Naltrexone for alcohol use disorder: Hepatic safety in patients with and without liver disease.

Naltrexone is an approved drug for management of alcohol use disorder (AUD), but data in patients with liver disease (LD) are limited. We aimed to evaluate the safety of naltrexone in those with LD. This is a retrospective cohort of adults with and without LD who were prescribed naltrexone for AUD from 2015 to 2019 in a safety-net setting.

Supporting caregivers during hematopoietic cell transplantation for children with primary immunodeficiency disorders.

Background: Caregivers of children with primary immunodeficiency disorders (PIDs) experience significant psychological distress during their child's hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) process.

Objectives: This study aims to understand caregiver challenges and identify areas for health care system-level improvements to enhance caregiver well-being.

Methods: In this mixed-methods study caregivers of children with PIDs were contacted in August to November 2017 through online and electronic mailing lists of rare disease consortiums and foundations.

Psychosocial services for primary immunodeficiency disorder families during hematopoietic cell transplantation: A descriptive study.

Objective: Caregivers for patients undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) are susceptible to significant psychosocial distress. This cross-sectional study aimed to describe psychosocial support services offered and used by caregivers of pediatric primary immune deficiency (PID) during HCT at 35 hospitals across North America.

Method: Caregivers of pediatric patients with PID were recruited by e-mail to participate in an anonymous 140-question survey instrument between April and May 2016 (N = 171).

Renal Trauma Increases Risk of Future Hypertension.

Objective: To determine if traumatic renal injuries or computed tomography (CT) findings are predictive of hypertension (HTN) development following injury.

Methods: A retrospective review of a renal trauma database was performed from 1995 to 2015. Renal injuries were graded by the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma system, with high-grade defined as IV or V.

A BAG3 chaperone complex maintains cardiomyocyte function during proteotoxic stress.

Molecular chaperones regulate quality control in the human proteome, pathways that have been implicated in many diseases, including heart failure. Mutations in the BAG3 gene, which encodes a co-chaperone protein, have been associated with heart failure due to both inherited and sporadic dilated cardiomyopathy. Familial BAG3 mutations are autosomal dominant and frequently cause truncation of the coding sequence, suggesting a heterozygous loss-of-function mechanism.

Major genitourinary-related bicycle trauma: Results from 20 years at a level-1 trauma center.

Background: Epidemiological studies have shown that bicycle trauma is associated with genitourinary (GU) injuries. Our objective is to characterize GU-related bicycle trauma admitted to a level I trauma center.

Materials And Methods: We queried a prospective trauma registry for bicycle injuries over a 20-year period.

Miniaturized iPS-Cell-Derived Cardiac Muscles for Physiologically Relevant Drug Response Analyses.

Tissue engineering approaches have the potential to increase the physiologic relevance of human iPS-derived cells, such as cardiomyocytes (iPS-CM). However, forming Engineered Heart Muscle (EHM) typically requires >1 million cells per tissue. Existing miniaturization strategies involve complex approaches not amenable to mass production, limiting the ability to use EHM for iPS-based disease modeling and drug screening.

Automated Video-Based Analysis of Contractility and Calcium Flux in Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes Cultured over Different Spatial Scales.

Contractile motion is the simplest metric of cardiomyocyte health in vitro, but unbiased quantification is challenging. We describe a rapid automated method, requiring only standard video microscopy, to analyze the contractility of human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPS-CM). New algorithms for generating and filtering motion vectors combined with a newly developed isogenic iPSC line harboring genetically encoded calcium indicator, GCaMP6f, allow simultaneous user-independent measurement and analysis of the coupling between calcium flux and contractility.

Isolation of single-base genome-edited human iPS cells without antibiotic selection.

Precise editing of human genomes in pluripotent stem cells by homology-driven repair of targeted nuclease-induced cleavage has been hindered by the difficulty of isolating rare clones. We developed an efficient method to capture rare mutational events, enabling isolation of mutant lines with single-base substitutions without antibiotic selection. This method facilitates efficient induction or reversion of mutations associated with human disease in isogenic human induced pluripotent stem cells.

Mechanisms of greater cardiomyocyte functions on conductive nanoengineered composites for cardiovascular application.

Background: Recent advances in nanotechnology (materials with at least one dimension between 1 nm and 100 nm) have led to the use of nanomaterials in numerous medical device applications. Recently, nanomaterials have been used to create innovative biomaterials for cardiovascular applications. Specifically, carbon nanofibers (CNF) embedded in poly(lactic-co-glycolic-acid) (PLGA) have been shown to promote cardiomyocyte growth compared with conventional polymer substrates, but the mechanisms involved in such events remain unknown.