Effect of Acute Ingestion of Green Tea Extract and Lemon Juice on Oxidative Stress and Lipid Profile in Pigs Fed a High-Fat Diet.

Green tea and its catechins have been shown to ameliorate high fat diet-induced oxidative stress and hyperlipidemia. However, low bioavailability of catechins limits their therapeutic potential. Lemon juice (LJ) has been suggested to enhance the bioavailability of catechins in vitro. This study investigated the antioxidative and hypolipidemic efficacy of a single dose of green tea extract (GTE) or GTE plus LJ (GTE + LJ) in high-fat diet fed pigs. Sixteen pigs ingested a single dose of GTE (190 mg/kg/day) or GTE + LJ (0.75 mL/kg/day) mixed with low-fat (LF; 5% fat) or high-fat (HF; 22% fat) diets and blood samples were collected for 24 h. Plasma catechin level peaked at two hours, and gradually returned to baseline after six hours following the intake. The addition of LJ significantly increased plasma catechin level. The diet containing GTE did not lower plasma cholesterol and triacylglycerol (TG) concentrations, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase activity, or malondialdehyde concentration in 24 h in HF-fed pigs. Addition of a single dose of LJ, however, significantly decreased plasma TG level in LF groups but did not cause further changes on any other markers compared to the GTE alone. Our findings indicate limited effect of a single meal containing GTE on plasma antioxidant enzymes, lipid profile, and lipid peroxidation in pigs and no significant synergistic/additive action of adding LJ to GTE within 24 h in pigs. A study with a longer treatment period is warranted to further understand the potential role of GTE in reducing HF diet-induced oxidative stress and the possible synergistic role of LJ

Pregnancy outcomes related to the treatment of sarcomas with anthracyclines and/or ifosfamide during pregnancy

BACKGROUND: Sarcomas are rare diagnoses but are seen with relative frequency in adolescents and young adults and thus can present in pregnancy. We sought to study the administration of anthracyclines and/or ifosfamide in pregnancy-associated sarcomas. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We conducted a multi-institutional retrospective study, identifying sarcoma patients who received anthracyclines and/or ifosfamide during pregnancy. Chart review identified variables related to demographics, cancer diagnosis, therapies, and outcome of the patient and fetus. Wilcoxon rank-sum test compared two independent samples. RESULTS: We identified 13 patients at seven institutions with sarcoma who received anthracyclines and/or ifosfamide during pregnancy, including four bone sarcomas and nine soft tissue sarcomas diagnosed at a mean gestational age of 16.7 ± 5.9 weeks. Only nine patients had live births (9/13, 69.2%), with mean gestational age of 30.8 ± 3.8 weeks at delivery. The four patients with pregnancy loss all received both doxorubicin and ifosfamide, with chemotherapy initiated at 15.5 weeks as compared with 21.3 weeks for those patients with live births (p = 0.016). CONCLUSION: In this multi-institutional study of sarcoma chemotherapy regimens administered during pregnancy, we found a high rate of fetal demise that was seen only in patients receiving both doxorubicin and ifosfamide and statistically more likely with chemotherapy initiation earlier in the second trimester. While limited by a small sample size, our study represents the largest study of sarcoma patients that received anthracyclines and/or ifosfamide in pregnancy thus far reported and supports development of an international registry to study concerns raised by our study

Concert recording 2013-11-19

[Track 01]. Western fanfare / Eric Ewazen -- [Track 02]. Little sketches / Ivan Elozovic -- [Track 03]. Preludium / Krysztof Penderecki -- [Track 04]. Abime des oiseaux from Quatour pour la fin du temps / Olivier Messiaen -- [Track 05]. Scherzino / Walter Hartley -- [Track 06]. Quintet for winds, no. 2. II ; [Track 07]. III / David Maslanka -- [Track 08]. String quartet, no. 3. III / Dmitri Shostakovich

Data Assimilation Enhancements to Air Force Weathers Land Information System

The United States Air Force (USAF) has a proud and storied tradition of enabling significant advancements in the area of characterizing and modeling land state information. 557th Weather Wing (557 WW; DoDs Executive Agent for Land Information) provides routine geospatial intelligence information to warfighters, planners, and decision makers at all echelons and services of the U.S. military, government and intelligence community. 557 WW and its predecessors have been home to the DoDs only operational regional and global land data analysis systems since January 1958. As a trusted partner since 2005, Air Force Weather (AFW) has relied on the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA/GSFC to lead the interagency scientific collaboration known as the Land Information System (LIS). LIS is an advanced software framework for high performance land surface modeling and data assimilation of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) information

Projections of Excess Mortality Related to Diurnal Temperature Range Under Climate Change Scenarios: a multi-country modelling study

Various retrospective studies have reported on the increase of mortality risk due to higher diurnal temperature range (DTR). This study projects the effect of DTR on future mortality across 445 communities in 20 countries and regions

Novel transcripts reveal a complex structure of the human TRKA gene and imply the presence of multiple protein isoforms

Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Luberg et al.Background: Tropomyosin-related kinase A (TRKA) is a nerve growth factor (NGF) receptor that belongs to the tyrosine kinase receptor family. It is critical for the correct development of many types of neurons including pain-mediating sensory neurons and also controls proliferation, differentiation and survival of many neuronal and non-neuronal cells. TRKA (also known as NTRK1) gene is a target of alternative splicing which can result in several different protein isoforms. Presently, three human isoforms (TRKAI, TRKAII and TRKAIII) and two rat isoforms (TRKA L0 and TRKA L1) have been described. Results: We show here that human TRKA gene is overlapped by two genes and spans 67 kb-almost three times the size that has been previously described. Numerous transcription initiation sites from eight different 5' exons and a sophisticated splicing pattern among exons encoding the extracellular part of TRKA receptor indicate that there might be a large variety of alternative protein isoforms. TrkA genes in rat and mouse appear to be considerably shorter, are not overlapped by other genes and display more straightforward splicing patterns. We describe the expression profile of alternatively spliced TRKA transcripts in different tissues of human, rat and mouse, as well as analyze putative endogenous TRKA protein isoforms in human SH-SY5Y and rat PC12 cells. We also characterize a selection of novel putative protein isoforms by portraying their phosphorylation, glycosylation and intracellular localization patterns. Our findings show that an isoform comprising mainly of TRKA kinase domain is capable of entering the nucleus. Conclusions: Results obtained in this study refer to the existence of a multitude of TRKA mRNA and protein isoforms, with some putative proteins possessing very distinct properties.publishersversionPeer reviewe

Can We Modify the Intrauterine Environment to Halt the Intergenerational Cycle of Obesity?

Child obesity is a global epidemic whose development is rooted in complex and multi-factorial interactions. Once established, obesity is difficult to reverse and epidemiological, animal model, and experimental studies have provided strong evidence implicating the intrauterine environment in downstream obesity. This review focuses on the interplay between maternal obesity, gestational weight gain and lifestyle behaviours, which may act independently or in combination, to perpetuate the intergenerational cycle of obesity. The gestational period, is a crucial time of growth, development and physiological change in mother and child. This provides a window of opportunity for intervention via maternal nutrition and/or physical activity that may induce beneficial physiological alternations in the fetus that are mediated through favourable adaptations to in utero environmental stimuli. Evidence in the emerging field of epigenetics suggests that chronic, sub-clinical perturbations during pregnancy may affect fetal phenotype and long-term human data from ongoing randomized controlled trials will further aid in establishing the science behind ones predisposition to positive energy balance

Genetic drivers of heterogeneity in type 2 diabetes pathophysiology

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a heterogeneous disease that develops through diverse pathophysiological processes1,2 and molecular mechanisms that are often specific to cell type3,4. Here, to characterize the genetic contribution to these processes across ancestry groups, we aggregate genome-wide association study data from 2,535,601 individuals (39.7% not of European ancestry), including 428,452 cases of T2D. We identify 1,289 independent association signals at genome-wide significance (P &lt; 5 × 10-8) that map to 611 loci, of which 145 loci are, to our knowledge, previously unreported. We define eight non-overlapping clusters of T2D signals that are characterized by distinct profiles of cardiometabolic trait associations. These clusters are differentially enriched for cell-type-specific regions of open chromatin, including pancreatic islets, adipocytes, endothelial cells and enteroendocrine cells. We build cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores5 in a further 279,552 individuals of diverse ancestry, including 30,288 cases of T2D, and test their association with T2D-related vascular outcomes. Cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores are associated with coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease and end-stage diabetic nephropathy across ancestry groups, highlighting the importance of obesity-related processes in the development of vascular outcomes. Our findings show the value of integrating multi-ancestry genome-wide association study data with single-cell epigenomics to disentangle the aetiological heterogeneity that drives the development and progression of T2D. This might offer a route to optimize global access to genetically informed diabetes care.</p

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals &lt;1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data