Background: Lower maternal insulin sensitivity during pregnancy is associated with greater fetal adiposity. Physical activity can improve insulin sensitivity, but it is not known if physical behaviours influence the known association of maternal insulin sensitivity with offspring adiposity. This study aimed to investigate the moderating impact of physical behaviours on this association.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: MODY2 (maturity-onset diabetes of the young type 2, MIM125851) is a monogenic diabetes with an autosomal dominant transmission caused by a variant of the gene. MODY2 is often confused with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, but despite a slightly elevated blood glucose level, it does not induce long-term vascular complications, nor does it require pharmacological treatment. Genetic testing for the diagnosis of MODY2 is currently reserved for genetic specialists and some physicians.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: Familial chylomicronemia syndrome (FCS) and multifactorial chylomicronemia syndrome (MCS) are the two main causes of severe hypertriglyceridemia (sHTG). FCS is a rare autosomal recessive form of sHTG, whereas MCS is mainly polygenic in nature with both common and rare variants accumulating and leading to sHTG. However, 30 to 50% of MCS patients have no identified genetic cause of sHTG.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAging is a complex biological process influenced by various factors, including genetic and environmental influences. In this study, we present BayesAge 2.0, an upgraded version of our maximum likelihood algorithm designed for predicting transcriptomic age (tAge) from RNA-seq data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGender-affirming care is a highly politicized topic in the United States. Trans+ individuals do not control the narratives about their access to care, quality of life, and decision-making. Trans+ people are othered, marginalized, and abused by medical systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAging is a complex biological process influenced by various factors, including genetic and environmental influences. In this study, we present BayesAge 2.0, an improved version of our maximum likelihood algorithm designed for predicting transcriptomic age (tAge) from RNA-seq data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChitosan bio-adhesives bond strongly with various biological tissues, such as skin, mucosa, and internal organs. Their adhesive ability arises from amino acid and hydroxyl groups in chitosan, facilitating interactions with tissue surfaces through chemical (ionic, covalent, and hydrogen) and physical (chain entanglement) bonding. As non-toxic, biodegradable, and biocompatible materials, chitosan bio-adhesives are a safe option for medical therapies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Gut microbes and microbe-dependent metabolites (eg, tryptophan-kynurenine-serotonin pathway metabolites) have been linked to systemic inflammation, but the microbiota-metabolite-inflammation axis remains uncharacterised in children. Here we investigated whether gut microbiota features and circulating metabolites (both microbe-dependent and non-microbe-dependent metabolites) associated with circulating inflammation markers in children.
Methods: We studied children from the prospective Gen3G birth cohort who had data on untargeted plasma metabolome (n=321 children; Metabolon platform), gut microbiota (n=147; 16S rRNA sequencing), and inflammation markers (plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, and tumour necrosis factor-α) measured at 5-7 years.
Spin polarization in chiral molecules is a magnetic molecular response associated with electron transport and enantioselective bond polarization that occurs even in the absence of an external magnetic field. An unexpected finding by Santos and co-workers reported enantiospecific NMR responses in solid-state cross-polarization (CP) experiments, suggesting a possible additional contribution to the indirect nuclear spin-spin coupling in chiral molecules induced by bond polarization in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. Herein we provide a theoretical treatment for this phenomenon, presenting an effective spin-Hamiltonian for helical molecules like DNA and density functional theory (DFT) results on amino acids that confirm the dependence of J-couplings on the choice of enantiomer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObesity (Silver Spring)
October 2024
Objective: This study aimed to identify whether cord blood DNA methylation at specific loci is associated with neonatal adiposity, a key risk factor for childhood obesity.
Methods: An epigenome-wide association study was conducted using the Hyperglycemia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcome (HAPO) Study as a discovery sample. Linear regression models adjusted for maternal and offspring covariates and cell counts were used to analyze associations between neonatal adiposity as measured by sum of three skinfold thicknesses and cord blood DNA methylation.
Introduction: Sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) provide specialized medical forensic care to survivors of sexual assault, often working in stressful conditions, with routine exposure to the traumatic experiences of their patients. SANEs experience high levels of both vicarious trauma and burnout.
Purpose: The purpose of this article was to describe the development of a SANE support application, accessible to all SANEs, that utilizes self-care and positive coping strategies to enhance SANE resilience and thereby reduce burnout.
Objective: This study identified metabolite modules associated with adiposity and body fat distribution in childhood using gold-standard measurements.
Methods: We used cross-sectional data from 329 children at mid-childhood (age 5.3 ± 0.
Worldwide trends to delay childbearing have increased parental ages at birth. Older parental age may harm offspring health, but mechanisms remain unclear. Alterations in offspring DNA methylation (DNAm) patterns could play a role as aging has been associated with methylation changes in gametes of older individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe investigate the convergence of chemical reaction networks (CRNs), aiming to establish an upper bound on their reaction rates. The nonlinear characteristics and discrete composition of CRNs pose significant challenges in this endeavor. To circumvent these complexities, we adopt an information geometric perspective, utilizing the natural gradient to formulate a nonlinear system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Language barriers can impact health care and outcomes. Valid and reliable language data is central to studying health inequalities in linguistic minorities. In Canada, language variables are available in administrative health databases; however, the validity of these variables has not been studied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDNA methylation, specifically the formation of 5-methylcytosine at the C5 position of cytosine, undergoes reproducible changes as organisms age, establishing it as a significant biomarker in aging studies. Epigenetic clocks, which integrate methylation patterns to predict age, often employ linear models based on penalized regression, yet they encounter challenges in handling missing data, count-based bisulfite sequence data, and interpretation. To address these limitations, we introduce BayesAge, an extension of the scAge methodology originally designed for single-cell DNA methylation analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReduced insulin sensitivity (insulin resistance) is a hallmark of normal physiology in late pregnancy and also underlies gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). We conducted transcriptomic profiling of 434 human placentas and identified a positive association between insulin-like growth factor binding protein 1 gene (IGFBP1) expression in the placenta and insulin sensitivity at ~26 weeks gestation. Circulating IGFBP1 protein levels rose over the course of pregnancy and declined postpartum, which, together with high gene expression levels in our placenta samples, suggests a placental or decidual source.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Multifactorial chylomicronemia syndrome (MCS) is a severe form of hypertriglyceridemia associated with an increased risk of acute pancreatitis (AP). The risk of AP is heterogenous and is associated with increased level of triglycerides (TG) and presence of rare variants in TG metabolism-related genes.
Objective: To determine if the accumulation of common variants in pancreatitis susceptibility genes, measured with a weighted polygenic risk score (PRS), is associated with AP in MCS patients.
The durability of a protective immune response generated by a vaccine depends on its ability to induce long-term T cell immunity, which tends to decline in aging populations. The longest protection appears to arise from T memory stem cells (TMSCs) that confer high expandability and effector functions when challenged. Here we engineered artificial antigen presenting cells (aAPC) with optimized size, stiffness and activation signals to induce human and mouse CD8 TMSCs .
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