Long-Term Follow Up in Anti-Contactin-1 Autoimmune Nodopathy.

Objective: To analyze long-term clinical and biomarker features of anti-contactin-1 (CNTN1) autoimmune nodopathy (AN).

Methods: Patients with anti-CNTN1 autoimmune nodopathy detected in our laboratory from which clinical information was available were included. Clinical features and treatment response were retrospectively collected.

Endothelial Cell Senescence Effect on the Blood-Brain Barrier in Stroke and Cognitive Impairment.

Age is an important risk factor of stroke, cognitive decline, and dementia. Senescent endothelial cells (ECs) accumulate with advancing age through exposure to cellular stress, such as that exerted by hypertension and diabetes. These senescent ECs have altered characteristics, such as altered tight junction proteins, use of a more indiscriminate transcellular transport system, increased inflammation, and increased immune cell interactions.

Removal of sequencing adapter contamination improves microbial genome databases.

Advances in assembling microbial genomes have led to growth of reference genome databases, which have been transformative for applied and basic microbiome research. Here we show that published microbial genome databases from humans, mice, cows, pigs, fish, honeybees, and marine environments contain significant sequencing-adapter contamination that systematically reduces assembly accuracy and contiguousness. By removing the adapter-contaminated ends of contiguous sequences and reassembling MGnify reference genomes, we improve the quality of assemblies in these databases.