Structure-based design of a soluble human cytomegalovirus glycoprotein B antigen stabilized in a prefusion-like conformation.

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) glycoprotein B (gB) is a class III membrane fusion protein required for viral entry. HCMV vaccine candidates containing gB have demonstrated moderate clinical efficacy, but no HCMV vaccine has been approved. Here, we used structure-based design to identify and characterize amino acid substitutions that stabilize gB in its metastable prefusion conformation.

Beyond air pollution: a national assessment of cooking-related burns in Ghana.

Introduction: Household energy transitions have the potential to reduce the burden of several health outcomes but have narrowly focused on those mediated by reduced exposure to air pollution, despite concerns about the burden of injury outcomes. Here, we aimed to describe the country-level incidence of severe cooking-related burns in Ghana and identify household-level risk factors for adults and children.

Methods: We conducted a national household energy use survey including 7389 households across 370 enumeration areas in Ghana in 2020.

Prenatal Household Air Pollution Exposure and Childhood Blood Pressure in Rural Ghana.

Background: The association between prenatal household air pollution (HAP) exposure and childhood blood pressure (BP) is unknown.

Objective: Within the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS) we examined time-varying associations between ) maternal prenatal and ) first-year-of-life HAP exposure with BP at 4 years of age and, separately, whether a stove intervention delivered prenatally and continued through the first year of life could improve BP at 4 years of age.

Methods: GRAPHS was a cluster-randomized cookstove intervention trial wherein pregnant women were randomized to one of two stove interventions: ) a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stove or improved biomass stove, or ) control (open fire cooking).

Household Air Pollution and Child Lung Function: The Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study.

The impact of a household air pollution (HAP) stove intervention on child lung function has been poorly described. To assess the effect of a HAP stove intervention for infants prenatally to age 1 on, and exposure-response associations with, lung function at child age 4. The Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study randomized pregnant women to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), improved biomass, or open-fire (control) stove conditions through child age 1.

Impact of Climate Change on Indoor Air Quality.

Climate change may affect the quality of the indoor environment through heat and mass transfer between indoors and outdoors: first by a direct response to global warming itself and related extreme weather phenomena and second by indirect actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that can lead to increased concentrations of indoor air contaminants. Therefore, both indoor and outdoor air pollution contribute to poor indoor air quality in this context. Exposures to high concentrations of these pollutants contribute to inflammatory respiratory diseases.

Geospatial determinants of maternal and child exposure to fine particulate matter in Kintampo, Ghana: Levels within the household and community, by surrounding building density and near roadways.

Background: Personal exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) from household air pollution is well-documented in sub-Saharan Africa, but spatiotemporal patterns of exposure are poorly characterized.

Objective: We used paired GPS and personal PM data to evaluate changes in exposure across location-time environments (e.g.

Identifying sensitive windows of prenatal household air pollution on birth weight and infant pneumonia risk to inform future interventions.

Background: Prenatal household air pollution impairs birth weight and increases pneumonia risk however time-varying associations have not been elucidated and may have implications for the timing of public health interventions.

Methods: The Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS) enrolled 1,414 pregnant women from Kintampo, Ghana and measured personal carbon monoxide (CO) exposure four times over pregnancy. Birth weight was measured within 72-hours of birth.

Widespread Clean Cooking Fuel Scale-Up and under-5 Lower Respiratory Infection Mortality: An Ecological Analysis in Ecuador, 1990-2019.

Background: Nationwide household transitions to the use of clean-burning cooking fuels are a promising pathway to reducing under-5 lower respiratory infection (LRI) mortality, the leading cause of child mortality globally, but such transitions are rare and evidence supporting an association between increased clean fuel use and improved health is limited.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the association between increased primary clean cooking fuel use and under-5 LRI mortality in Ecuador between 1990 and 2019.

Methods: We documented cooking fuel use and cause-coded child mortalities at the canton (county) level in Ecuador from 1990 to 2019 (in four periods, 1988-1992, 1999-2003, 2008-2012, and 2015-2019).

Association between malaria and household air pollution interventions in a predominantly rural area of Ghana.

Background: Though anecdotal evidence suggests that smoke from HAP has a repellent effect on mosquitoes, very little work has been done to assess the effect of biomass smoke on malaria infection. The study, therefore, sought to investigate the hypothesis that interventions to reduce household biomass smoke may have an unintended consequence of increasing placental malaria or increase malaria infection in the first year of life.

Methods: This provides evidence from a randomized controlled trial among 1414 maternal-infant pairs in the Kintampo North and Kintampo South administrative areas of Ghana.

Identification of a conserved S2 epitope present on spike proteins from all highly pathogenic coronaviruses.

To address the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and prepare for future coronavirus outbreaks, understanding the protective potential of epitopes conserved across SARS-CoV-2 variants and coronavirus lineages is essential. We describe a highly conserved, conformational S2 domain epitope present only in the prefusion core of β-coronaviruses: SARS-CoV-2 S2 apex residues 980-1006 in the flexible hinge. Antibody RAY53 binds the native hinge in MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 spikes on the surface of mammalian cells and mediates antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis and cytotoxicity against SARS-CoV-2 spike in vitro.

COVID-19 subphenotypes at hospital admission are associated with mortality: a cross-sectional study.

Background: We have an incomplete understanding of COVID-19 characteristics at hospital presentation and whether underlying subphenotypes are associated with clinical outcomes and therapeutic responses.

Methods: For this cross-sectional study, we extracted electronic health data from adults hospitalized between 1 March and 30 August 2020 with a PCR-confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 at five New York City Hospitals. We obtained clinical and laboratory data from the first 24 h of the patient's hospitalization.

Using time-resolved monitor wearing data to study the effect of clean cooking interventions on personal air pollution exposures.

Background: Personal monitoring can estimate individuals' exposures to environmental pollutants; however, accuracy depends on consistent monitor wearing, which is under evaluated.

Objective: To study the association between device wearing and personal air pollution exposure.

Methods: Using personal device accelerometry data collected in the context of a randomized cooking intervention in Ghana with three study arms (control, improved biomass, and liquified petroleum gas (LPG) arms; N = 1414), we account for device wearing to infer parameters of PM and CO exposure.

Associations between antenatal maternal asthma status and placental DNA methylation.

Introduction: Maternal asthma in pregnancy is associated with adverse perinatal and child health outcomes; however, mechanisms are poorly understood.

Methods: The PRogramming of Intergenerational Stress Mechanisms (PRISM) prospective pregnancy cohort characterized asthma history during pregnancy via questionnaires and quantified placental DNAm using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. We performed epigenome-wide association analyses (n = 223) to estimate associations between maternal active or inactive asthma, as compared to never asthma, and placental differentially methylated positions (DMPs) and differentially variable positions (DVPs).

Breast milk-derived extracellular vesicle miRNAs are associated with maternal asthma and atopy.

Breast milk-derived extracellular vesicle (EV) miRNAs may program child health outcomes associated with maternal asthma and atopy. The authors investigated associations between maternal asthma/atopy and EV miRNAs in the Programming of Intergenerational Stress Mechanisms cohort. Breast milk-derived EV miRNAs collected 6.

Poor early childhood growth is associated with impaired lung function: Evidence from a Ghanaian pregnancy cohort.

Objectives: Nearly 40% of African children under 5 are stunted. We leveraged the Ghana randomized air pollution and health study (GRAPHS) cohort to examine whether poorer growth was associated with worse childhood lung function.

Study Design: GRAPHS measured infant weight and length at birth and 3, 6, 9,12 months, and 4 years of age.

Prediction of personal exposure to PM in mother-child pairs in rural Ghana.

Background: Air pollution epidemiological studies usually rely on estimates of long-term exposure to air pollutants, which are difficult to ascertain. This problem is accentuated in settings where sources of personal exposure differ from those of ambient concentrations, including household air pollution environments where cooking is an important source.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of estimating usual exposure to PM based on short-term measurements.

An antibody Fc engineered for conditional antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity at the low tumor microenvironment pH.

Despite the exquisite specificity and high affinity of antibody-based cancer therapies, treatment side effects can occur since the tumor-associated antigens targeted are also present on healthy cells. However, the low pH of the tumor microenvironment provides an opportunity to develop conditionally active antibodies with enhanced tumor specificity. Here, we engineered the human IgG1 Fc domain to enhance pH-selective binding to the receptor FcγRIIIa and subsequent antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC).

Corrigendum to "Prenatal household air pollutant exposure is associated with reduced size and gestational age at birth among a cohort of Ghanaian infants" [Environ. Int. 155 (2021) 106659].

[This corrects the article PMC8628363.].

Long-Term Air Pollution Exposure and COVID-19 Mortality: A Patient-Level Analysis from New York City.

Risk factors for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) mortality may include environmental exposures such as air pollution. To determine whether, among adults hospitalized with PCR-confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), long-term air pollution exposure is associated with the risk of mortality, ICU admission, or intubation. We performed a retrospective analysis of SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive patients admitted to seven New York City hospitals from March 8, 2020, to August 30, 2020.

Prenatal lead exposure and childhood lung function: Influence of maternal cortisol and child sex.

Introduction: Maternal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis disruption in pregnancy may contribute to the programming of childhood respiratory disease and may modify the effect of chemical toxins, like lead (Pb), on lung development. Child sex may further modify these effects. We sought to prospectively examine associations between maternal HPA axis disruption, prenatal Pb and childhood lung function and explore potential effect modification by maternal cortisol and child sex on the association between prenatal Pb and lung function outcomes.