The Association between Pregnancy Complications and Long-Term Maternal Cardiometabolic Health in the MIREC Cohort Study.

Context: During pregnancy, women who experience certain pregnancy complications show elevations in biomarkers of inflammation and insulin resistance; however, few studies have examined these cardiometabolic biomarkers in the decade following pregnancy.

Objective: To examine the association between pregnancy complications and cardiometabolic biomarkers 9 years postpartum including: blood pressure, blood lipids, body fat percentage, insulin resistance (glucose, insulin, proinsulin, C-peptide, HOMA-IR, HbA1c, leptin, adiponectin) and inflammation (hs-C-reactive protein).

Methods: Using data from the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) cohort study (2008-2021) we determined 3 groups of pregnancy complications: 1) hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) (n=35); any pregnancy complication in the index pregnancy, defined as preterm birth, HDP, impaired glucose tolerance or gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) (n=55); or self-reported recurrence of one of these pregnancy complications (n=19).

Epidemiology of Coronavirus Disease 2019-Associated Fungal Infections in the Intensive Care Unit: A Single-Center Retrospective Study.

Introduction: Invasive fungal disease (IFD) is a morbid superinfection that can arise in critically ill patients with COVID-19 infection. Studies evaluating the full spectrum of COVID-19-associated fungal infections remain limited.

Methods: Single-center retrospective study assessing IFD in patients with COVID-19, hospitalized for ≥ 72 h in the intensive care unit (ICU) between 02/25/20 and 02/28/22 (n = 1410).

The Shu complex interacts with the replicative helicase to prevent mutations and aberrant recombination.

Homologous recombination (HR) is important for DNA damage tolerance during replication. The yeast Shu complex, a conserved homologous recombination factor, prevents replication-associated mutagenesis. Here we examine how yeast cells require the Shu complex for coping with MMS-induced lesions during DNA replication.

Phylogenetic signal in primate tooth enamel proteins and its relevance for paleoproteomics.

Ancient tooth enamel, and to some extent dentin and bone, contain characteristic peptides that persist for long periods of time. In particular, peptides from the enamel proteome (enamelome) have been used to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships of fossil taxa. However, the enamelome is based on only about 10 genes, whose protein products undergo fragmentation in vivo and post mortem.

A stress-activated mid-insula to BNST pathway regulates susceptibility to abstinence-induced negative affect in female mice.

Stress is central to many neuropsychiatric conditions, including alcohol use disorder (AUD). Stress influences the initiation and continued use of alcohol, the progression to AUD, and relapse. Identifying the neurocircuits activated during stress, and individual variability in these responses is critical for developing new treatment targets for AUD, particularly to mitigate stress-induced relapse.