Calls to a teratogen information service regarding potential exposures in pregnancy and breastfeeding

BACKGROUND: MotherToBaby Utah is a teratogen information service that provides support for pregnant and breastfeeding women and healthcare providers regarding risks of exposures to medications, infections, herbals, homeopathic and dietary medications, chemicals and other substances. Calls are anonymous and free of charge. This study was undertaken to examine the volume and classification of calls regarding exposures during pregnancy and breastfeeding. METHODS: Data were extracted from calls requesting information about medication use and other exposures to pregnant and breastfeeding women, between January 1 2009 and December 31 2012. Descriptive statistics were calculated. RESULTS: A total of 27,299 calls regarding 46,031 exposures were identified in this study population. The majority of calls were made by the exposed individual (82.1 %); 13.0 % were made by a healthcare provider and 4.9 % were made by a family member or acquaintance. The majority of calls concerned pregnancy (65.8 %) versus breastfeeding (34.2 %). Exposure during the current pregnancy was the subject of 88.6 % of calls. For calls where trimester information was available, the percentage of calls for first, second and third trimesters were 44.1, 32.5 and 23.4 %, respectively. CONCLUSION: This study found analgesics, cold medications, herbals, homeopathic, and dietary medications were of the topic of concern for the majority of the calls regarding exposure during pregnancy and/or breastfeeding. Teratogen information services gather and provide important educational resources for both patients and healthcare providers. As the majority of calls concern nonprescription drugs and vaccines, these data provide insight into a lack of education on these subjects that should be addressed during prenatal care

Improving Tree-Thinking One Learnable Skill at a Time

Introducerande artikel inom Läslyftsmodulen Från Vardagsspråk till ÄmnesspråkIntroduction to language sensitive teaching a s part of a Skolverket professional development module in the program Reading Boost

Subtle effects of environmental stress observed in the early life stages of the Common frog, Rana temporaria

Worldwide amphibian populations are declining due to habitat loss, disease and pollution. Vulnerability to environmental contaminants such as pesticides will be dependent on the species, the sensitivity of the ontogenic life stage and hence the timing of exposure and the exposure pathway. Herein we investigated the biochemical tissue ‘fingerprint’ in spawn and early-stage tadpoles of the Common frog, Rana temporaria, using attenuated total reflection- Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy with the objective of observing differences in the biochemical constituents of the respective amphibian tissues due to varying water quality in urban and agricultural ponds. Our results demonstrate that levels of stress (marked by biochemical constituents such as glycogen that are involved in compensatory metabolic mechanisms) can be observed in tadpoles present in the pond most impacted by pollution (nutrients and pesticides), but large annual variability masked any inter-site differences in the frog spawn. ATR-FTIR spectroscopy is capable of detecting differences in tadpoles that are present in selected ponds with different levels of environmental perturbation and thus serves as a rapid and cost effective tool in assessing stress-related effects of pollution in a vulnerable class of organism

P2X7 nucleotide receptors mediate caspase-8/9/3-dependent apoptosis in rat primary cortical neurons

Apoptosis is a major cause of cell death in the nervous system. It plays a role in embryonic and early postnatal brain development and contributes to the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we report that activation of the P2X7 nucleotide receptor (P2X7R) in rat primary cortical neurons (rPCNs) causes biochemical (i.e., caspase activation) and morphological (i.e., nuclear condensation and DNA fragmentation) changes characteristic of apoptotic cell death. Caspase-3 activation and DNA fragmentation in rPCNs induced by the P2X7R agonist BzATP were inhibited by the P2X7R antagonist oxidized ATP (oATP) or by pre-treatment of cells with P2X7R antisense oligonucleotide indicating a direct involvement of the P2X7R in nucleotide-induced neuronal cell death. Moreover, Z-DEVD-FMK, a specific and irreversible cell permeable inhibitor of caspase-3, prevented BzATP-induced apoptosis in rPCNs. In addition, a specific caspase-8 inhibitor, Ac-IETD-CHO, significantly attenuated BzATP-induced caspase-9 and caspase-3 activation, suggesting that P2X7R-mediated apoptosis in rPCNs occurs primarily through an intrinsic caspase-8/9/3 activation pathway. BzATP also induced the activation of C-jun N-terminal kinase 1 (JNK1) and extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2) in rPCNs, and pharmacological inhibition of either JNK1 or ERK1/2 significantly reduced caspase activation by BzATP. Taken together, these data indicate that extracellular nucleotides mediate neuronal apoptosis through activation of P2X7Rs and their downstream signaling pathways involving JNK1, ERK and caspases 8/9/3

Dynamic purine signaling and metabolism during neutrophil–endothelial interactions

During episodes of hypoxia and inflammation, polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) move into underlying tissues by initially passing between endothelial cells that line the inner surface of blood vessels (transendothelial migration, TEM). TEM creates the potential for disturbances in vascular barrier and concomitant loss of extravascular fluid and resultant edema. Recent studies have demonstrated a crucial role for nucleotide metabolism and nucleoside signaling during inflammation. These studies have implicated multiple adenine nucleotides as endogenous tissue protective mechanisms invivo. Here, we review the functional components of vascular barrier, identify strategies for increasing nucleotide generation and nucleoside signaling, and discuss potential therapeutic targets to regulate the vascular barrier during inflammation

P2X7 receptor: Death or life?

The P2X7 plasma membrane receptor is an intriguing molecule that is endowed with the ability to kill cells, as well as to activate many responses and even stimulate proliferation. Here, the authors give an overview on the multiplicity and complexity of P2X7-mediated responses, discussing recent information on this receptor. Particular attention has been paid to early and late signs of apoptosis and necrosis linked to activation of the receptor and to the emerging field of P2X7 function in carcinogenesis

Biomedical Discovery Acceleration, with Applications to Craniofacial Development

The profusion of high-throughput instruments and the explosion of new results in the scientific literature, particularly in molecular biomedicine, is both a blessing and a curse to the bench researcher. Even knowledgeable and experienced scientists can benefit from computational tools that help navigate this vast and rapidly evolving terrain. In this paper, we describe a novel computational approach to this challenge, a knowledge-based system that combines reading, reasoning, and reporting methods to facilitate analysis of experimental data. Reading methods extract information from external resources, either by parsing structured data or using biomedical language processing to extract information from unstructured data, and track knowledge provenance. Reasoning methods enrich the knowledge that results from reading by, for example, noting two genes that are annotated to the same ontology term or database entry. Reasoning is also used to combine all sources into a knowledge network that represents the integration of all sorts of relationships between a pair of genes, and to calculate a combined reliability score. Reporting methods combine the knowledge network with a congruent network constructed from experimental data and visualize the combined network in a tool that facilitates the knowledge-based analysis of that data. An implementation of this approach, called the Hanalyzer, is demonstrated on a large-scale gene expression array dataset relevant to craniofacial development. The use of the tool was critical in the creation of hypotheses regarding the roles of four genes never previously characterized as involved in craniofacial development; each of these hypotheses was validated by further experimental work

Tau Causes Synapse Loss without Disrupting Calcium Homeostasis in the rTg4510 Model of Tauopathy

Neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) of tau are one of the defining hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and are closely associated with neuronal degeneration. Although it has been suggested that calcium dysregulation is important to AD pathogenesis, few studies have probed the link between calcium homeostasis, synapse loss and pathological changes in tau. Here we test the hypothesis that pathological changes in tau are associated with changes in calcium by utilizing in vivo calcium imaging in adult rTg4510 mice that exhibit severe tau pathology due to over-expression of human mutant P301L tau. We observe prominent dendritic spine loss without disruptions in calcium homeostasis, indicating that tangles do not disrupt this fundamental feature of neuronal health, and that tau likely induces spine loss in a calcium-independent manner

Circadian oscillator proteins across the kingdoms of life : Structural aspects 06 Biological Sciences 0601 Biochemistry and Cell Biology

Circadian oscillators are networks of biochemical feedback loops that generate 24-hour rhythms and control numerous biological processes in a range of organisms. These periodic rhythms are the result of a complex interplay of interactions among clock components. These components are specific to the organism but share molecular mechanisms that are similar across kingdoms. The elucidation of clock mechanisms in different kingdoms has recently started to attain the level of structural interpretation. A full understanding of these molecular processes requires detailed knowledge, not only of the biochemical and biophysical properties of clock proteins and their interactions, but also the three-dimensional structure of clockwork components. Posttranslational modifications (such as phosphorylation) and protein-protein interactions, have become a central focus of recent research, in particular the complex interactions mediated by the phosphorylation of clock proteins and the formation of multimeric protein complexes that regulate clock genes at transcriptional and translational levels. The three-dimensional structures for the cyanobacterial clock components are well understood, and progress is underway to comprehend the mechanistic details. However, structural recognition of the eukaryotic clock has just begun. This review serves as a primer as the clock communities move towards the exciting realm of structural biology