Publications by authors named "Bryan N"

Article Synopsis
  • Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE) poses major healthcare challenges, especially for vulnerable patients like hospitalized individuals and astronauts.
  • A study tested 42 E. faecium samples in simulated microgravity and found varied antibiotic resistance, with some strains showing increased biofilm production and desiccation tolerance.
  • These findings highlight the adaptability of VRE in space-like conditions, emphasizing the importance of understanding its behavior to ensure crew health during long-term space missions.
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  • Aquatic ecosystems like Lake Wilcox harbor diverse bacterial strains, many of which can potentially harm humans, highlighting a significant health risk.
  • Among 11 bacterial isolates studied, 67% were identified as potential human pathogens, indicating considerable genetic diversity and a reservoir for multiple pathogenic strains.
  • The research uncovered widespread antibiotic resistance, particularly to β-lactams and tetracycline, emphasizing the importance of monitoring pathogens in such ecosystems to understand their genetic evolution and ecological impact.
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  • Targeting PI3K/AKT/PTEN signalling offers promising therapy options for B-cell malignancies, particularly diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), despite challenges with existing PI3K inhibitors due to toxicity.
  • The AKT inhibitor capivasertib, when used with the BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax, shows significant therapeutic benefits in preclinical DLBCL models, inducing tumor cell death effectively.
  • Adding rituximab to this drug combination enhances treatment outcomes, suggesting a potentially effective strategy for managing DLBCL patients who are resistant to standard therapies.
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Objectives: To review recent evaluations of pediatric patients with intestinal failure (IF) for intestinal transplantation (ITx), waiting list decisions, and outcomes of patients listed and not listed for ITx at our center.

Methods: Retrospective chart review of 97 patients evaluated for ITx from January 2014 to December 2021 including data from referring institutions and protocol laboratory testing, body imaging, endoscopy, and liver biopsy in selected cases. Survival analysis used Kaplan-Meier estimates and Cox proportional hazards regression.

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The physical basis of phase separation is thought to consist of the same types of bonds that specify conventional macromolecular interactions yet is unsatisfyingly often referred to as 'fuzzy'. Gaining clarity on the biogenesis of membraneless cellular compartments is one of the most demanding challenges in biology. Here, we focus on the chromosome passenger complex (CPC), that forms a chromatin body that regulates chromosome segregation in mitosis.

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  • Vibrio cholerae is a dangerous pathogen that causes cholera, a severe diarrheal disease, and can be contracted via contaminated seafood or polluted water exposure.
  • The study presents the isolated strain NB-183 from a freshwater lake in Ontario, Canada, detailing its whole-genome analysis achieved through advanced sequencing techniques.
  • The genome of V. cholerae strain NB-183, consisting of over 4 million base pairs, contains numerous virulence genes and may help researchers better understand the pathogen’s ecological impacts and evolutionary behavior.
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Brain aging is a complex process influenced by various lifestyle, environmental, and genetic factors, as well as by age-related and often co-existing pathologies. MRI and, more recently, AI methods have been instrumental in understanding the neuroanatomical changes that occur during aging in large and diverse populations. However, the multiplicity and mutual overlap of both pathologic processes and affected brain regions make it difficult to precisely characterize the underlying neurodegenerative profile of an individual from an MRI scan.

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Objectives: To describe the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients in a prospective 12-month observational cohort study of new bladder cancer diagnoses and compare with national cancer and general population surveys.

Patients And Methods: A prospective UK study in patients with new bladder cancer diagnoses at 13 NHS Trusts. The HRQoL data were collected at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months.

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Background: The study was initiated in 2020 to test the efficacy of a nitric oxide-generating lozenge (NOL) in outpatients with newly diagnosed COVID-19 to mitigate disease severity. The study enrolled high-risk patients, African American and Latino.

Methods: This was a randomized, double-blinded, prospective, placebo-controlled trial.

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Background: The risk of postoperative complications in patients who had a positive COVID-19 test prior to a total joint arthroplasty (TJA) is unknown. The purpose of this investigation was to study the complications and mortality associated with a recent COVID-19 diagnosis prior to TJA.

Methods: Patients undergoing primary and revision total hip arthroplasties (THAs) or total knee arthroplasties (TKAs) were identified using the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) Data Enclave.

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The physical basis of phase separation is thought to consist of the same types of bonds that specify conventional macromolecular interactions yet is unsatisfyingly often referred to as 'fuzzy'. Gaining clarity on the biogenesis of membraneless cellular compartments is one of the most demanding challenges in biology. Here, we focus on the chromosome passenger complex (CPC), that forms a chromatin body that regulates chromosome segregation in mitosis.

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Importance: Intensive vs standard treatment to lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) reduces risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia; however, the magnitude of cognitive benefit likely varies among patients.

Objective: To estimate the magnitude of cognitive benefit of intensive vs standard systolic BP (SBP) treatment.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In this ad hoc secondary analysis of the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT), 9361 randomized clinical trial participants 50 years or older with high cardiovascular risk but without a history of diabetes, stroke, or dementia were followed up.

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The cell bodies of hypothalamic magnocellular neurones are densely packed in the hypothalamic supraoptic nucleus, whereas their axons project to the anatomically discrete posterior pituitary gland. We have taken advantage of this unique anatomical structure to establish proteome and phosphoproteome dynamics in neuronal cell bodies and axonal terminals in response to physiological stimulation. We have found that proteome and phosphoproteome responses to neuronal stimulation are very different between somatic and axonal neuronal compartments, indicating the need of each cell domain to differentially adapt.

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Bacillus anthracis is widespread in soil and a causative agent of anthrax, primarily in herbivores. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of Bacillus anthracis strain N1, which was isolated from a recreational freshwater lake and found to carry multiple antibiotic resistance genes and biosynthetic gene clusters.

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spp. are facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive, non-spore-forming bacilli, reported to tolerate extreme environments. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of sp.

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To learn multiscale functional connectivity patterns of the aging brain, we built a brain age prediction model of functional connectivity measures at seven scales on a large fMRI dataset, consisting of resting-state fMRI scans of 4186 individuals with a wide age range (22 to 97 years, with an average of 63) from five cohorts. We computed multiscale functional connectivity measures of individual subjects using a personalized functional network computational method, harmonized the functional connectivity measures of subjects from multiple datasets in order to build a functional brain age model, and finally evaluated how functional brain age gap correlated with cognitive measures of individual subjects. Our study has revealed that functional connectivity measures at multiple scales were more informative than those at any single scale for the brain age prediction, the data harmonization significantly improved the brain age prediction performance, and the data harmonization in the functional connectivity measures' tangent space worked better than in their original space.

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It is now more than 35 years since endothelium derived relaxing factor was identified as nitric oxide (NO). The last few decades have seen an explosion around nitric oxide biochemistry, physiology and clinical translation. The science reveals that all chronic disease is associated with decreased blood flow to the affected organ which results in increased inflammation, oxidative stress and immune dysfunction.

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Introduction: Literacy can be a better measure of quality of education. Its association with brain health in midlife has not been thoroughly investigated.

Methods: We studied, cross-sectionally, 616 middle-aged adults (mean age of 55.

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Hypertension remains a global health crisis. High blood pressure is the number one modifiable risk factor in the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease. Despite many different classes of drug therapies approved for hypertension, the use of polypharmacy and recommendations on lifestyle modification, many patients still suffer from uncontrolled or unmanaged hypertension.

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Importance: Decreased cerebral tissue integrity and cerebral blood flow (CBF) are features of neurodegenerative diseases. Brain tissue maintenance is an energy-demanding process, making it particularly sensitive to hypoperfusion. However, little is known about the association between blood flow and brain microstructural integrity, including in normative aging.

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Importance: The cardiovascular and renal outcomes of angiotensin-II receptor blocker (ARB) and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) treatment are well-known; however, few studies have evaluated initiation of these agents and cognitive impairment.

Objective: To emulate a target trial to evaluate the cognitive outcomes of initiating an ARB- vs ACEI-based antihypertensive regimen in individuals at risk for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and probable dementia (PD).

Design, Setting, And Participants: Active comparator, new-user observational cohort study design using data from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT), conducted November 2010 through July 2018.

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Article Synopsis
  • The human microbiome, consisting of ~10^10 microbial cells, plays a vital role in regulating metabolism, particularly through the oral bacteria that convert nitrate to nitrite, which is essential for producing nitric oxide.
  • Disruption of the oral microbiota from factors like disease or antiseptics reduces nitric oxide production, potentially affecting blood pressure negatively, while diet or probiotics may enhance this production and oral health.
  • Further research is needed to explore if modifying the oral microbiome can enhance exercise performance through its impact on nitric oxide and related physiological responses.
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Neuroimaging biomarkers that distinguish between changes due to typical brain ageing and Alzheimer's disease are valuable for determining how much each contributes to cognitive decline. Supervised machine learning models can derive multivariate patterns of brain change related to the two processes, including the Spatial Patterns of Atrophy for Recognition of Alzheimer's Disease (SPARE-AD) and of Brain Aging (SPARE-BA) scores investigated herein. However, the substantial overlap between brain regions affected in the two processes confounds measuring them independently.

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The COVID-19 pandemic changed continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) setup pathways. We evaluated patients commenced on CPAP in 2019 (prepandemic) and 2020 (post-first UK wave). Face-to-face (F2F) setup numbers, with CPAP turned on, decreased from 613 patients (98.

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Spent nuclear fuel contains both uranium (U) and high yield fission products, including strontium-90 (Sr), a key radioactive contaminant at nuclear facilities. Both U and Sr will be present where spent nuclear fuel has been processed, including in storage ponds and tanks. However, the interactions between Sr and U phases under ambient conditions are not well understood.

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