Cluster-specific associations between the gut microbiota and behavioral outcomes in preschool-aged children.

Background: The gut microbiota is recognized as a regulator of brain development and behavioral outcomes during childhood. Nonetheless, associations between the gut microbiota and behavior are often inconsistent among studies in humans, perhaps because many host-microbe relationships vary widely between individuals. This study aims to stratify children based on their gut microbiota composition (i.

Divergent maturational patterns of the infant bacterial and fungal gut microbiome in the first year of life are associated with inter-kingdom community dynamics and infant nutrition.

Background: The gut microbiome undergoes primary ecological succession over the course of early life before achieving ecosystem stability around 3 years of age. These maturational patterns have been well-characterized for bacteria, but limited descriptions exist for other microbiota members, such as fungi. Further, our current understanding of the prevalence of different patterns of bacterial and fungal microbiome maturation and how inter-kingdom dynamics influence early-life microbiome establishment is limited.

Probiotics to improve the gut microbiome in premature infants: are we there yet?

Gut microbiome maturation in infants born prematurely is uniquely influenced by the physiological, clinical, and environmental factors surrounding preterm birth and early life, leading to altered patterns of microbial succession relative to term infants during the first months of life. These differences in microbiome composition are implicated in acute clinical conditions that disproportionately affect preterm infants, including necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and late-onset sepsis (LOS). Probiotic supplementation initiated early in life is an effective prophylactic measure for preventing NEC, LOS, and other clinical concerns relevant to preterm infants.

Maturational patterns of the infant gut mycobiome are associated with early-life body mass index.

Unlike the bacterial microbiome, the role of early-life gut fungi in host metabolism and childhood obesity development remains poorly characterized. To address this, we investigate the relationship between the gut mycobiome of 100 infants from the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Cohort Study and body mass index Z scores (BMIz) in the first 5 years of life. An increase in fungal richness during the first year of life is linked to parental and infant BMI.

Evolutionary Significance of the Neuroendocrine Stress Axis on Vertebrate Immunity and the Influence of the Microbiome on Early-Life Stress Regulation and Health Outcomes.

Stress is broadly defined as the non-specific biological response to changes in homeostatic demands and is mediated by the evolutionarily conserved neuroendocrine networks of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic nervous system. Activation of these networks results in transient release of glucocorticoids (cortisol) and catecholamines (epinephrine) into circulation, as well as activation of sympathetic fibers innervating end organs. These interventions thus regulate numerous physiological processes, including energy metabolism, cardiovascular physiology, and immunity, thereby adapting to cope with the perceived stressors.

Gender-Based Differences in Urology Residency Applicant Personal Statements.

Objective: To gain insight into the perceptions of urology held by medical students as they enter the field, we analyzed the linguistic characteristics and gender differences in personal statements written by urology residency program applicants.

Methods: Personal statements were abstracted from residency applications to a urology residency program. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, a validated text analysis software, characterized the linguistic content of the statements.

The Effects of Delayed Cord Clamping on 12-Month Brain Myelin Content and Neurodevelopment: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objective: This study aimed to determine if delayed cord clamping (DCC) affected brain myelin water volume fraction (VFm) and neurodevelopment in term infants.

Study Design: This was a single-blinded randomized controlled trial of healthy pregnant women with term singleton fetuses randomized at birth to either immediate cord clamping (ICC) (≤ 20 seconds) or DCC (≥ 5 minutes). Follow-up at 12 months of age consisted of blood work for serum iron indices and lead levels, a nonsedated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), followed within the week by neurodevelopmental testing.

Specificity, redundancy and dosage thresholds among genes during zebrafish cardiogenesis.

The Gata4/5/6 sub-family of zinc finger transcription factors regulate many aspects of cardiogenesis. However, critical roles in extra-embryonic endoderm also challenge comprehensive analysis during early mouse cardiogenesis, while zebrafish models have previously relied on knockdown assays. We generated targeted deletions to disrupt each gene in zebrafish and analyzed cardiac phenotypes in single, double and triple mutants.

Cardiovascular Small Heat Shock Protein HSPB7 Is a Kinetically Privileged Reactive Electrophilic Species (RES) Sensor.

Small heat shock protein (sHSP)-B7 (HSPB7) is a muscle-specific member of the non-ATP-dependent sHSPs. The precise role of HSPB7 is enigmatic. Here, we disclose that zebrafish Hspb7 is a kinetically privileged sensor that is able to react rapidly with native reactive electrophilic species (RES), when only substoichiometric amounts of RES are available in proximity to Hspb7 expressed in living cells.

Hspb7 is a cardioprotective chaperone facilitating sarcomeric proteostasis.

Small heat shock proteins are chaperones with variable mechanisms of action. The function of cardiac family member Hspb7 is unknown, despite being identified through GWAS as a potential cardiomyopathy risk gene. We discovered that zebrafish hspb7 mutants display mild focal cardiac fibrosis and sarcomeric abnormalities.

ANSID: A Solid-Phase Proteomic Approach for Identification and Relative Quantification of Aromatic Nitration Sites.

Nitration of tyrosine and other aromatic amino acid residues in proteins occurs in the setting of inflammatory, neurodegenerative, and cardiovascular diseases-importantly, this modification has been implicated in the pathogenesis of diverse diseases and the physiological process of aging. To understand the biological consequences of aromatic nitration in both health and disease, it is critical to molecularly identify the proteins that undergo nitration, specify their cognate modification sites and quantify their extent of nitration. To date, unbiased identification of nitrated proteins has often involved painstaking 2D-gel electrophoresis followed by Western Blotting with an anti-nitrotyrosine antibody for detection.

Small heat shock proteins Hspb7 and Hspb12 regulate early steps of cardiac morphogenesis.

Cardiac morphogenesis is a complex multi-stage process, and the molecular basis for controlling distinct steps remains poorly understood. Because gata4 encodes a key transcriptional regulator of morphogenesis, we profiled transcript changes in cardiomyocytes when Gata4 protein is depleted from developing zebrafish embryos. We discovered that gata4 regulates expression of two small heat shock genes, hspb7 and hspb12, both of which are expressed in the embryonic heart.