Southern hemisphere humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae, SHHW) breeding populations follow a high-fidelity Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) diet while feeding in distinct sectors of the Southern Ocean. Their capital breeding life history requires predictable ecosystem productivity to fuel migration and migration-related behaviours. It is therefore postulated that populations feeding in areas subject to the strongest climate change impacts are more likely to show the first signs of a departure from a high-fidelity krill diet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe past six years have been marked by some of the most dramatic climatic events observed in the Antarctic region in recent history, commencing with the 2017 sea-ice extreme low. The Humpback Whale Sentinel Programme is a circum-polar biomonitoring program for long term surveillance of the Antarctic sea-ice ecosystem. It has previously signalled the extreme La Niña event of 2010/11, and it was therefore of interest to assess the capacity of existing biomonitoring measures under the program to detect the impacts of 2017 anomalous climatic events.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomed Opt Express
December 2022
The generation, manipulation and quantification of non-classical light, such as quantum-entangled photon pairs, differs significantly from methods with classical light. Thus, quantum measures could be harnessed to give new information about the interaction of light with matter. In this study we investigate if quantum entanglement can be used to diagnose disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Microtubules are abundant in brain and their malfunctioning occurs in the early-to-advanced stages of neurodegenerative disorders. At present, there is no in vivo test available for a definitive diagnosis of most of the neurodegenerative disorders. Herein, we present the microPET imaging of microtubules using our recently reported Positron Emission Tomography (PET) tracer, [C]MPC-6827, in transgenic mice models of tau pathology (rTg4510) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis pathology (SOD1*G93A) and compared to corresponding age-matched controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Excessive alcohol consumption is a global health burden and requires a better understanding of its neurobiology. A lower density of brain microtubules is found in alcohol-related human brain disease postmortem and in rodent models of chronic alcohol consumption. Here, we report in vivo imaging studies of microtubules in brain using our recently reported Positron Emission Tomography (PET) tracer, [C]MPC-6827, in chronic alcohol-consuming adult male C57BL/6 J mice and control mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPseudoaneurysm of the ascending aorta is a rare complication of cardiac surgery due to tissue degeneration at the site of graft anastomosis, aortotomy, or extracorporeal circulation cannulation. We describe the case of a patient who developed an ascending aorta pseudoaneurysm after coronary artery bypass graft surgery, which initially required percutaneous closure with an atrial septal defect occlusion device. However, three years later the patient presented again with active external bleeding secondary to pseudoaneurysm enlargement and rupture, which was emergently repaired by percutaneous endovascular repair with a thoracic aortic stent graft.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Osteoporosis is considered a generalised skeletal disorder in which there is impaired bone resistance, which predisposes the individual to a greater risk of fracture. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to collect and present data on the main clinical characteristics of patients who consult medical internists in Spain. Understanding these characteristics can help in implementing action plans to improve these patients' care more effectively and efficiently.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary adult brain malignancy with an extremely poor prognosis and a median survival of fewer than two years. A key reason for this high mortality is that the blood-brain barrier (BBB) significantly restricts systemically delivered therapeutics to brain tumors. High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) with microbubbles is a methodology being used in clinical trials to noninvasively permeabilize the BBB for systemic therapeutic delivery to GBM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite objective responses to PARP inhibition and improvements in progression-free survival compared to standard chemotherapy in patients with BRCA-associated triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), benefits are transitory. Using high dimensional single-cell profiling of human TNBC, here we demonstrate that macrophages are the predominant infiltrating immune cell type in BRCA-associated TNBC. Through multi-omics profiling we show that PARP inhibitors enhance both anti- and pro-tumor features of macrophages through glucose and lipid metabolic reprogramming driven by the sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (SREBP-1) pathway.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTechnological and computational advances in genomics and interactomics have made it possible to identify how disease mutations perturb protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks within human cells. Here, we show that disease-associated germline variants are significantly enriched in sequences encoding PPI interfaces compared to variants identified in healthy participants from the projects 1000 Genomes and ExAC. Somatic missense mutations are also significantly enriched in PPI interfaces compared to noninterfaces in 10,861 tumor exomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current systematic review aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of dabrafenib plus trametinib (dabrafenib-trametinib) with those of other therapeutic alternatives in the treatment of patients with BRAF V600 mutation unresectable or metastatic melanoma. The search was carried out on four databases up to July-2018. Two separate network meta-analyses (NMA) were performed using the frequentist method (random effects): one with an exclusive population with BRAF V600 mutation (NMA-pBRAFV600) and another with a mixed population (with or without the mutation: NMA-pMixed).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Osteoporosis is considered a generalised skeletal disorder in which there is impaired bone resistance, which predisposes the individual to a greater risk of fracture. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to collect and present data on the main clinical characteristics of patients who consult medical internists in Spain. Understanding these characteristics can help in implementing action plans to improve these patients' care more effectively and efficiently.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImmune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has become a standard of care in a subset of solid tumors. Although cancer survivorship has extended, rates of durable response of ICB remain poor; furthermore, cardiac adverse effects are emerging, which impact several mechanical aspects of the heart. Cardio-oncology programs implement a clinical assessment to curtail cardiovascular disease progression but are limited to the current clinical parameters used in cardiology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability to accurately gauge the body condition of free-swimming cetaceans is invaluable in population and conservation biology, due to the direct implications that this measure has on individual fitness, survival, and reproductive success. Furthermore, monitoring temporal change in body condition offers insight into foraging success over time, and therefore the health of the supporting ecosystem, as well as a species' resilience. These parameters are particularly relevant in the context of widespread and accelerated, climate-induced habitat change.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn individual's inherited genetic makeup and acquired genomic variants may account for a significant portion of observable variability in therapy efficacy and toxicity. Pharmacogenomics (PGx) is the concept that treatments can be modified to account for these differences to increase chances of therapeutic efficacy while minimizing risk of adverse effects. This is particularly applicable to oncology in which treatment may be multimodal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn animal's body condition provides valuable information for ecophysiological studies, and is an important measure of fitness in population monitoring and conservation. While both the external body shape of an animal and its internal tissues (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOptimal timing for resection of asymptomatic congenital lung malformations (CLMs) remains controversial. The aim of this study is to define optimal timing for surgical intervention of patients with CLMs and define clinical variables that affect surgical outcomes. An IRB-approved retrospective analysis was conducted for patients undergoing surgery for CLMs between 2012 and 2017.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe have developed a novel fluorine-18 radiotracer, dipeptide , radiolabeled in two steps from mesylate . The initial radiolabeling is achieved in a short reaction time (10 min) and purified through solid-phase extraction (SPE) with modest radiochemical yields (rcy = 10 ± 2%, = 5) in excellent radiochemical purity (rcp > 99%, = 5). The de-protection of the -butyloxycarbonyl (Boc) and trityl group was achieved with mild heating under acidic conditions to provide F-tagged dipeptide .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInflammatory changes caused by viruses, bacteria, exposure to toxins, commonly used drugs and even surgical intervention have the potential of causing abnormal epithelial permeability, which is manifest as infiltrative processes on computed tomography (CT), including the widespread infiltrates seen in COVID-19 pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We utilized a previously published mouse model of ARDS, intranasal delivery of LPS, to induce the alveolar-capillary barrier permeability seen in lung disease. We intravenously injected mice with Cy7 or 68-Gallium (Ga) labeled mouse albumin and imaged using optical imaging (OI)/CT and PET.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMissense variant interpretation is challenging. Essential regions for protein function are conserved among gene-family members, and genetic variants within these regions are potentially more likely to confer risk to disease. Here, we generated 2871 gene-family protein sequence alignments involving 9990 genes and performed missense variant burden analyses to identify novel essential protein regions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current systematic review aimed to evaluate and compare the efficacy and safety of dabrafenib-trametinib with those of other therapeutic alternatives in the treatment of patients with unresectable advanced/metastatic melanoma with BRAF-V600 mutation. The search was carried out on four databases up to July 2018. Two separate network meta-analyses (NMA) were performed using the frequentist method (random effects): one with an exclusive population with BRAF-V600 mutation (NMA-pBRAFV600) and another with mixed population (with or without the mutation: NMA-pMixed).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSouthern hemisphere humpback whales have evolved energetically demanding capital breeding and migratory life-history behaviours. It has been hypothesised that not all individuals of a population participate in the seasonal migration each year, or only undertake partial migrations. Given the cost of migration and reproduction, we explored the possibility that specifically, not all mature females participate in the seasonal migration every year, or significantly delay or shorten their migration, in response to poor feeding conditions.
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