The electrochemical potentials of redox-active proteins need to be tuned accurately to the correct values for proper biological function. Here we describe a diheme cytochrome c with high heme redox potentials of about +350 mV, despite having a large overall negative charge which typically reduces redox potentials. High resolution crystal structures, spectroelectrochemical measurements and high-end computational methods show how this is achieved: each heme iron has a calcium cation positioned next to it at a distance of only 6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFreshwater populations of typically marine species present unique opportunities to investigate biodiversity, evolutionary divergence, and the adaptive potential and niche width of species. A few pinniped species have populations that reside solely in freshwater. The harbour seals inhabiting Iliamna Lake, Alaska constitute one such population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Current COVID-19 vaccines primarily target the Spike protein of defined virus variants, offering limited protection against emerging variants in immunocompetent individuals. Similarly, protective immunity following natural SARS-CoV-2 infection is variable and of short duration, raising concerns about immunocompromised individuals' vaccination strategies.
Methods: This prospective multicenter study examined 66 sera from 59 immunocompromised and 451 sera from 215 immunocompetent individuals from different pandemic periods.
Adequate fruit and vegetable (F and V) intake, as recommended by the World Health Organization (over 400 g/day), is linked to reduced chronic disease risk. However, human intervention trials, especially with whole F and V and in complex combinations, are lacking. The MiBlend Study explored the effects of various phytochemical-rich F and V combinations on chronic disease risk markers, phytochemical absorption, and gene expression in blood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrob Agents Chemother
July 2024
Neglected tropical diseases caused by trypanosomatid parasites have devastating health and economic consequences, especially in tropical areas. New drugs or new combination therapies to fight these parasites are urgently needed. Venturicidin A, a macrolide extracted from , inhibits the ATP synthase complex of fungi and bacteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReverse genetic systems enable the engineering of RNA virus genomes and are instrumental in studying RNA virus biology. With the recent outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, already established methods were challenged by the large genome of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Herein we present an elaborated strategy for the rapid and straightforward rescue of recombinant plus-stranded RNA viruses with high sequence fidelity using the example of SARS-CoV-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Endocrinol (Lausanne)
October 2023
Introduction: Phthalates are a class of endocrine-disrupting chemicals that have been shown to negatively correlate with thyroid hormone serum levels in humans and to cause a state of hyperactivity in the thyroid. However, their mechanism of action is not well described at the molecular level.
Methods: We analyzed the response of mouse thyroid organoids to the exposure to a biologically relevant dose range of the phthalates bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), di-iso-decylphthalate (DIDP), di-iso-nonylphthalate (DINP), and di-n-octylphthalate (DnOP) for 24 h and simultaneously analyzed mRNA and miRNA expression via RNA sequencing.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull
January 2025
People erroneously think that things they know little about improve over time. We propose that, due to salient cultural narratives, improvement is a highly accessible expectation that leads people to presume improvement in the absence of diagnostic information. Five studies investigated an improvement default: a general tendency to presume improvement even in self-irrelevant domains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Eales' disease is an idiopathic peripheral retinal vasculopathy characterized by retinal phlebitis, ischemia, retinal neovascularization, and recurrent vitreous hemorrhages. But CRAO is an unusual presentation.
Case Presentation: A 27-year-old healthy female nurse of Indian descent presented with sudden vision loss in her right eye upon awakening.
Reverse genetic systems enable the engineering of RNA virus genomes and are instrumental in studying RNA virus biology. With the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, already established methods were challenged by the large genome of SARS-CoV-2. Herein we present an elaborated strategy for the rapid and straightforward rescue of recombinant plus-stranded RNA viruses with high sequence fidelity, using the example of SARS-CoV-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle
June 2023
Introduction: Cancer cachexia, highly prevalent in lung cancer, is a debilitating syndrome characterized by involuntary loss of skeletal muscle mass and is associated with poor clinical outcome, decreased survival and negative impact on tumour therapy. Various lung tumour-bearing animal models have been used to explore underlying mechanisms of cancer cachexia. However, these models do not simulate anatomical and immunological features key to lung cancer and associated muscle wasting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe analysis of the combined mRNA and miRNA content of a biological sample can be of interest for answering several research questions, like biomarkers discovery, or mRNA-miRNA interactions. However, the process is costly and time-consuming, separate libraries need to be prepared and sequenced on different flowcells. Combo-Seq is a library prep kit that allows us to prepare combined mRNA-miRNA libraries starting from very low total RNA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaintaining data quality on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) has always been a concern for researchers. These concerns have grown recently due to the bot crisis of 2018 and observations that past safeguards of data quality (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that eventually affects memory and behavior. The identification of biomarkers based on risk factors for AD provides insight into the disease since the exact cause of AD remains unknown. Several studies have proposed microRNAs (miRNAs) in blood as potential biomarkers for AD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn everyday language, concepts appear alongside (i.e., collocate with) related concepts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe genus (Lycopodiaceae) includes four to five species across North America and East Asia. Species identification in is difficult due to limited or inconsistent characters. In addition, plants with intermediate morphologies regularly occur, potentially indicative of interspecific hybridization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease affecting over 1% of the population beyond 65 years of age. Although some PD cases are inheritable, the majority of PD cases occur in a sporadic manner. Risk factors comprise next to heredity, age, and gender also exposure to neurotoxins from for instance pesticides and herbicides.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPremise: Chaetopeltidales is a poorly characterized order in the Chlorophyceae, with only two plastid and no mitochondrial genomes published. Here we describe a new taxon in Chaetopeltidales, Gormaniella terricola gen. et sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To develop a drug facts label prototype for a combination mifepristone and misoprostol product and to conduct a label-comprehension study to assess understanding of key label concepts.
Methods: We followed U.S.
Rationale And Objective: APOL1 risk alleles are associated with increased cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease (CKD) risk. It is unknown whether knowledge of APOL1 risk status motivates patients and providers to attain recommended blood pressure (BP) targets to reduce cardiovascular disease.
Study Design: Multicenter, pragmatic, randomized controlled clinical trial.
The diversification of cell adhesion molecules by alternative splicing is proposed to underlie molecular codes for neuronal wiring. Transcriptomic approaches mapped detailed cell-type-specific mRNA splicing programs. However, it has been hard to probe the synapse-specific localization and function of the resulting protein splice isoforms, or "proteoforms," in vivo.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn Germany, colonoscopy was introduced as a screening instrument about 20 years ago. Ten years after an adenoma-negative index endoscopy, a second screening colonoscopy can be performed in younger persons, but this approach is based on limited evidence. We therefore prospectively analyzed the diagnostic yield of second screening colonoscopies in clinical routine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Risk variants in the apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1 [OMIM 603743]) gene on chromosome 22 are common in individuals of West African ancestry and confer increased risk of kidney failure for people with African ancestry and hypertension. Whether disclosing APOL1 genetic testing results to patients of African ancestry and their clinicians affects blood pressure, kidney disease screening, or patient behaviors is unknown.
Objective: To determine the effects of testing and disclosing APOL1 genetic results to patients of African ancestry with hypertension and their clinicians.