Responses to a COVID-19 vaccination intervention: Qualitative analysis of 17K unsolicited SMS replies.

Unlabelled: The development of effective interventions for COVID-19 vaccination has proven challenging given the unique and evolving determinants of that behavior. A tailored intervention to drive vaccination uptake through machine learning-enabled personalization of behavior change messages unexpectedly yielded a high volume of real-time short message service (SMS) feedback from recipients. A qualitative analysis of those replies contributes to a better understanding of the barriers to COVID-19 vaccination and demographic variations in determinants, supporting design improvements for vaccination interventions.

Feasibility of a Reinforcement Learning-Enabled Digital Health Intervention to Promote Mammograms: Retrospective, Single-Arm, Observational Study.

Background: Preventive screenings such as mammograms promote health and detect disease. However, mammogram attendance lags clinical guidelines, with roughly one-quarter of women not completing their recommended mammograms. A scalable digital health intervention leveraging behavioral science and reinforcement learning and delivered via email was implemented in a US health system to promote uptake of recommended mammograms among patients who were 1 or more years overdue for the screening (ie, 2 or more years from last mammogram).

Lung recruitment manoeuvres for reducing mortality and respiratory morbidity in mechanically ventilated neonates.

Background: Preterm infants and neonates with respiratory conditions commonly require intubation and conventional mechanical ventilation (CMV) to maintain airway patency and support their respiration. Whilst this therapy is often lifesaving, it simultaneously carries the risk of lung injury. The use of lung recruitment manoeuvres (LRMs) has been found to reduce the incidence of lung injury, and improve oxygenation and lung compliance in ventilated adults.

Daoy medulloblastoma cells that express CD133 are radioresistant relative to CD133- cells, and the CD133+ sector is enlarged by hypoxia.

Purpose: Primary medulloblastoma and glioblastoma multiforme tumor cells that express the surface marker CD133 are believed to be enriched for brain tumor stem cells because of their unique ability to initiate or reconstitute tumors in immunodeficient mice. This study sought to characterize the radiobiological properties and marker expression changes of CD133+ vs. CD133- cells of an established medulloblastoma cell line.

A functional proteomics approach for the detection of nuclear proteins based on derepressed importin alpha.

The identification of functional proteomes is a major challenge in proteomic research. Here we describe a method for the detection and isolation of nuclear (localization sequence containing) proteins using a derepressed import receptor (DIRE) as a synthetic antibody. We demonstrate that the DIRE method specifically detects nuclear localization sequence containing proteins.

The mediator of RNA polymerase II.

Mediator (TRAP/ARC/PC2) is a large (22-28 subunit) protein complex that binds RNA polymerase II and controls transcription from class II genes. The evolutionarily conserved core of Mediator is found in all eukaryotes. It binds RNA polymerase II and is probably critical for basal transcription but it also mediates activation and repression of transcription.

Partial oncogenic transformation of chicken embryo fibroblasts by Jun dimerization protein 2, a negative regulator of TRE- and CRE-dependent transcription.

Jun dimerization protein 2 (JDP2) was identified as a bZIP protein that forms dimers with Jun proteins. JDP2 represses transcriptional activation of reporter constructs containing 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA)-responsive elements (TRE) or cyclic AMP responsive elements (CRE). JDP2, overexpressed by the avian retroviral vector RCAS, induces partial oncogenic transformation of chicken embryo fibroblasts.

Fluid mechanics of DNA double-strand filter elution.

Measurement of infrequent DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) in mammalian cells is essential for the understanding of cell damage by ionizing radiation and many DNA-reactive drugs. One of the most important assays for measuring DSB in cellular DNA is filter elution. This study is an attempt to determine whether standard concepts of fluid mechanics can yield a self-consistent model of this process.

A role of the kinase mTOR in cellular transformation induced by the oncoproteins P3k and Akt.

The oncoproteins P3k (homolog of the catalytic subunit of class IA phosphoinositide 3-kinase) and Akt (protein kinase B) induce oncogenic transformation of chicken embryo fibroblasts. The transformed cells show constitutive phosphorylation of the positive regulator of translation p70S6 kinase (S6K) and of the eukaryotic initiation factor 4E-BP1 binding protein (4E-BP1), a negative regulator of translation. Phosphorylation activates S6K and inactivates 4E-BP1.

Aminothiols protect endothelial cell proliferation against inhibition by lipopolysaccharide.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a primary agent of sepsis that damages the vascular endothelium. Endothelial cell proliferation is key to the repair of damaged endothelium, and drugs that counteract the antiproliferative impact of LPS on endothelial cells should be beneficial. Because LPS exerts much of its cytotoxicity by generating reactive oxygen and nitrogen intermediates, it would be helpful to know whether therapeutic antioxidant thiols maintain cell proliferation in injured endothelium.

Subdenaturing (pH 11.1) filter elution: more sensitive quantification of DNA double-strand breaks.

The apparent biological significance of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) has stimulated considerable effort toward quantification of this lesion. The neutral (or nondenaturing) filter elution assay at pH 7.2 or 9.

WR-1065 and radioprotection of vascular endothelial cells. I. Cell proliferation, DNA synthesis and damage.

Normal tissue toxicity limits radiation therapy and could depend on the extent of damage to the vascular endothelium Aminothiols such as WR-1065 [N-(2-mercaptoethyl)-1,3-diaminopropane] provide radioprotection for normal tissues, but little is known about how the aminothiols specifically affect the endothelium. Bovine aortic endothelial cells in culture were exposed to WR-1065 for 2 h before irradiation (137Cs gamma rays, 1 Gy/min). Alone, WR-1065 demonstrated an antiproliferative effect that was related to dose (0.

The relaxation of supercoiled DNA molecules as a biophysical dosimeter for ionizing radiations: a feasibility study.

In this paper we explore the feasibility of using DNA molecules as a biophysical radiation dosimeter. Supercoiled phi X174 bacteriophage DNA molecules were irradiated with different gamma radiation doses. The strand breakage produced by ionizing radiation within supercoiled double-stranded DNA molecules (RFI) yields relaxed circular DNA molecules (RFII) and linear DNA molecules (RFIII) as a result of single-strand breaks and double-strand breaks, respectively.

A 5-4 pyrimidine-pyrimidone photoproduct produced from mixtures of thymine and 4-thiouridine irradiated with 334 nm light.

The nucleoside 4-thiouridine, present in some bacterial tRNA species, is known to be a chromophore and a target for near-UV light-induced growth delay and also mediates both photoprotection and near-UV cell killing in various bacterial strains. To investigate the photoreaction of 4-thiouridine with DNA or its precursors, we irradiated aqueous mixtures of thymine and 4-thiouridine with 334 nm light and then separated photoproducts using two or more stages of reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography. The two equally abundant major photoproducts were analyzed by UV absorbance spectrophotometry, fast-atom bombardment and electron-impact mass spectrometry, and 1H- and 13C-NMR spectroscopy, and have been identified as two diastereomers of 6-hydroxy-5-[1-(beta-D-erythro-pentofuranosyl)-4'-pyrimidin-2'- one]dihydrothymine (O6hThy[5-4]Pdo), of molecular weight = 370.

Filter elution assays for DNA damage: practical and mechanistic significance of the DNA in the filter support wash.

The alkaline and neutral (or nondenaturing) filter elution assays are popular methods for the measurement of DNA strand breakage and its repair in eukaryotic cells. In both alkaline and neutral elution, it is recommended practice to wash the filter support after removal of the filter and to analyze the DNA recovered by this procedure together with that remaining on the filter as uneluted DNA, although it is not obvious why the DNA in the filter support wash should be so interpreted. We have observed that the sum of the DNA on the filter and that recovered in the filter support wash is approximately constant when the pH of the alkaline filter elution assay for total strand breaks is increased from 12.

Evidence from nondenaturing filter elution that induction of double-strand breaks in the DNA of Chinese hamster V79 cells by gamma radiation is proportional to the square of dose.

We have used nondenaturing filter elution performed at both pH 7.2 and pH 9.6 to measure the induction of double-strand breaks (DSBs) in the DNA of Chinese hamster V79 cells by 60Co gamma-radiation doses between 10 and 120 Gy.

Singlet oxygen induces frank strand breaks as well as alkali- and piperidine-labile sites in supercoiled plasmid DNA.

A covalently closed, circular, supercoiled plasmid was exposed to singlet oxygen by a separated-surface sensitizer. For each exposure, the quantity of single oxygen entering the DNA target solution was estimated by its oxidation of histidine. After singlet oxygen exposure, some DNA samples were treated to disclose occult lesions.

Measurement of double-strand breaks in Chinese hamster cell DNA by neutral filter elution: calibration by 125I decay.

We labeled the DNA of Chinese hamster lung V79 cells with 125I in the form of iododeoxyuridine and subsequently measured the elution of the DNA through polycarbonate filters at pH 9.6 and pH 7.2.

The role of hydroxyl radical quenching in the protection by acetate and ethylenediaminetetraacetate of supercoiled plasmid DNA from ionizing radiation-induced strand breakage.

A supercoiled plasmid of 7300 base pairs was isolated and exposed in various aqueous environments to 60Co gamma-radiation. Conversion of the supercoiled form to the relaxed circular and linear forms was monitored by agarose gel electrophoresis and quantified by fluorescence scanning of the gel. Acetate, which has been reported to affect the conformation of DNA in solution, decreased the radiosensitivity of the supercoil in a concentration-dependent manner.

The antiinflammatory action of guanabenz is mediated through 5-lipoxygenase and cyclooxygenase inhibition.

Guanabenz (2,6-dichlorobenzylidene amino guanidine acetate), an alpha 2-agonist, possesses antiinflammatory activity. Since leukotrienes (LT) and prostaglandins (PG) are proinflammatory substances, the effect of guanabenz on LT and PG synthesis by inflammatory cells was investigated. Guanabenz, but not clonidine, B-HT 920 or B-HT 933 inhibited zymosan-induced LTC4 (IC50 = 13 microM) and PGE2 (IC50 = 10.

Inhibition of phospholipase A2 (PLA2) activity by nifedipine and nisoldipine is independent of their calcium-channel-blocking activity.

The effects of several calcium antagonists on phospholipase A2 (PLA2) activity were examined. Nifedipine and nisoldipine inhibited a cell-free preparation of PLA2 in a dose-dependent manner with maximal inhibition of 71-77% observed at 100 microM. More potent or equipotent dihydropyridine calcium antagonists such as nitrendipine and felodipine did not inhibit PLA2 activity.