Early childhood aggressive behaviour: Negative interactions with paternal antisocial behaviour and maternal postpartum depressive symptoms across two international cohorts.

BACKGROUND: Early childhood aggressive behaviour is a predictor of future violence. Therefore, identifying risk factors for children's aggressive behaviour is important in understanding underlying mechanisms. Maternal postpartum depression is a known risk factor. However, little research has focused on the influence of paternal behaviour on early childhood aggression and its interaction with maternal postpartum depression. METHODS: This study was performed in two cohorts: the Fathers Project, in the United Kingdom (n = 143) and the Generation R Study, in The Netherlands (n = 549). In both cohorts, we related paternal antisocial personality (ASP) traits and maternal postpartum depressive (PPD) symptoms to childhood aggressive behaviour at age two (Fathers Project) and age three (Generation R Study). We additionally tested whether the presence of paternal ASP traits increased the association between maternal PPD-symptoms and early childhood aggression. RESULTS: The association between paternal ASP traits and early childhood aggressive behaviour, corrected for maternal PPD-symptoms, was similar in magnitude between the cohorts (Fathers Project: standardized β = 0.12, p = 0.146; Generation R: β = 0.14, p = 0.001), although the association was not statistically significant in the Fathers Project. Strikingly, and in contrast to our expectations, there was evidence of a negative interaction between paternal ASP traits and maternal PPD-symptoms on childhood aggressive behaviour (Fathers Project: β = -0.20, p = 0.020; Generation R: β = -0.09, p = 0.043) in both studies. This meant that with higher levels of paternal ASP traits the association between maternal PPD-symptoms and childhood aggressive behaviour was less and vice versa. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings stress the importance of including both maternal and paternal psychopathology in future studies and interventions focusing on early childhood aggressive behaviour.Wellcome Trus

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Early childhood aggressive behaviour: Negative interactions with paternal antisocial behaviour and maternal postpartum depressive symptoms across two international cohorts.

BACKGROUND: Early childhood aggressive behaviour is a predictor of future violence. Therefore, identifying risk factors for children's aggressive behaviour is important in understanding underlying mechanisms. Maternal postpartum depression is a known risk factor. However, little research has focused on the influence of paternal behaviour on early childhood aggression and its interaction with maternal postpartum depression. METHODS: This study was performed in two cohorts: the Fathers Project, in the United Kingdom (n = 143) and the Generation R Study, in The Netherlands (n = 549). In both cohorts, we related paternal antisocial personality (ASP) traits and maternal postpartum depressive (PPD) symptoms to childhood aggressive behaviour at age two (Fathers Project) and age three (Generation R Study). We additionally tested whether the presence of paternal ASP traits increased the association between maternal PPD-symptoms and early childhood aggression. RESULTS: The association between paternal ASP traits and early childhood aggressive behaviour, corrected for maternal PPD-symptoms, was similar in magnitude between the cohorts (Fathers Project: standardized β = 0.12, p = 0.146; Generation R: β = 0.14, p = 0.001), although the association was not statistically significant in the Fathers Project. Strikingly, and in contrast to our expectations, there was evidence of a negative interaction between paternal ASP traits and maternal PPD-symptoms on childhood aggressive behaviour (Fathers Project: β = -0.20, p = 0.020; Generation R: β = -0.09, p = 0.043) in both studies. This meant that with higher levels of paternal ASP traits the association between maternal PPD-symptoms and childhood aggressive behaviour was less and vice versa. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings stress the importance of including both maternal and paternal psychopathology in future studies and interventions focusing on early childhood aggressive behaviour.Wellcome Trus

Lysinibacillus louembei sp. nov., a spore-forming bacterium isolated from Ntoba Mbodi, alkaline fermented leaves of cassava from the Republic of the Congo

Investigation of the microbial diversity of Ntoba Mbodi, an African food made from the alkaline fermentation of cassava leaves, revealed the presence of a Gram-positive, catalase-positive, aerobic, motile and rod-shaped endospore-forming bacterium (NM73) with unusual phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. The analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that the isolate was most closely related to Lysinibacillus meyeri WS 4626T (98.93 %), Lysinibacillus xylanilyticus XDB9T (96.95 %) and Lysinibacillus odysseyi 34hs-1T (96.94 %). The DNA–DNA relatedness of the isolate with L. meyeri LMG 26643T, L. xylanilyticus DSM 23493T and L. odysseyi DSM 18869T was 41 %, 16 % and 15 %, respectively. The internal transcribed spacer-PCR profile of the isolate was different from those of closely related bacteria. The cell-wall peptidoglycan type was A4α, l-Lys-d-Asp and the major fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0 and iso-C17 : 0 and iso-C17 : 1ω10c. The polar lipids included phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphoaminolipid, aminolipid, two phospholipids and two unknown lipids. The predominant menaquinones were MK-7 and MK-6. Ribose was the only whole-cell sugar detected. The DNA G+C content was 38 mol%. Based on the results of the phenotypic and genotypic characterization, it was concluded that the isolate represents a novel species of the genus Lysinibacillus, for which the name of Lysinibacillus louembei sp. nov. is proposed. NM73T ( = DSM 25583T = LMG 26837T) represents the type strain

A web-based knowledge elicitation system (GISEL) for planning and assessing group screening experiments for product development

When planning experiments to examine how product performance depends on the design, manufacture and environment of use, there are invariably too few resources to enable a complete investigation of all possible variables (factors). We have developed new algorithms for generating and assessing efficient two-stage group screening strategies which are implemented through a web-based system called GISEL. This system elicits company knowledge which is used to guide the formulation of competing two-stage strategies and, via the algorithms, to provide quantitative assessment of their efficiencies. The two-stage group screening method investigates the effect of a large number of factors by grouping them in a first stage experiment whose results identify factors to be further investigated in a second stage. Central to the success of the procedure is ensuring that the factors considered, and their grouping, are based on the best available knowledge of the product. The web-based software system allows information and ideas to be contributed by engineers at different sites and allows the experiment organizer to use these expert opinions to guide decisions on the planning of group screening experiments. The new group screening algorithms implemented within the software give probability distributions and indications of the total resource needed for the experiment. In addition, the algorithms simulate results from the experiment and estimate the percentage of important or active main effects and interactions that fail to be detected. The approach is illustrated through the planning of an experiment on engine cold start optimization at Jaguar Cars