Foot therapy in relation to body mechanics and health

This item was digitized by the Internet Archive. Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

The Lived Experience of Klinefelter Syndrome: A Narrative Review of the Literature

open access articl

Community acquired Panton-Valentine Leukocidin (PVL) positive Methicilin Resistant Staphylococcal aureus cerebral abscess in an 11-month old boy: a case study.

BACKGROUND: Brain abscess are uncommon childhood infection. Brain abscess caused by Panton-Valentine Leukocidin positive Community acquired Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcal aureus have never been reported in the United Kingdom. CASE PRESENTATION: We report a case of a previously well 11-month old boy of Indian origin who developed a parietal lobe abscess from PVL positive CA-MRSA. CONCLUSION: This case is one of the few described cases of brain abscess caused by PVL CA-MRSA in children. The unusual (insidious) presentation, the absence of a clear staphylococcal focus and the unexpected finding of a CA-MRSA in this patient highlight the challenges of managing such cases in clinical settings and the potential future risk to public health

Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of Facts

When people retell stories, what guides their retelling? Most previous research on story retelling and story comprehension has focused on information accuracy as the key measure of stability in transmission. This paper suggests that there is a second, affective, dimension that provides stability for retellings, namely the audience affect of surprise. In a large-sample study with multiple iterations of retellings, we found evidence that people are quite accurate in preserving all degrees of surprisingness in serial reproduction – even when the event that produced the surprisingness in the original story is dropped or changed. Thus, we propose that the preservation of affect is an implicit goal of retelling: merely do retellers not recall highly surprising events better, but rather they register all levels of surprisingness precisely and aim to surprise their implied audience to same degree. This study used 2,389 participants.Significance Statement: Story retelling is a process whereby cultural information is transmitted horizontally across social networks and vertically down generations. For the most part, retelling research has focused on the relevance and stability of factual information, “who did what, where, when, and why”; comparatively little is known about the transmission of affective information. We suggest that affect can serve as a second axis of stability for retelling, partially independent from factual information. In serial reproduction tasks modeled after the telephone game, we find that surprisingness of stories is well preserved across retellings – even when the facts and events of the story are not. The findings are significant for the communication of information, and thereby also the stability and transformation of culture in general

Genome-to-genome analysis highlights the effect of the human innate and adaptive immune systems on the hepatitis C virus

Outcomes of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and treatment depend on viral and host genetic factors. Here we use human genome-wide genotyping arrays and new whole-genome HCV viral sequencing technologies to perform a systematic genome-to-genome study of 542 individuals who were chronically infected with HCV, predominantly genotype 3. We show that both alleles of genes encoding human leukocyte antigen molecules and genes encoding components of the interferon lambda innate immune system drive viral polymorphism. Additionally, we show that IFNL4 genotypes determine HCV viral load through a mechanism dependent on a specific amino acid residue in the HCV NS5A protein. These findings highlight the interplay between the innate immune system and the viral genome in HCV control

Molecular strategies to reduce unnecessary repeat prostate biopsies of men with elevated serum PSA

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cancer in men. It is a heterogeneous disease and currently there are no reliable biomarkers available to stratify men for prostate biopsy (PBx) and treatment. Hence, there is a risk of over-diagnosing insignificant disease, or under-diagnosing significant disease. We aimed to evaluate FDA approved Prostate Cancer gene 3 (PCA3, FDA approved) and N6-methyladenosine (m6A) for diagnostic properties. PCA3 is a long non-coding RNA (ncRNA) that is unstable, has an unclear biological role and is expensive to chemically treat to prevent degradation prior to analysis. Furthermore, the biological role of this RNA is unclear. Long ncRNAs are degraded into shorter forms, we explored whether this was the fatecase for PCA3. We identified a short segment of RNA within intron 1 of PCA3 bioinformatically which we termed PCA3 short RNA2 (PCA3-shRNA2). The and showed that PCA3-shRNA2 expression of this short RNA correlated to that of PCA3 in PCa cell lines, urinary samples and PBx tissue. PCA3-shRNA2 was overexpressed in urinary samples obtained from men with PCa compared to BPH, was regulated by testosterone and had a diagnostic accuracy similar to that of PCA3. We identified oncogenic mRNA targets of PCA3-shRNA2 and that are involved in oncogenesis and found that COPS2 was underexpressed in cancerous urinary samples. There are over a hundred RNA modifications described and methylation of N6-adenosine base is the most common methylated site. m6A is reversible and may be, involved in oncogenesis. and has recently been mapped throughout the transcriptome. We profiled m6A in PCa cell lines by immunoprecipitation and RNA sequencing, and found interesting oncogenic RNAs (e.g. PARG,) that were differentially expressed in LNCaP-LN3 cells. We identified a novel RNA within PCA3 that is stable, easy to measure, overexpressed in PCa samples and appeared to target oncogenic mRNAs. We profiled m6A in PCa cell lines and have identified important N6-adenosine methylated RNAs associated with PCa development. In conclusion PCA3-shRNA2 and m6A have evolving roles in cancer and may function well as biomarkers

Interferon lambda 4 impacts the genetic diversity of hepatitis C virus

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a highly variable pathogen that frequently establishes chronic infection. This genetic variability is affected by the adaptive immune response but the contribution of other host factors is unclear. Here, we examined the role played by interferon lambda-4 (IFN-λ4) on HCV diversity; IFN-λ4 plays a crucial role in spontaneous clearance or establishment of chronicity following acute infection. We performed viral genome-wide association studies using human and viral data from 485 patients of white ancestry infected with HCV genotype 3a. We demonstrate that combinations of host genetic variants, which determine IFN-λ4 protein production and activity, influence amino acid variation across the viral polyprotein - not restricted to specific viral proteins or HLA restricted epitopes - and modulate viral load. We also observed an association with viral di-nucleotide proportions. These results support a direct role for IFN-λ4 in exerting selective pressure across the viral genome, possibly by a novel mechanism

Joint care can outweigh costs of nonkin competition in communal breeders

Competition between offspring can greatly influence offspring fitness and parental investment decisions, especially in communal breeders where unrelated competitors have less incentive to concede resources. Given the potential for escalated conflict, it remains unclear what mechanisms facilitate the evolution of communal breeding among unrelated females. Resolving this question requires simultaneous consideration of offspring in noncommunal and communal nurseries, but such comparisons are missing. In the Seychelles warbler Acrocephalus sechellensis, we compare nestling pairs from communal nests (2 mothers) and noncommunal nests (1 mother) with singleton nestlings. Our results indicate that increased provisioning rate can act as a mechanism to mitigate the costs of offspring rivalry among nonkin. Increased provisioning in communal broods, as a consequence of having 2 female parents, mitigates any elevated costs of offspring rivalry among nonkin: per-capita provisioning and survival was equal in communal broods and singletons, but lower in noncommunal broods. Individual offspring costs were also more divergent in noncommunal broods, likely because resource limitation exacerbates differences in competitive ability between nestlings. It is typically assumed that offspring rivalry among nonkin will be more costly because offspring are not driven by kin selection to concede resources to their competitors. Our findings are correlational and require further corroboration, but may help explain the evolutionary maintenance of communal breeding by providing a mechanism by which communal breeders can avoid these costs