Developement

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To determine if obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) severity and/or biomarkers of inflammation/angiogenesis are associated with incident cancer in this clinical cohort. METHODS: Consenting adult patients at the University of British Columbia Hospital between 2003-2014 completed a questionnaire about their medical history and sleep habits prior to undergoing a polysomnogram (PSG). Blood samples were collected the morning after PSG and processed for biomarkers of inflammation and angiogenesis...

Tetracyclines are a group of antibiotic substances largely administered through medicated feed to control diseases in food-producing animals. Fine dosing of antibiotics contained in medicated feed is crucial for the success of the treatment as well as minimising potential threats such as the spread of antimicrobial resistance and the transfer of antibiotic residues in food. A rapid analytical method based on HPLC with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) was developed to quantify oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline and doxycycline in medicated feed...

INTRODUCTION: The TGF-β signaling pathway is a complex network that plays a crucial role in regulating essential biological functions and is implicated in the onset and progression of multiple diseases. This review highlights the recent advancements in developing inhibitors targeting the TGF-β signaling pathway and their potential therapeutic applications in various diseases. AREA COVERED: The review discusses patents on active molecules related to the TGF-β signaling pathway, focusing on three strategies: TGF-β activity inhibition, blocking TGF-β receptor binding, and disruption of the signaling pathway using small molecule inhibitors...

BACKGROUND: US military veterans who have experienced homelessness often have high rates of housing transition. Disruptions caused by these transitions likely exacerbate this population's health problems and interfere with access to care and treatment engagement. Individuals experiencing homelessness increasingly use smartphones, contributing to improved access to medical and social services. Few studies have used smartphones as a data collection tool to systematically collect information about the daily life events that precede and contribute to housing transitions, in-the-moment emotions, behaviors, geographic movements, and perceived social support...

Genome-wide association studies have revealed >270 loci associated with schizophrenia risk, yet these genetic factors do not seem to be sufficient to fully explain the molecular determinants behind this psychiatric condition. Epigenetic marks such as post-translational histone modifications remain largely plastic during development and adulthood, allowing a dynamic impact of environmental factors, including antipsychotic medications, on access to genes and regulatory elements. However, few studies so far have profiled cell-specific genome-wide histone modifications in postmortem brain samples from schizophrenia subjects, or the effect of antipsychotic treatment on such epigenetic marks...

BACKGROUND: Electronic health records are a valuable source of patient information that must be properly deidentified before being shared with researchers. This process requires expertise and time. In addition, synthetic data have considerably reduced the restrictions on the use and sharing of real data, allowing researchers to access it more rapidly with far fewer privacy constraints. Therefore, there has been a growing interest in establishing a method to generate synthetic data that protects patients' privacy while properly reflecting the data...

Cover crops, a soil conservation practice, can contribute to reducing disease pressure caused by Pseudomonas syringae, considered one of the most important bacterial plant pathogens. We recently demonstrated that phyllosphere (leaf surface) bacterial community structure changed when squash (Cucurbita pepo) was grown with a rye (Secale cereale) cover crop treatment, followed by a decrease of angular leaf spot (ALS) disease symptoms on squash caused by P. syringae pv. lachrymans. Application of biocontrol agents is a known agricultural practice to mitigate crop losses due to microbial disease...

BACKGROUND: Depression is often accompanied by changes in behavior, including dietary behaviors. The relationship between dietary behaviors and depression has been widely studied, yet previous research has relied on self-reported data which is subject to recall bias. Electronic device-based behavioral monitoring offers the potential for objective, real-time data collection of a large amount of continuous, long-term behavior data in naturalistic settings. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to characterize digital dietary behaviors in depression, and to determine whether these behaviors could be used to detect depression...

Understanding the structure-property relationship of lithium-ion conducting solid oxide electrolytes is essential to accelerate their development and commercialization. However, the structural complexity of nonideal materials increases the difficulty of study. Here, we develop an algorithmic framework to understand the effect of microstructure on the properties by linking the microscopic morphology images to their ionic conductivities. We adopt garnet and perovskite polycrystalline oxides as examples and quantify the microscopic morphologies via extracting determined physical parameters from the images...

Climate change is having a significant impact on global agriculture, and in particular on vegetable crops, which play a critical role in global nutrition. Recently, increasing research has concentrated on the impact of climate change on vegetable crop diseases, with several studies being conducted in phytotrons, which have been used to explore effects of increased temperatures and CO2 concentrations, to simulate future scenarios. This review focuses on the combined effects of temperature and carbon dioxide increases on foliar and soil-borne vegetable diseases, as evaluated under phytotron conditions...

Carotid artery puncture is a common complication of internal jugular vein (IJV) catheterization. However, there are few reports about an aneurysm from the carotid artery that can develop into an occult mediastinal hematoma, leading to airway compression. In this case study, we present the case of a 71-year-old male who experienced an aneurysm and delayed mediastinal hematoma, ultimately resulting in airway compression after right jugular line insertion. Our findings highlight the importance of not only addressing local hematoma formation at the puncture site promptly, but also recognizing the potential for aneurysm extension into the mediastinum and the formation of an occult hematoma, which can lead to airway compression...

Indentation testing is the most common approach to quantify mechanical brain tissue properties. Despite a myriad of studies conducted already, reported stiffness values vary extensively and continue to be subject of study. Moreover, the growing interest in the relationship between the brain's spatially heterogeneous microstructure and local tissue stiffness warrants the development of standardized measurement protocols to enable comparability between studies and assess repeatability of reported data. Here, we present three individual protocols that outline (1) sample preparation of a 1000-µm thick coronal slice, (2) a comprehensive list of experimental parameters associated with the FemtoTools FT-MTA03 Micromechanical Testing System for spherical indentation, and (3) two different approaches to derive the elastic modulus from raw force-displacement data...

MOTIVATION: Accurate inference of potential Drug-protein interactions (DPIs) aids in understanding drug mechanisms and developing novel treatments. Existing deep learning models, however, struggle with accurate node representation in DPI prediction, limiting their performance. RESULTS: We propose a new computational framework that integrates global and local features of nodes in the drug-protein bipartite graph for efficient DPI inference. Initially, we employ pre-trained models to acquire fundamental knowledge of drugs and proteins and to determine their initial features...

PURPOSE: Retinal and optic nerve diseases have become the primary cause of irreversible vision loss and blindness. However, there is still a lack of thorough evaluation regarding their prevalence in China. METHODS: This artificial intelligence-based national screening study applied a previously developed deep learning algorithm, named the Retinal Artificial Intelligence Diagnosis System (RAIDS). De-identified personal medical records from January 2019 to December 2021 were extracted from 65 examination centers in 19 provinces of China...

Richter syndrome (RS) describes a phenomenon in which a patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) develops an aggressive lymphoma, most commonly diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Reports of cutaneous RS remain exceedingly rare. We report a 61-year-old woman with relapsed/refractory CLL presenting with several subcutaneous nodules on her arms and legs and a single dermal plaque on her abdomen. Skin biopsy revealed a diagnosis of DLBCL, ABC-type, and her clinical status rapidly deteriorated following diagnosis...

PURPOSE: To undertake the first ultrastructural characterization of human retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) differentiation from fetal development to adolescence. METHODS: Ten fetal eyes and three eyes aged six, nine, and 17 years were examined in the temporal retina adjacent to the optic nerve head by transmission electron microscopy. The area, number, and distribution of RPE organelles were quantified and interpreted within the context of adjacent photoreceptors, Bruch's membrane, and choriocapillaris maturation...

PURPOSE: The cGAS-STING pathway has been shown to be an important mediator of inflammation. There is emerging evidence of the importance of this signaling cascade in a variety of inflammatory diseases settings. Here, we present evidence that the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) damage-mediated cGAS-STING pathway plays an important role in the induction of inflammation in environmental dry eye (DE). METHODS: RT-qPCR and Western blot were used to assess the induction of the cGAS-STING pathway and inflammatory cytokines in environmental DE mouse model, primary human corneal epithelial cells (pHCECs), and patients with DE...

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine if levels of the HtrA1 protein in serum or vitreous humor are influenced by genetic risk for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) at the 10q26 locus, age, sex, AMD status, and/or AMD disease severity, and, therefore, to determine the contribution of systemic and ocular HtrA1 to the AMD disease process. METHODS: A custom-made sandwich ELISA assay (SCTM ELISA) for detection of the HtrA1 protein was designed and compared with three commercial assays (R&D Systems, MyBiosource 1 and MyBiosource 2) using 65 serum samples...

BACKGROUND: The minimum weight for enterostomy closure (EC) in infants remains debated with the current acceptable cut-off of >2 kg. As enterostomy-related complications or high enterostomy output (>30cc/kg/d) may prohibit a premature infant from reaching 2 kg, additional data is needed to evaluate the safety of EC in infants <2 kg. The objective of this study was to evaluate postoperative outcomes in low body weight (<2 kg) infants undergoing EC compared to larger infants...

Targeting the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway represents a potentially novel approach to treat basal cell carcinoma (BCC), but activation of this pathway has not been well described in human BCCs. The purpose of this study was to assess whether mTOR pathway activation occurs in BCCs (both sporadic and syndromic) and report a case of a patient with Gorlin syndrome (GS) whose clinically suspicious BCCs responded to mTOR inhibition through topical sirolimus treatment. After Stanford Institutional Review Board Approval, archived BCCs from patients with GS (n = 25), sporadic BCCs (n = 35), and control tissues were subjected to immunohistochemical analysis for the activation of mTOR pathway, and immunohistochemical staining intensity was evaluated by a dermatopathologist...