Natural variation in immune responses to neonatal mycobacterium bovis bacillus calmette-guerin (BCG) vaccination in a cohort of Gambian infants

Background There is a need for new vaccines for tuberculosis (TB) that protect against adult pulmonary disease in regions where BCG is not effective. However, BCG could remain integral to TB control programmes because neonatal BCG protects against disseminated forms of childhood TB and many new vaccines rely on BCG to prime immunity or are recombinant strains of BCG. Interferon-gamma (IFN-) is required for immunity to mycobacteria and used as a marker of immunity when new vaccines are tested. Although BCG is widely given to neonates IFN- responses to BCG in this age group are poorly described. Characterisation of IFN- responses to BCG is required for interpretation of vaccine immunogenicity study data where BCG is part of the vaccination strategy. Methodology/Principal Findings 236 healthy Gambian babies were vaccinated with M. bovis BCG at birth. IFN-, interleukin (IL)-5 and IL-13 responses to purified protein derivative (PPD), killed Mycobacterium tuberculosis (KMTB), M. tuberculosis short term culture filtrate (STCF) and M. bovis BCG antigen 85 complex (Ag85) were measured in a whole blood assay two months after vaccination. Cytokine responses varied up to 10 log-fold within this population. The majority of infants (89-98% depending on the antigen) made IFN- responses and there was significant correlation between IFN- responses to the different mycobacterial antigens (Spearman’s coefficient ranged from 0.340 to 0.675, p=10-6-10-22). IL-13 and IL-5 responses were generally low and there were more non-responders (33-75%) for these cytokines. Nonetheless, significant correlations were observed for IL-13 and IL-5 responses to different mycobacterial antigens Conclusions/Significance Cytokine responses to mycobacterial antigens in BCG-vaccinated infants are heterogeneous and there is significant inter-individual variation. Further studies in large populations of infants are required to identify the factors that determine variation in IFN- responses

Using data-driven rules to predict mortality in severe community acquired pneumonia

Prediction of patient-centered outcomes in hospitals is useful for performance benchmarking, resource allocation, and guidance regarding active treatment and withdrawal of care. Yet, their use by clinicians is limited by the complexity of available tools and amount of data required. We propose to use Disjunctive Normal Forms as a novel approach to predict hospital and 90-day mortality from instance-based patient data, comprising demographic, genetic, and physiologic information in a large cohort of patients admitted with severe community acquired pneumonia. We develop two algorithms to efficiently learn Disjunctive Normal Forms, which yield easy-to-interpret rules that explicitly map data to the outcome of interest. Disjunctive Normal Forms achieve higher prediction performance quality compared to a set of state-of-the-art machine learning models, and unveils insights unavailable with standard methods. Disjunctive Normal Forms constitute an intuitive set of prediction rules that could be easily implemented to predict outcomes and guide criteria-based clinical decision making and clinical trial execution, and thus of greater practical usefulness than currently available prediction tools. The Java implementation of the tool JavaDNF will be publicly available. © 2014 Wu et al

Elevated hemostasis markers after pneumonia increases one-year risk of all-cause and cardiovascular deaths

Background: Acceleration of chronic diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease, may increase long-term mortality after community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), but underlying mechanisms are unknown. Persistence of the prothrombotic state that occurs during an acute infection may increase risk of subsequent atherothrombosis in patients with pre-existing cardiovascular disease and increase subsequent risk of death. We hypothesized that circulating hemostasis markers activated during CAP persist at hospital discharge, when patients appear to have recovered clinically, and are associated with higher mortality, particularly due to cardiovascular causes. Methods: In a cohort of survivors of CAP hospitalization from 28 US sites, we measured D-Dimer, thrombin-antithrombin complexes [TAT], Factor IX, antithrombin, and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 at hospital discharge, and determined 1-year all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Results: Of 893 subjects, most did not have severe pneumonia (70.6% never developed severe sepsis) and only 13.4% required intensive care unit admission. At discharge, 88.4% of subjects had normal vital signs and appeared to have clinically recovered. D-dimer and TAT levels were elevated at discharge in 78.8% and 30.1% of all subjects, and in 51.3% and 25.3% of those without severe sepsis. Higher D-dimer and TAT levels were associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality (range of hazard ratios were 1.66-1.17, p = 0.0001 and 1.46-1.04, p = 0.001 after adjusting for demographics and comorbid illnesses) and cardiovascular mortality (p = 0.009 and 0.003 in competing risk analyses). Conclusions: Elevations of TAT and D-dimer levels are common at hospital discharge in patients who appeared to have recovered clinically from pneumonia and are associated with higher risk of subsequent deaths, particularly due to cardiovascular disease. © 2011 Yende et al

BCG Revaccination Does Not Protect Against Leprosy in the Brazilian Amazon: A Cluster Randomised Trial

BCG is a vaccine developed and used to protect against tuberculosis, but it can also protect against leprosy. In Brazil, children receive BCG at birth, and since 1996 a trial has been conducted to find out if a second dose of BCG administered to schoolchildren gives additional protection against tuberculosis. We use this trial to find out if such vaccination protects against leprosy. The trial was conducted in the Brazilian Amazon, involving almost 100,000 children aged 7–14 years who had received neonatal BCG. Half of them received a second dose of BCG at school, and the other half did not. We followed the children for 6 years and observed that there were as many new cases of leprosy in the vaccinated children as in the unvaccinated children. Therefore, we concluded that a second dose of BCG given at school age in the Brazilian Amazon offers no additional protection against leprosy

Enemies with benefits: parasitic endoliths protect mussels against heat stress

Positive and negative aspects of species interactions can be context dependant and strongly affected by environmental conditions. We tested the hypothesis that, during periods of intense heat stress, parasitic phototrophic endoliths that fatally degrade mollusc shells can benefit their mussel hosts. Endolithic infestation significantly reduced body temperatures of sun-exposed mussels and, during unusually extreme heat stress, parasitised individuals suffered lower mortality rates than nonparasitised hosts. This beneficial effect was related to the white discolouration caused by the excavation activity of endoliths. Under climate warming, species relationships may be drastically realigned and conditional benefits of phototrophic endolithic parasites may become more important than the costs of infestation

The NRG1 exon 11 missense variant is not associated with autism in the Central Valley of Costa Rica

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We are conducting a genetic study of autism in the isolated population of the Central Valley of Costa Rica (CVCR). A novel Neuregulin 1 (NRG1) missense variant (exon 11 G>T) was recently associated with psychosis and schizophrenia (SCZ) in the same population isolate.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We genotyped the NRG1 exon 11 missense variant in 146 cases with autism, or autism spectrum disorder, with CVCR ancestry, and both parents when available (N = 267 parents) from 143 independent families. Additional microsatellites were genotyped to examine haplotypes bearing the exon 11 variant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The NRG1 exon 11 G>T variant was found in 4/146 cases including one de novo occurrence. The frequency of the variant in case chromosomes was 0.014 and 0.045 in the parental non-transmitted chromosomes. At least 6 haplotypes extending 0.229 Mb were associated with the T allele. Three independent individuals, with no personal or family history of psychiatric disorder, shared at least a 1 megabase haplotype 5' to the T allele.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The NRG1 exon 11 missense variant is not associated with autism in the CVCR.</p