Body image, body dissatisfaction and weight status in south asian children: a cross-sectional study

Background Childhood obesity is a continuing problem in the UK and South Asian children represent a group that are particularly vulnerable to its health consequences. The relationship between body dissatisfaction and obesity is well documented in older children and adults, but is less clear in young children, particularly South Asians. A better understanding of this relationship in young South Asian children will inform the design and delivery of obesity intervention programmes. The aim of this study is to describe body image size perception and dissatisfaction, and their relationship to weight status in primary school aged UK South Asian children. Methods Objective measures of height and weight were undertaken on 574 predominantly South Asian children aged 5-7 (296 boys and 278 girls). BMI z-scores, and weight status (underweight, healthy weight, overweight or obese) were calculated based on the UK 1990 BMI reference charts. Figure rating scales were used to assess perceived body image size (asking children to identify their perceived body size) and dissatisfaction (difference between perceived current and ideal body size). The relationship between these and weight status were examined using multivariate analyses. Results Perceived body image size was positively associated with weight status (partial regression coefficient for overweight/obese vs. non-overweight/obese was 0.63 (95% CI 0.26-0.99) and for BMI z-score was 0.21 (95% CI 0.10-0.31), adjusted for sex, age and ethnicity). Body dissatisfaction was also associated with weight status, with overweight and obese children more likely to select thinner ideal body size than healthy weight children (adjusted partial regression coefficient for overweight/obese vs. non-overweight/obese was 1.47 (95% CI 0.99-1.96) and for BMI z-score was 0.54 (95% CI 0.40-0.67)). Conclusions Awareness of body image size and increasing body dissatisfaction with higher weight status is established at a young age in this population. This needs to be considered when designing interventions to reduce obesity in young children, in terms of both benefits and harms

A high-resolution map of human evolutionary constraint using 29 mammals.

The comparison of related genomes has emerged as a powerful lens for genome interpretation. Here we report the sequencing and comparative analysis of 29 eutherian genomes. We confirm that at least 5.5% of the human genome has undergone purifying selection, and locate constrained elements covering ∼4.2% of the genome. We use evolutionary signatures and comparisons with experimental data sets to suggest candidate functions for ∼60% of constrained bases. These elements reveal a small number of new coding exons, candidate stop codon readthrough events and over 10,000 regions of overlapping synonymous constraint within protein-coding exons. We find 220 candidate RNA structural families, and nearly a million elements overlapping potential promoter, enhancer and insulator regions. We report specific amino acid residues that have undergone positive selection, 280,000 non-coding elements exapted from mobile elements and more than 1,000 primate- and human-accelerated elements. Overlap with disease-associated variants indicates that our findings will be relevant for studies of human biology, health and disease

The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project

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The hypoxia marker CAIX is prognostic in the UK phase III VorteX-Biobank cohort: an important resource for translational research in soft tissue sarcoma

BACKGROUND: Despite high metastasis rates, adjuvant/neoadjuvant systemic therapy for localised soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is not used routinely. Progress requires tailoring therapy to features of tumour biology, which need exploration in well-documented cohorts. Hypoxia has been linked to metastasis in STS and is targetable. This study evaluated hypoxia prognostic markers in the phase III adjuvant radiotherapy VorteX trial. METHODS: Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumour biopsies, fresh tumour/normal tissue and blood were collected before radiotherapy. Immunohistochemistry for HIF-1α, CAIX and GLUT1 was performed on tissue microarrays and assessed by two scorers (one pathologist). Prognostic analysis of disease-free survival (DFS) used Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression. RESULTS: Biobank and outcome data were available for 203 out of 216 randomised patients. High CAIX expression was associated with worse DFS (hazard ratio 2.28, 95% confidence interval: 1.44-3.59, P<0.001). Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α and GLUT1 were not prognostic. Carbonic anhydrase IX remained prognostic in multivariable analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The VorteX-Biobank contains tissue with linked outcome data and is an important resource for research. This study confirms hypoxia is linked to poor prognosis in STS and suggests that CAIX may be the best known marker. However, overlap between single marker positivity was poor and future work will develop an STS hypoxia gene signature to account for tumour heterogeneity

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment