Emergency Response to Australia's Black Summer 2019-2020: The Role of a Zoo-Based Conservation Organisation in Wildlife Triage, Rescue, and Resilience for the Future.

Modern zoos are increasingly taking a leading role in emergency management and wildlife recovery. In the face of climate change and the predicted increase in frequency and magnitude of catastrophic events, zoos provide specialised expertise to assist wildlife welfare and endangered species recovery. In the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season, now called Australia's Black Summer, a state government-directed response was developed, assembling specialised individuals and organisations from government, non-government organisations, research institutions, and others.

Differential expression of toll-like receptor genes: sepsis compared with sterile inflammation 1 day before sepsis diagnosis.

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are critical components of innate immunity. This study was designed to evaluate differential expression of genes for TLR and associated signal transduction molecules in critically ill patients developing sepsis compared with those with sterile inflammation. Uninfected critically ill patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome were prospectively followed daily for development of sepsis.

Coagulation and complement protein differences between septic and uninfected systemic inflammatory response syndrome patients.

Background: Systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) represents a host response to various insults. Recent advances have demonstrated an interconnection between inflammation, complement, and coagulation. This experiment was designed to evaluate differences in plasma protein profiles between clinically identical patients: septic versus uninfected SIRS patients, prior to clinical diagnosis of infection.

Credentialing preclinical pediatric xenograft models using gene expression and tissue microarray analysis.

Human tumor xenografts have been used extensively for rapid screening of the efficacy of anticancer drugs for the past 35 years. The selection of appropriate xenograft models for drug testing has been largely empirical and has not incorporated a similarity to the tumor type of origin at the molecular level. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the transcriptome of a large set of pediatric xenografts, which are currently used for preclinical drug testing.

BBC3 mediates fenretinide-induced cell death in neuroblastoma.

Fenretinide (4-HPR) is a synthetic retinoid whose apoptosis-inducing effects have been demonstrated in many tumor types. The precise mechanism of its apoptotic action is not fully understood. To further study the mechanism by which 4-HPR exerts its biological effects in neuroblastoma (NB) and to identify the genes that contribute to the induction of apoptosis, we determined the sensitivity of eight NB cell lines to 4-HPR.

Database of mRNA gene expression profiles of multiple human organs.

Genome-wide expression profiling of normal tissue may facilitate our understanding of the etiology of diseased organs and augment the development of new targeted therapeutics. Here, we have developed a high-density gene expression database of 18,927 unique genes for 158 normal human samples from 19 different organs of 30 different individuals using DNA microarrays. We report four main findings.

Altered expression of cell cycle genes distinguishes aggressive neuroblastoma.

In this study, gene expression profiling was performed on 103 neuroblastoma (NB) tumors, stages 1-4 with and without MYCN amplification, using cDNA microarrays containing 42,578 elements. Using principal component analysis (PCA) to analyse the relationships among these samples, we confirm that the global patterns of gene expression reflect the phenotype of the tumors. To explore the biological processes that may contribute to increasing aggressive phenotype of the tumors, we utilized a statistical approach based on PCA.

Detection of low level genomic alterations by comparative genomic hybridization based on cDNA micro-arrays.

Motivation: The accumulation of genomic alterations is an important process in tumor formation and progression. Comparative genomic hybridization performed on cDNA arrays (cDNA aCGH) is a common method to investigate the genomic alterations on a genome-wide scale. However, when detecting low-level DNA copy number changes this technology requires the use of noise reduction strategies due to a low signal to noise ratio.

Prediction of clinical outcome using gene expression profiling and artificial neural networks for patients with neuroblastoma.

Currently, patients with neuroblastoma are classified into risk groups (e.g., according to the Children's Oncology Group risk-stratification) to guide physicians in the choice of the most appropriate therapy.

cDNA array-CGH profiling identifies genomic alterations specific to stage and MYCN-amplification in neuroblastoma.

Background: Recurrent non-random genomic alterations are the hallmarks of cancer and the characterization of these imbalances is critical to our understanding of tumorigenesis and cancer progression.

Results: We performed array-comparative genomic hybridization (A-CGH) on cDNA microarrays containing 42,000 elements in neuroblastoma (NB). We found that only two chromosomes (2p and 12q) had gene amplifications and all were in the MYCN amplified samples.

Prognostic classification of relapsing favorable histology Wilms tumor using cDNA microarray expression profiling and support vector machines.

Treatment of Wilms tumor has a high success rate, with some 85% of patients achieving long-term survival. However, late effects of treatment and management of relapse remain significant clinical problems. If accurate prognostic methods were available, effective risk-adapted therapies could be tailored to individual patients at diagnosis.

Phosphorylation of p53 at serine 37 is important for transcriptional activity and regulation in response to DNA damage.

The p53 tumor suppressor protein plays a critical role in mediating cellular response to stress. Upon DNA damage, post-translational modifications stabilize and activate this nuclear phosphoprotein. To determine the effect of phosphorylation site mutants in the context of the whole p53 protein, we performed reporter assays in p53 and MDM2 knockout mouse embryonic fibroblasts transfected with full-length p53 constructs.

Crp79p, like Mex67p, is an auxiliary mRNA export factor in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

The export of mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm involves interactions of proteins with mRNA and the nuclear pore complex. We isolated Crp79p, a novel mRNA export factor from the same synthetic lethal screen that led to the identification of spMex67p in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Crp79p is a 710-amino-acid-long protein that contains three RNA recognition motif domains in tandem and a distinct C-terminus.

Transcription profile of cells infected with human T-cell leukemia virus type I compared with activated lymphocytes.

Human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I) is the etiologic agent for adult T-cell leukemia and the neurological disorder tropical spastic paraparesis/HTLV-I-associated myelopathy. CD4+ T lymphocytes, the primary hosts for HTLV-I, undergo a series of changes that lead to T-cell activation, immortalization, and transformation. To gain insight into the genetic differences between activated and HTLV-I-infected lymphocytes, we performed Affymetrix GeneChip analysis of activated and HTLV-I-infected cells.