Persistence of Perennial Ryegrass, Tall Fescue and Cocksfoot Following Sequential Annual Sowings: Influence of Species, Cultivar and Pasture Age on Inter-Annual Variability in Yield and Botanical Composition

The persistence of sown, temperate pasture species is an important determinant of perennial pasture-grass productivity. Defining the traits that affect persistence is essential for improving pasture longevity through plant breeding and for identifying criteria that should be included in cultivar ranking indices such as the DairyNZ, Forage Value Index. Compared with a conventional longitudinal study, in which pasture from a single sowing is monitored over time, repeated annual sowings allow the effects on persistence of sowing year and the ensuing interactions between environment and age of pasture to be identified. A repeated sowings experiment was commenced at two sites: under sheep grazing in Canterbury, New Zealand and under cattle grazing in Waikato, New Zealand. At each site, eight cultivars of perennial ryegrass representing different ploidy, flowering date, and decade of cultivar release, and one cultivar each of tall fescue and cocksfoot were sown in a randomised complete block design with four replicates, in autumn each year. The longitudinal cohort (i.e., the measurements conducted over time following each annual sowing) is the experimental unit for effects of sowing year and age. This paper reports interim data from the longest available longitudinal cohort, sown in autumn 2016 at Waikato on pasture yield and botanical composition measured in spring and autumn for six successive years following sowing. Repeated measures analysis of the six years of pasture data was used to identify trends over time and inter-annual variability in the effects of cultivar and site

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

Increasing frailty is associated with higher prevalence and reduced recognition of delirium in older hospitalised inpatients: results of a multi-centre study

Purpose: Delirium is a neuropsychiatric disorder delineated by an acute change in cognition, attention, and consciousness. It is common, particularly in older adults, but poorly recognised. Frailty is the accumulation of deficits conferring an increased risk of adverse outcomes. We set out to determine how severity of frailty, as measured using the CFS, affected delirium rates, and recognition in hospitalised older people in the United Kingdom. Methods: Adults over 65 years were included in an observational multi-centre audit across UK hospitals, two prospective rounds, and one retrospective note review. Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), delirium status, and 30-day outcomes were recorded. Results: The overall prevalence of delirium was 16.3% (483). Patients with delirium were more frail than patients without delirium (median CFS 6 vs 4). The risk of delirium was greater with increasing frailty [OR 2.9 (1.8–4.6) in CFS 4 vs 1–3; OR 12.4 (6.2–24.5) in CFS 8 vs 1–3]. Higher CFS was associated with reduced recognition of delirium (OR of 0.7 (0.3–1.9) in CFS 4 compared to 0.2 (0.1–0.7) in CFS 8). These risks were both independent of age and dementia. Conclusion: We have demonstrated an incremental increase in risk of delirium with increasing frailty. This has important clinical implications, suggesting that frailty may provide a more nuanced measure of vulnerability to delirium and poor outcomes. However, the most frail patients are least likely to have their delirium diagnosed and there is a significant lack of research into the underlying pathophysiology of both of these common geriatric syndromes