Impact of implementing stricter criteria for blood transfusion in patients with head and neck cancer undergoing free tissue transfer.

Objective: Recent literature studying the impact of blood transfusion on outcomes in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) have shown that blood transfusions are associated with increased risk of death and higher wound infection rates. The purpose of this study was to implement a lower transfusion threshold while comparing outcomes of free flap patients following initiation of a new transfusion guideline.

Methods: A retrospective study of all patients at a tertiary care academic center who underwent free tissue transfer after HNC resection between July 17, 2007 and June 7, 2021.

marks precursors of somatic lineages and is required for germline formation in the sea anemone .

In animals, stem cell populations of varying potency facilitate regeneration and tissue homeostasis. Notably, germline stem cells in both vertebrates and invertebrates express highly conserved RNA binding proteins, such as , , and . In highly regenerative animals, these genes are also expressed in somatic stem cells, which led to the proposal that they had an ancestral role in all stem cells.

Updated single cell reference atlas for the starlet anemone Nematostella vectensis.

Background: The recent combination of genomics and single cell transcriptomics has allowed to assess a variety of non-conventional model organisms in much more depth. Single cell transcriptomes can uncover hidden cellular complexity and cell lineage relationships within organisms. The recent developmental cell atlases of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, a representative of the basally branching Cnidaria, has provided new insights into the development of all cell types (Steger et al Cell Rep 40(12):111370, 2022; Sebé-Pedrós et al.

Muscle cell-type diversification is driven by bHLH transcription factor expansion and extensive effector gene duplications.

Animals are typically composed of hundreds of different cell types, yet mechanisms underlying the emergence of new cell types remain unclear. Here we address the origin and diversification of muscle cells in the non-bilaterian, diploblastic sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. We discern two fast and two slow-contracting muscle cell populations, which differ by extensive sets of paralogous structural protein genes.

Single-cell transcriptomics identifies conserved regulators of neuroglandular lineages.

Communication in bilaterian nervous systems is mediated by electrical and secreted signals; however, the evolutionary origin and relation of neurons to other secretory cell types has not been elucidated. Here, we use developmental single-cell RNA sequencing in the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis, representing an early evolutionary lineage with a simple nervous system. Validated by transgenics, we demonstrate that neurons, stinging cells, and gland cells arise from a common multipotent progenitor population.