted dose remains below 10%. Deviations larger than 10% were observed for five facilities out of 21. Origins of the largest discrepancies were identified. Correction actions were evaluated as satisfactory. The re-evaluation of some ILC results for the fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and premature chromosome condensation (PCC) assays has been performed leading to an improvement of the overall performances. Conclusions: This work has shown the importance of dosimetry in radiobiology studies and the needs of harmonization, standardization in irradiation and dosimetry practices and educational training for biologists using ionizing radiation

Integrative multi-omics analysis identifies a prognostic miRNA signature and a targetable miR-21-3p/TSC2/mTOR axis in metastatic pheochromocytoma/paraganglioma

Pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas (PPGLs) are rare neuroendocrine tumors that present variable outcomes. To date, no effective therapies or reliable prognostic markers are available for patients who develop metastatic PPGL (mPPGL). Our aim was to discover robust prognostic markers validated through models, and define specific therapeutic options according to tumor genomic features. : We analyzed three PPGL miRNome datasets (n=443), validated candidate markers and assessed them in serum samples (n=36) to find a metastatic miRNA signature. An integrative study of miRNome, transcriptome and proteome was performed to find miRNA targets, which were further characterized . : A signature of six miRNAs (miR-21-3p, miR-183-5p, miR-182-5p, miR-96-5p, miR-551b-3p, and miR-202-5p) was associated with metastatic risk and time to progression. A higher expression of five of these miRNAs was also detected in PPGL patients' liquid biopsies compared with controls. The combined expression of miR-21-3p/miR-183-5p showed the best power to predict metastasis (AUC=0.804, =4.67·10), and was found associated with pro-metastatic features, such as neuroendocrine-mesenchymal transition phenotype, and increased cell migration rate. A pan-cancer multi-omic integrative study correlated miR-21-3p levels with TSC2 expression, mTOR pathway activation, and a predictive signature for mTOR inhibitor-sensitivity in PPGLs and other cancers. Likewise, we demonstrated a repression and an enhanced rapamycin sensitivity upon miR-21-3p expression. : Our findings support the assessment of miR-21-3p/miR-183-5p, in tumors and liquid biopsies, as biomarkers for risk stratification to improve the PPGL patients' management. We propose miR-21-3p to select mPPGL patients who may benefit from mTOR inhibitors

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Integrative multi-omics analysis identifies a prognostic miRNA signature and a targetable miR-21-3p/TSC2/ mTOR axis in metastatic pheochromocytoma/ paraganglioma

Rationale: Pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas (PPGLs) are rare neuroendocrine tumors that present variable outcomes. To date, no effective therapies or reliable prognostic markers are available for patients who develop metastatic PPGL (mPPGL). Our aim was to discover robust prognostic markers validated through in vitro models, and define specific therapeutic options according to tumor genomic features. Methods: We analyzed three PPGL miRNome datasets (n=443), validated candidate markers and assessed them in serum samples (n=36) to find a metastatic miRNA signature. An integrative study of miRNome, transcriptome and proteome was performed to find miRNA targets, which were further characterized in vitro. Results: A signature of six miRNAs (miR-21-3p, miR-183-5p, miR-182-5p, miR-96-5p, miR-551b-3p, and miR-202-5p) was associated with metastatic risk and time to progression. A higher expression of five of these miRNAs was also detected in PPGL patients’ liquid biopsies compared with controls. The combined expression of miR-21-3p/miR-183-5p showed the best power to predict metastasis (AUC=0.804, P=4.67·10-18), and was found associated in vitro with pro-metastatic features, such as neuroendocrine-mesenchymal transition phenotype, and increased cell migration rate. A pan-cancer multi-omic integrative study correlated miR-21-3p levels with TSC2 expression, mTOR pathway activation, and a predictive signature for mTOR inhibitor-sensitivity in PPGLs and other cancers. Likewise, we demonstrated in vitro a TSC2 repression and an enhanced rapamycin sensitivity upon miR-21-3p expression. Conclusions: Our findings support the assessment of miR-21-3p/miR-183-5p, in tumors and liquid biopsies, as biomarkers for risk stratification to improve the PPGL patients’ management. We propose miR-21-3p to select mPPGL patients who may benefit from mTOR inhibitors