Positive Autism Screening Rates in Toddlers Born During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Importance: Stress and viral illness during pregnancy are associated with neurodevelopmental conditions in offspring. Autism screening positivity for children born during the pandemic remains unknown.

Objective: To examine associations between prenatal exposure to the pandemic milieu and maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection with rates of positive Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Revised (M-CHAT-R) screenings.

Risk of Hearing Loss in Neonates and Toddlers with in Utero Exposure to SARS-CoV-2.

Objective: Given the prevalence of neonatal hearing loss (HL) associated with intrauterine viral exposures, the goal of this study is to provide information on neonatal HL in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Data were drawn from the COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes (COMBO) Initiative. 1007 participants completed the newborn hearing screen as part of routine clinical care (COMBO-EHR cohort) and 555 completed the National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) at 2 and/or 3 years of age for research purposes (COMBO-RSCH cohort).

Short-term dietary fiber interventions produce consistent gut microbiome responses across studies.

Unlabelled: The composition of the human gut microbiome varies tremendously among individuals, making the effects of dietary or treatment interventions difficult to detect and characterize. The consumption of fiber is important for gut health, yet the specific effects of increased fiber intake on the gut microbiome vary across studies. The variation in study outcomes might be due to inter-individual (or inter-population) variation or to the details of the interventions including the types of fiber, length of study, size of cohort, and molecular approaches.

The Association of Nutrition and Exercise Behaviors of Women with Diabetes in Pregnancy with Infant Breastfeeding Practices.

Although breastfeeding confers significant benefits to infants, women with diabetes in pregnancy experience unique nutrition and health challenges, which may influence infant feeding practice. This study aimed to determine the association between nutrition and exercise behaviors of women with diabetes in pregnancy and breastfeeding at birth and 6 months. A secondary data analysis of a longitudinal study on maternal pregestational diabetes mellitus (DM) and gestational diabetes (GDM) and infant development was conducted.

Short-term dietary fiber interventions produce consistent gut microbiome responses across studies.

Background: The composition of the human gut microbiome varies tremendously among individuals, making the effects of dietary or treatment interventions difficult to detect and characterize. The consumption of fiber is important for gut health, yet the specific effects of increased fiber intake on the gut microbiome vary across studies. The variation in study outcomes might be due to inter-individual (or inter-population) variation or to the details of the interventions including the types of fiber, length of study, size of cohort, and molecular approaches.

Curated and harmonized gut microbiome 16S rRNA amplicon data from dietary fiber intervention studies in humans.

Next generation amplicon sequencing has created a plethora of data from human microbiomes. The accessibility to this scientific data and its corresponding metadata is important for its reuse, to allow for new discoveries, verification of published results, and serving as path for reproducibility. Dietary fiber consumption has been associated with a variety of health benefits that are thought to be mediated by gut microbiota.

Variation in traits across habitats and phylogenetic clades.

Whether microbes show habitat preferences is a fundamental question in microbial ecology. If different microbial lineages have distinct traits, those lineages may occur more frequently in habitats where their traits are advantageous. is an ideal bacterial clade in which to investigate how habitat preference relates to traits because these bacteria inhabit diverse environments and hosts.

Assessment of Neurodevelopment in Infants With and Without Exposure to Asymptomatic or Mild Maternal SARS-CoV-2 Infection During Pregnancy.

Importance: Associations between prenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure and neurodevelopmental outcomes have substantial public health relevance. A previous study found no association between prenatal SARS-CoV-2 infection and parent-reported infant neurodevelopmental outcomes, but standardized observational assessments are needed to confirm this finding.

Objective: To assess whether mild or asymptomatic maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection vs no infection during pregnancy is associated with infant neurodevelopmental differences at ages 5 to 11 months.

Drug-Drug Interactions in the Management of Patients With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

The management of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) has become more complex in recent years because of increased pharmacotherapy options and longer patient survival with increasing numbers of comorbidities. As such, more opportunities exist for drug-drug interactions between PAH-targeted medications and medications potentially used to treat comorbid conditions. In this review, we provide an overview of pharmaceutical metabolism by cytochrome P450 and discuss important drug-drug interactions for the 14 Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for PAH in the nitric oxide (NO), endothelin, and prostacyclin pathways.

Capturing Actively Produced Microbial Volatile Organic Compounds from Human-Associated Samples with Vacuum-Assisted Sorbent Extraction.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from biological samples have unknown origins. VOCs may originate from the host or different organisms from within the host's microbial community. To disentangle the origin of microbial VOCs, volatile headspace analysis of bacterial mono- and co-cultures of Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Acinetobacter baumannii, and stable isotope probing in biological samples of feces, saliva, sewage, and sputum were performed.

Rhamnose Is Superior to Mannitol as a Monosaccharide in the Dual Sugar Absorption Test: A Prospective Randomized Study in Children With Treatment-Naïve Celiac Disease.

Background And Aim: We sought to correlate two different measures of gut permeability [lactulose:mannitol (L:M) and lactulose:rhamnose (L:R)] to the severity of duodenal histopathology in children with and without elevated antibodies to tissue transglutaminase (tTG). A secondary objective was to correlate gut permeability with celiac disease (CD) serology and indices of inflammation and bacterial product translocation.

Methods: We prospectively randomized children undergoing endoscopy with abnormal ( = 54) and normal ( = 10) concentrations of circulating antibodies to tTG, to either L:M or L:R.

Longitudinal gut virome analysis identifies specific viral signatures that precede necrotizing enterocolitis onset in preterm infants.

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a serious consequence of preterm birth and is often associated with gut bacterial microbiome alterations. However, little is known about the development of the gut virome in preterm infants, or its role in NEC. Here, using metagenomic sequencing, we characterized the DNA gut virome of 9 preterm infants who developed NEC and 14 gestational age-matched preterm infants who did not.

Pandemic beyond the virus: maternal COVID-related postnatal stress is associated with infant temperament.

Background: Studies have shown that infant temperament varies with maternal psychosocial factors, in utero illness, and environmental stressors. We predicted that the pandemic would shape infant temperament through maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy and/or maternal postnatal stress. To test this, we examined associations among infant temperament, maternal prenatal SARS-CoV-2 infection, maternal postnatal stress, and postnatal COVID-related life disruptions.

Postpartum sleep health in a multiethnic cohort of women during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.

Objective/design: Cross-sectional study to examine the determinants of sleep health among postpartum women during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City (NYC).

Setting/participants: A subset of participants recruited as part of the COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes (COMBO) cohort at Columbia University (N = 62 non-Hispanic White, N = 17 African American, N = 107 Hispanic).

Measurements: Data on maternal sleep, COVID-19 infection during pregnancy, sociodemographic, behavioral, and psychological factors were collected via questionnaire at 4 months postpartum.

Association of Birth During the COVID-19 Pandemic With Neurodevelopmental Status at 6 Months in Infants With and Without In Utero Exposure to Maternal SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Importance: Associations between in utero exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection and neurodevelopment are speculated, but currently unknown.

Objective: To examine the associations between maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy, being born during the COVID-19 pandemic regardless of maternal SARS-CoV-2 status, and neurodevelopment at age 6 months.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A cohort of infants exposed to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy and unexposed controls was enrolled in the COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes Initiative at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City.

Joint intergroup aggression in female colobus monkeys (Colobus vellerosus) is associated with grooming bonds, male participation, and group size.

Cooperative home range defense is common in primates, despite a collective action problem that arises when group members benefit from winning the intergroup encounter regardless of whether they participate. The costs associated with this collective action problem may be mitigated by residing in small groups, residing with kin, or by forming strong bonds with group members. The potential to decouple the effects of these variables provided an opportunity to investigate which of these three variables best explains coparticipation in intergroup encounters among adult and subadult female colobus at Boabeng-Fiema, Ghana.

Delayed maturation of P2 flash visual evoked potential (VEP) latency in newborns of gestational diabetic mothers.

Background: The prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has rapidly increased, yet few prior studies have investigated parameters of early brain development in infants born to gestational diabetic mothers. The present study assessed visual evoked potentials (VEPs) in healthy infants born to gestational diabetic mothers and matched controls.

Methods: After exclusions, in this prospective study we examined VEPs in 73 neonates between 37 weeks and 41 weeks gestation at birth (n = 37 infants of gestational diabetic mothers).

Viral prevalence by gestational age and season in a large neonatal cord blood cohort.

Objective: To investigate viral prevalence in a large neonatal cohort and determine the impact on pregnancy and birth outcomes.

Study Design: We prospectively collected 1044 neonatal samples from remnant neonatal cord blood RPR samples. We performed qRT-PCR/qPCR reactions for: adenovirus, anellovirus (alphatorquevirus and betatorquevirus), cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), enterovirus, human herpesvirus 6 (HHV6), parechovirus, and parvovirus B19.

VISTA facilitates phagocytic clearance of HIV infected CEM-SS T cells.

Phagocytosis is a critical component of the innate immune response to viral infection, resulting in the clearance of infected cells while minimizing the exposure of uninfected cells. On the other hand, phagocytosis of HIV-infected T cells may cause phagocytes, such as macrophages and dendritic cells, to be infected, thus leading to HIV cell-to-cell transmission. V domain immunoglobulin suppressor of T cell activation (VISTA, gene Vsir, aliases Gi24, Dies-1, PD-1H, and DD1α) has been identified as an immune checkpoint molecule that possesses dual activities when expressed on APCs and T cells.

Serosurvey for dengue virus infection among pregnant women in the West Nile virus enzootic community of El Paso Texas.

All 4 dengue viruses (DENV) cause sporadic outbreaks of human disease in the Rio Grande Valley along the US-Mexico border. In addition, West Nile virus (WNV) is enzootic in most border communities, and is the only arbovirus known to cause human disease in the El Paso, Texas community. In an effort to determine if DENV were also endemic in the El Paso community, a serosurvey was conducted among mothers at the time of delivery of their babies in selected hospitals.

Growth velocity in children with Environmental Enteric Dysfunction is associated with specific bacterial and viral taxa of the gastrointestinal tract in Malawian children.

Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is characterized by diffuse villous atrophy of the small bowel. EED is strongly associated with stunting, a major public health problem linked to increased childhood morbidity and mortality. EED and subsequent stunting of linear growth are surmised to have microbial origins.

Alphatorquevirus is the most prevalent virus identified in blood from a matched maternal-infant preterm cohort.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of virus in a previously uncharacterized matched maternal-infant preterm cohort and test if viral presence or viral load correlate with histologic chorioamnionitis, spontaneous preterm labor or pre-eclampsia.

Study Design: Using qRT-PCR/qPCR we tested plasma or whole blood samples from 56 matched maternal and premature infant dyads for: adenovirus, anellovirus (alphatorquevirus and betatorquevirus), cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), enterovirus, human herpesvirus 6 (HHV6), parechovirus, and parvovirus B19.

Result: Viral detection was more common in maternal samples 29/56 (52%) than in cord blood from their infants (4/56 (7%)) ( ≤ .