SARS-CoV-2 variants are mainly defined by mutations in their spike. It is therefore critical to understand how the evolutionary trajectories of spike affect virus phenotypes. So far, it has been challenging to comprehensively compare the many spikes that emerged during the pandemic in a single experimental platform.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlioma-associated oncogene (-altered mesenchymal tumors are a newly described entity of neoplasms with very few case reports published in the literature. -altered neoplasms have a moderate degree of variability as they are seen in a broad range of anatomic sites and amongst people of all ages. A common feature that most -altered tumors share is the histologic makeup of monomorphic ovoid cells organized in distinct nests and an arborizing vascular blood supply.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEating disorders (EDs) commonly co-occur with other psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, the pattern of family history and genetic overlap among them requires clarification. This study investigated the diagnostic, familial, and genetic associations of EDs with ADHD and ASD. The nationwide population-based cohort study included all individuals born in Denmark, 1981-2008, linked to their siblings and cousins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Iron deficiency is a common disorder, especially in developing countries. Accurately assessing iron status remains challenging, particularly for patients with chronic diseases such as HIV and chronic kidney disease, prevalent in South Africa.
Objective: This study aimed to determine how ferritin cut-offs affect iron status classification in adult patients treated at a tertiary hospital in South Africa.
Two different hard-radiation phenomena are known to originate from thunderclouds: terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) and gamma-ray glows. Both involve an avalanche of electrons accelerated to relativistic energies but are otherwise different. Glows are known to last for one to hundreds of seconds, have moderate intensities and originate from quasi-stationary thundercloud fields.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThunderstorms emit fluxes of gamma rays known as gamma-ray glows, sporadically observed by aircraft, balloons and from the ground. Observations report increased gamma-ray emissions by tens of percent up to two orders of magnitude above the background, sometimes abruptly terminated by lightning discharges. Glows are produced by the acceleration of energetic electrons in high-electric-field regions within thunderclouds and contribute to charge dissipation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSynovial sarcoma is a malignant soft tissue tumor of uncertain differentiation. It is typically seen in the deep soft tissue of the extremities; however, it has been reported to occur anywhere in the body. Synovial sarcoma by histomorphology has multiple subtypes, including monophasic spindle cell, biphasic and poorly differentiated subtypes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUpdates of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are required to generate immunity in the population against constantly evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants of concerns (VOCs). Here we describe three novel in-silico designed spike-based antigens capable of inducing neutralising antibodies across a spectrum of SARS-CoV-2 VOCs. Three sets of antigens utilising pre-Delta (T2_32), and post-Gamma sequence data (T2_35 and T2_36) were designed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFViral glycoproteins drive membrane fusion in enveloped viruses and determine host range, tissue tropism and pathogenesis. Despite their importance, there is a fragmentary understanding of glycoproteins within the Flaviviridae, a large virus family that include pathogens such as hepatitis C, dengue and Zika viruses, and numerous other human, animal and emergent viruses. For many flaviviruses the glycoproteins have not yet been identified, for others, such as the hepaciviruses, the molecular mechanisms of membrane fusion remain uncharacterized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPostharvest chilling injury (PCI) is a physiological disorder that often impairs tomato fruit ripening; this reduces fruit quality and shelf-life, and even accelerates spoilage at low temperatures. The gene family confers cold tolerance in , and constitutive overexpression of in tomato increases vegetative chilling tolerance, in part by retarding growth, but, whether CBF increases PCI tolerance in fruit is unknown. We hypothesized that overexpression (OE) would be induced in the cold and increase resistance to PCI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
July 2024
It is commonly held that there is a fundamental relationship between genome size and error rate, manifest as a notional "error threshold" that sets an upper limit on genome sizes. The genome sizes of RNA viruses, which have intrinsically high mutation rates due to a lack of mechanisms for error correction, must therefore be small to avoid accumulating an excessive number of deleterious mutations that will ultimately lead to population extinction. The proposed exceptions to this evolutionary rule are RNA viruses from the order (such as coronaviruses) that encode error-correcting exonucleases, enabling them to reach genome lengths greater than 40 kb.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe gold rush at the end of the nineteenth century in south-eastern Australia resulted in the mobilization and re-deposition of vast quantities of tailings that modified the geomorphology of the associated river valleys. Previous studies of contamination risk in these systems have either been performed directly on mine wastes (e.g.
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