The multiplication of an influenza virus strain in a continuous line of mammalian cells

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Food insecurity is inversely associated with positive childhood experiences among a nationally representative sample of children ages 0-17 years in the U.S.

Abstract Objective: We examined the association between food insecurity and positive childhood experiences (PCEs). Design: Outcome measure was number of PCEs and seven PCE constructs. Food insecurity was assessed with a three-category measure that ascertained whether the respondent could afford and choose to eat nutritious food. We then used bivariate and multivariable Poisson and logistic regressions to analyze the relationship between food insecurity and the outcome measures. The analyses were further stratified by age (≤5 years, 6-11 years, 12-17 years). Setting: The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) from 2017-2020, a nationally representative sample of children and adolescents in the U.S. Participants: Parents/caregivers who reported on their children’s experiences of PCEs and food insecurity from the 2017-2020 NSCH (n=114,709). Results: Descriptively, 22.13% of respondents reported mild food insecurity, while 3.45% of respondents reported moderate to severe food insecurity. On multivariable Poisson regression analyses, there was a lower rate of PCES among children who experienced mild (IRR=0.93; 95% CI=0.92, 0.94) or moderate/severe food insecurity (IRR=0.84; 95% CI=0.83, 0.86) compared to those who were food secure. We found an inverse relationship between food insecurity and rate of PCEs across all age categories. Conclusions: Our study finding lends evidence to support that interventions, public health programs, as well as public health policies that reduce food insecurity among children and adolescents may be associated with an increase in PCEs. Longitudinal and intervention research are needed to examine the mechanistic relationship between food insecurity and PCEs across the life course

Design and methodology of a cluster-randomized trial in early care and education centers to meet physical activity guidelines: Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE)

Strategies are needed to help early care and education centers (ECEC) comply with policies to meet daily physical activity and fruit and vegetable guidelines for young children. This manuscript describes the design and methodology of Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE), a 12-session cluster-randomized controlled crossover design trial using community-based participatory research (CBPR) to test a garden-based ECEC physical activity and fruit and vegetables promotion intervention for young children aged 3–5 years in 20 sites. The SAGE curriculum uses the plant lifecycle as a metaphor for human development. Children learn how to plant, water, weed, harvest, and do simple food preparation involving washing, cleaning, and sampling fruit and vegetables along with active learning songs, games, science experiments, mindful eating exercises, and interactive discussions to reinforce various healthy lifestyle topics. Parents will receive newsletters and text messages linked to the curriculum, describing local resources and events, and to remind them about activities and assessments. Children will be measured on physical activity, height, and weight and observed during meal and snack times to document dietary habits. Parents will complete measures about dietary habits outside of the ECEC, parenting practices, home physical activity resources, and home fruit and vegetable availability. SAGE fills an important void in the policy literature by employing a participatory strategy to produce a carefully crafted and engaging curriculum with the goal of meeting health policy guidelines and educational accreditation standards. If successful, SAGE may inform and inspire widespread dissemination and implementation to reduce health disparities and improve health equity

FGF receptor genes and breast cancer susceptibility: results from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium

Background:Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women. Genome-wide association studies have identified FGFR2 as a breast cancer susceptibility gene. Common variation in other fibroblast growth factor (FGF) receptors might also modify risk. We tested this hypothesis by studying genotyped single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and imputed SNPs in FGFR1, FGFR3, FGFR4 and FGFRL1 in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. Methods:Data were combined from 49 studies, including 53 835 cases and 50 156 controls, of which 89 050 (46 450 cases and 42 600 controls) were of European ancestry, 12 893 (6269 cases and 6624 controls) of Asian and 2048 (1116 cases and 932 controls) of African ancestry. Associations with risk of breast cancer, overall and by disease sub-type, were assessed using unconditional logistic regression. Results:Little evidence of association with breast cancer risk was observed for SNPs in the FGF receptor genes. The strongest evidence in European women was for rs743682 in FGFR3; the estimated per-allele odds ratio was 1.05 (95 confidence interval=1.02-1.09, P=0.0020), which is substantially lower than that observed for SNPs in FGFR2. Conclusion:Our results suggest that common variants in the other FGF receptors are not associated with risk of breast cancer to the degree observed for FGFR2. © 2014 Cancer Research UK

Role of Alpha-Synuclein Protein Levels in Mitochondrial Morphology and Cell Survival in Cell Lines

α-Synuclein is highly associated with some neurodegeneration and malignancies. Overexpressing wild-type or mutant α-synuclein promotes neuronal death by mitochondrial dysfunction, the underlying mechanisms of which remain poorly defined. It was recently reported that α-synuclein expression could directly lead to mitochondrial fragmentation in vitro and in vivo, which may be due to α-synuclein localization on mitochondria. Here, we applied a double staining method to demonstrate mitochondrial morphogenetic changes in cells overexpressed with α-synuclein. We show that mitochondrial localization of α-synuclein was increased following its overexpression in three distinct cell lines, including HeLa, SH-SY5Y, and PC12 cells, but no alteration in mitochondrial morphology was detected. However, α-synuclein knockdown prevents MPP+-induced mitochondrial fragmentation in SH-SY5Y and PC12 cells. These data suggest that α-synuclein protein levels hardly affect mitochondrial morphology in normal cell lines, but may have some influence on that under certain environmental conditions

Noncovalent Interactions of Hydrated DNA and RNA Mapped by 2D-IR Spectroscopy

Biomolecules couple to their aqueous environment through a variety of noncovalent interactions. Local structures at the surface of DNA and RNA are frequently determined by hydrogen bonds with water molecules, complemented by non-specific electrostatic and many-body interactions. Structural fluctuations of the water shell result in fluctuating Coulomb forces on polar and/or ionic groups of the biomolecular structure and in a breaking and reformation of hydrogen bonds. Two-dimensional infrared (2D-IR) spectroscopy of vibrational modes of DNA and RNA gives insight into local hydration geometries, elementary molecular dynamics, and the mechanisms behind them. In this chapter, recent results from 2D-IR spectroscopy of native and artificial DNA and RNA are presented, together with theoretical calculations of molecular couplings and molecular dynamics simulations. Backbone vibrations of DNA and RNA are established as sensitive noninvasive probes of the complex behavior of hydrated helices. The results reveal the femtosecond fluctuation dynamics of the water shell, the short-range character of Coulomb interactions, and the strength and fluctuation amplitudes of interfacial electric fields.Comment: To appear as Chapter 8 of Springer Series in Optical Sciences: Coherent Multidimensional Spectroscopy -- Editors: Cho, Minhaeng (Ed.), 201

Controlling the stereochemistry and regularity of butanethiol self-assembled monolayers on Au(111)

© 2014 American Chemical Society. The rich stereochemistry of the self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of four butanethiols on Au(111) is described, the SAMs containing up to 12 individual C, S, or Au chiral centers per surface unit cell. This is facilitated by synthesis of enantiomerically pure 2-butanethiol (the smallest unsubstituted chiral alkanethiol), followed by in situ scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging combined with density functional theory molecular dynamics STM image simulations. Even though butanethiol SAMs manifest strong headgroup interactions, steric interactions are shown to dominate SAM structure and chirality. Indeed, steric interactions are shown to dictate the nature of the headgroup itself, whether it takes on the adatom-bound motif RS•Au(0)S•R or involves direct binding of RS• to face-centered-cubic or hexagonal-close-packed sites. Binding as RS• produces large, organizationally chiral domains even when R is achiral, while adatom binding leads to rectangular plane groups that suppress long-range expression of chirality. Binding as RS• also inhibits the pitting intrinsically associated with adatom binding, desirably producing more regularly structured SAMs