Medical contraindications to estrogen and contraceptive use among women veterans.

Background: Women veterans have high rates of medical comorbidities and may be particularly vulnerable to adverse health outcomes associated with unintended pregnancy.

Objectives: The objective of the study was to estimate the prevalence of medical contraindications to estrogen-containing combined hormonal contraception among women veterans of reproductive age and to evaluate the relationship between contraindications and contraceptive use.

Study Design: This was a secondary analysis of data from a cross-sectional, telephone-based survey with a national sample of 2302 female veterans, aged 18-45 years, who use the Veterans Administration Healthcare System for primary care.

"Without bodily autonomy we are not free": exploring women's concerns about future access to contraception following the 2016 US presidential election.

Objective: Following the 2016US presidential election, social media posts and news stories amplified concerns about the potential for reduced access to contraception under the incoming administration and urged women to seek long-acting reversible contraception. We aimed to describe women's concerns about future access to contraception, in their own words.

Study Design: A social-media-based, anonymous online survey assessing thoughts and concerns about future access to contraception was distributed to reproductive-aged US women for 1 week in mid-January 2017.

Engineering the gut microbiota to treat hyperammonemia.

Increasing evidence indicates that the gut microbiota can be altered to ameliorate or prevent disease states, and engineering the gut microbiota to therapeutically modulate host metabolism is an emerging goal of microbiome research. In the intestine, bacterial urease converts host-derived urea to ammonia and carbon dioxide, contributing to hyperammonemia-associated neurotoxicity and encephalopathy in patients with liver disease. Here, we engineered murine gut microbiota to reduce urease activity.

Fungal Signature in the Gut Microbiota of Pediatric Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) involves dysregulation of mucosal immunity in response to environmental factors such as the gut microbiota. The bacterial microbiota is often altered in IBD, but the connection to disease is not fully clarified and gut fungi have recently been suggested to play a role as well. In this study, we compared microbes from all 3 domains of life-bacteria, archaea, and eukaryota-in pediatric patients with IBD and healthy controls.

Pharmacologically blocking p53-dependent apoptosis protects intestinal stem cells and mice from radiation.

Exposure to high levels of ionizing radiation (IR) leads to debilitating and dose-limiting gastrointestinal (GI) toxicity. Using three-dimensional mouse crypt culture, we demonstrated that p53 target PUMA mediates radiation-induced apoptosis via a cell-intrinsic mechanism, and identified the GSK-3 inhibitor CHIR99021 as a potent radioprotector. CHIR99021 treatment improved Lgr5+ cell survival and crypt regeneration after radiation in culture and mice.

Correlation between intraluminal oxygen gradient and radial partitioning of intestinal microbiota.

Background & Aims: The gut microbiota is a complex and densely populated community in a dynamic environment determined by host physiology. We investigated how intestinal oxygen levels affect the composition of the fecal and mucosally adherent microbiota.

Methods: We used the phosphorescence quenching method and a specially designed intraluminal oxygen probe to dynamically quantify gut luminal oxygen levels in mice.

The Pif1 family in prokaryotes: what are our helicases doing in your bacteria?

Pif1 family helicases, which are found in nearly all eukaryotes, have important roles in both nuclear and mitochondrial genome maintenance. Recently, the increasing availability of genome sequences has revealed that Pif1 helicases are also widely found in diverse prokaryotes, but it is currently unknown what physiological function(s) prokaryotic Pif1 helicases might perform. This Perspective aims to briefly introduce the reader to the well-studied eukaryotic Pif1 family helicases and speculate on what roles such enzymes may play in bacteria.