S100A6 preferentially labels type C nevus cells and nevic corpuscles: additional support for Schwannian differentiation of intradermal nevi

Melanocytic nevi typically show a morphologic sequence of maturation from epithelioid “type A” cells to fusiform, Schwann cell-like “type C” cells with dermal descent. Nevi may also produce Wagner-Meissner-like structures (nevic corpuscles). Previous studies have shown that this maturation of intradermal nevi recapitulates intermediate stages in Schwann cell development. In intradermal nevi, we have evaluated the pattern of S100A6 protein, a form of S100 found in Schwann cells. Methods: Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded archival tissues were evaluated by immunohistochemistry using antibodies specific for S100A6 and S100B in 38 intradermal nevi (IDN). Ten neurofibromas (NF), 3 Schwannomas (SCH), 2 palisaded and encapsulated neuromas (PEN), and 2 granular cell tumors (GCT) were included as positive controls since these lesions have large numbers of Schwann cells. Results: Melanocytic nevi demonstrated preferential anti-S100A6 staining of “type C” cells (36/38; 28 strong, 8 weak) and nevic corpuscles (25/38; 19 strong, 6 weak) compared to “type A” cells (17/38; 17 weak) and “type B” cells (17/38; 4 strong, 13 weak). All NF, SCH, and PEN stained strongly with anti-S100A6. Both GCT were negative with anti-S100A6 but positive with anti-S100B. Conclusions: The pattern of S100A6 expression in intradermal nevi further supports the hypothesis that maturation in these lesions recapitulates features of Schwann cell differentiation. The lack of S100A6 expression by both GCT suggests that these lesions have lost this feature of Schwann cells, which may play a role in their peculiar phenotypic appearance.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75660/1/j.1600-0560.2001.028008393.x.pd

Cord Blood-Derived Hematopoietic Stem/Progenitor Cells: Current Challenges in Engraftment, Infection, and Ex Vivo Expansion

Umbilical cord blood has served as an alternative to bone marrow for hematopoietic transplantation since the late 1980s. Numerous clinical studies have proven the efficacy of umbilical cord blood. Moreover, the possible immaturity of cells in umbilical cord blood gives more options to recipients with HLA mismatch and allows for the use of umbilical cord blood from unrelated donors. However, morbidity and mortality rates associated with hematopoietic malignancies still remain relatively high, even after cord blood transplantation. Infections and relapse are the major causes of death after cord blood transplantation in patients with hematopoietic diseases. Recently, new strategies have been introduced to improve these major problems. Establishing better protocols for simple isolation of primitive cells and ex vivo expansion will also be very important. In this short review, we discuss several recent promising findings related to the technical improvement of cord blood transplantation

Data extraction methods for systematic review (semi)automation: Update of a living systematic review [version 2; peer review: 3 approved]

Background: The reliable and usable (semi)automation of data extraction can support the field of systematic review by reducing the workload required to gather information about the conduct and results of the included studies. This living systematic review examines published approaches for data extraction from reports of clinical studies. Methods: We systematically and continually search PubMed, ACL Anthology, arXiv, OpenAlex via EPPI-Reviewer, and the dblp computer science bibliography. Full text screening and data extraction are conducted within an open-source living systematic review application created for the purpose of this review. This living review update includes publications up to December 2022 and OpenAlex content up to March 2023. Results: 76 publications are included in this review. Of these, 64 (84%) of the publications addressed extraction of data from abstracts, while 19 (25%) used full texts. A total of 71 (93%) publications developed classifiers for randomised controlled trials. Over 30 entities were extracted, with PICOs (population, intervention, comparator, outcome) being the most frequently extracted. Data are available from 25 (33%), and code from 30 (39%) publications. Six (8%) implemented publicly available tools Conclusions: This living systematic review presents an overview of (semi)automated data-extraction literature of interest to different types of literature review. We identified a broad evidence base of publications describing data extraction for interventional reviews and a small number of publications extracting epidemiological or diagnostic accuracy data. Between review updates, trends for sharing data and code increased strongly: in the base-review, data and code were available for 13 and 19% respectively, these numbers increased to 78 and 87% within the 23 new publications. Compared with the base-review, we observed another research trend, away from straightforward data extraction and towards additionally extracting relations between entities or automatic text summarisation. With this living review we aim to review the literature continually

Delivering Behaviour Change Interventions : Development of a Mode of Delivery Ontology

Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to the experts who contributed to the open peer-review stages of this study and to Kirsty Atha for the support in annotating papers. Grant information: This work is supported by Wellcome through a collaborative award to The Human Behaviour-Change Project [201524]. MMM is funded by a Marie-Sklodowska-Curie fellowship [EU H2020 EDGE program grant agreement No. 713567].Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A Comparison of Warm-up Effects on Maximal Aerobic Exercise Performance in Children

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Changing Hydrozoan Bauplans by Silencing Hox-Like Genes

Regulatory genes of the Antp class have been a major factor for the invention and radiation of animal bauplans. One of the most diverse animal phyla are the Cnidaria, which are close to the root of metazoan life and which often appear in two distinct generations and a remarkable variety of body forms. Hox-like genes have been known to be involved in axial patterning in the Cnidaria and have been suspected to play roles in the genetic control of many of the observed bauplan changes. Unfortunately RNAi mediated gene silencing studies have not been satisfactory for marine invertebrate organisms thus far. No direct evidence supporting Hox-like gene induced bauplan changes in cnidarians have been documented as of yet. Herein, we report a protocol for RNAi transfection of marine invertebrates and demonstrate that knock downs of Hox-like genes in Cnidaria create substantial bauplan alterations, including the formation of multiple oral poles (“heads”) by Cnox-2 and Cnox-3 inhibition, deformation of the main body axis by Cnox-5 inhibition and duplication of tentacles by Cnox-1 inhibition. All phenotypes observed in the course of the RNAi studies were identical to those obtained by morpholino antisense oligo experiments and are reminiscent of macroevolutionary bauplan changes. The reported protocol will allow routine RNAi studies in marine invertebrates to be established

Ontologies relevant to behaviour change interventions: a method for their development.

Background: Behaviour and behaviour change are integral to many aspects of wellbeing and sustainability. However, reporting behaviour change interventions accurately and synthesising evidence about effective interventions is hindered by lacking a shared, scientific terminology to describe intervention characteristics. Ontologies are standardised frameworks that provide controlled vocabularies to help unify and connect scientific fields. To date, there is no published guidance on the specific methods required to develop ontologies relevant to behaviour change. We report the creation and refinement of a method for developing ontologies that make up the Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology (BCIO). Aims: (1) To describe the development method of the BCIO and explain its rationale; (2) To provide guidance on implementing the activities within the development method. Method and results: The method for developing ontologies relevant to behaviour change interventions was constructed by considering principles of good practice in ontology development and identifying key activities required to follow those principles. The method's details were refined through application to developing two ontologies. The resulting ontology development method involved: (1) defining the ontology's scope; (2) identifying key entities; (3) refining the ontology through an iterative process of literature annotation, discussion and revision; (4) expert stakeholder review; (5) testing inter-rater reliability; (6) specifying relationships between entities, and; (7) disseminating and maintaining the ontology. Guidance is provided for conducting relevant activities for each step.  Conclusions: We have developed a detailed method for creating ontologies relevant to behaviour change interventions, together with practical guidance for each step, reflecting principles of good practice in ontology development. The most novel aspects of the method are the use of formal mechanisms for literature annotation and expert stakeholder review to develop and improve the ontology content. We suggest the mnemonic SELAR3, representing the method's first six steps as Scope, Entities, Literature Annotation, Review, Reliability, Relationships

Development of an Intervention Setting Ontology for behaviour change: Specifying where interventions take place.

Background: Contextual factors such as an intervention's setting are key to understanding how interventions to change behaviour have their effects and patterns of generalisation across contexts. The intervention's setting is not consistently reported in published reports of evaluations. Using ontologies to specify and classify intervention setting characteristics enables clear and reproducible reporting, thus aiding replication, implementation and evidence synthesis. This paper reports the development of a Setting Ontology for behaviour change interventions as part of a Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology, currently being developed in the Wellcome Trust funded Human Behaviour-Change Project. Methods: The Intervention Setting Ontology was developed following methods for ontology development used in the Human Behaviour-Change Project: 1) Defining the ontology's scope, 2) Identifying key entities by reviewing existing classification systems (top-down) and 100 published behaviour change intervention reports (bottom-up), 3) Refining the preliminary ontology by literature annotation of 100 reports, 4) Stakeholder reviewing by 23 behavioural science and public health experts to refine the ontology, 5) Assessing inter-rater reliability of using the ontology by two annotators familiar with the ontology and two annotators unfamiliar with it, 6) Specifying ontological relationships between setting entities and 7) Making the Intervention Setting Ontology machine-readable using Web Ontology Language (OWL) and publishing online. Re sults: The Intervention Setting Ontology consists of 72 entities structured hierarchically with two upper-level classes: Physical setting including Geographic location, Attribute of location (including Area social and economic condition, Population and resource density sub-levels) and Intervention site (including Facility, Transportation and Outdoor environment sub-levels), as well as Social setting. Inter-rater reliability was found to be 0.73 (good) for those familiar with the ontology and 0.61 (acceptable) for those unfamiliar with it. Conclusion: The Intervention Setting Ontology can be used to code information from diverse sources, annotate the setting characteristics of existing intervention evaluation reports and guide future reporting