A Multifunctional, Low Cost and Sustainable Neonatal Database System.

Continuous improvement in the clinical performance of neonatal intensive care units (NICU) depends on the use of locally relevant, reliable data. However, neonatal databases with these characteristics are typically unavailable in NICUs using paper-based records, while in those using electronic records, the inaccuracy of data and the inability to customize commercial data systems limit their usability for quality improvement or research purposes. We describe the characteristics and uses of a simple, neonatologist-centered data system that has been successfully maintained for 30 years, with minimal resources and serving multiple purposes, including quality improvement, administrative, research support and educational functions.

Retinal Detachment after Treatment of Retinopathy of Prematurity with Laser versus Intravitreal Anti-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor.

Purpose: To compare rates of short-term retinal detachment (RD) of infants treated for type 1 retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) with intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy with infants treated with laser therapy. The choice between these 2 treatments remains controversial. Comparative data are limited and describe re-treatment rates rather than retinal structural outcomes predictive of long-term vision.

Elucidating the framework for specification and determination of the embryonic retina.

How cell determination is regulated remains a major unsolved problem in developmental biology. The early embryonic rudiments of many tissues and organs are difficult or impossible to identify, isolate and study at the time when determination occurs. We have examined the commitment process leading to retina formation in Xenopus laevis, where presumptive eye tissue can be identified and studied to assay its biological properties during the events leading up to determination.

Short-term retinal detachment risk after treatment of type 1 retinopathy of prematurity with laser photocoagulation versus intravitreal bevacizumab.

Purpose: To perform a stratified comparison of the short-term risk of retinal detachment after treatment of type 1 retinopathy of prematurity treated with panretinal photocoagulation laser versus intravitreal bevacizumab.

Methods: The medical records of consecutive infants treated for type 1 ROP between 2010 and 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. An a priori decision was made to divide infants into two groups, those treated before postmenstrual age (PMA) of 36 0/7 weeks and those treated at or after PMA of 36 0/7 weeks.

Special Considerations for Making Explants and Transplants with .

Although is an important model organism for embryological experimentation, the smaller, more genetically tractable, and faster developing provides advantages for using genetic approaches to understand developmental mechanisms. Explant cultures and transplants of embryonic tissues present unique opportunities to examine embryonic tissue determination in a simplified setting. Here we demonstrate preparation of explants and transplants of preplacodal head ectoderm in order to illustrate these approaches; however, these methods apply broadly to tissues throughout the embryo.

Screen Shots: When Patients and Families Publish Negative Health Care Narratives Online.

Social media sites and their relationship to health care is a subject of intense debate. Common discussions regarding social media address patient privacy, or e-professionalism. This case study explores the tensions that arise for health care providers when negative patient statements surface in social media and blog forums.

no privacy, a Xenopus tropicalis mutant, is a model of human Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome and allows visualization of internal organogenesis during tadpole development.

We describe a novel recessive and nonlethal pigmentation mutant in Xenopus tropicalis. The mutant phenotype can be initially observed in tadpoles after stage 39/40, when mutant embryos display markedly reduced pigmentation in the retina and the trunk. By tadpole stage 50 almost all pigmented melanophores have disappeared.

Non-invasive Respiratory Support and Severe Retinopathy of Prematurity.

The authors describe two premature infants who developed stage 3, zone I retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) with plus disease in both eyes, despite limited exposure to supra-ambient oxygen. Both infants received noninvasive respiratory support for several weeks. Both cases are notable because the ROP was more posterior and aggressive than is typical for the gestational ages or birth weights.

Surgical site infections in the NICU.

Background: Surgical site infections (SSI) increase morbidity and mortality. In adult and pediatric populations, the incidence ranges from 1.5-12%.

Xenopus pax6 mutants affect eye development and other organ systems, and have phenotypic similarities to human aniridia patients.

Mutations in the Pax6 gene cause ocular defects in both vertebrate and invertebrate animal species, and the disease aniridia in humans. Despite extensive experimentation on this gene in multiple species, including humans, we still do not understand the earliest effects on development mediated by this gene. This prompted us to develop pax6 mutant lines in Xenopus tropicalis taking advantage of the utility of the Xenopus system for examining early development and in addition to establish a model for studying the human disease aniridia in an accessible lower vertebrate.

Xenopus mutant reveals necessity of rax for specifying the eye field which otherwise forms tissue with telencephalic and diencephalic character.

The retinal anterior homeobox (rax) gene encodes a transcription factor necessary for vertebrate eye development. rax transcription is initiated at the end of gastrulation in Xenopus, and is a key part of the regulatory network specifying anterior neural plate and retina. We describe here a Xenopus tropicalis rax mutant, the first mutant analyzed in detail from a reverse genetic screen.

Simple and efficient CRISPR/Cas9-mediated targeted mutagenesis in Xenopus tropicalis.

We have assessed the efficacy of the recently developed CRISPR/Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated) system for genome modification in the amphibian Xenopus tropicalis. As a model experiment, targeted mutations of the tyrosinase gene were verified, showing the expected albinism phenotype in injected embryos. We further tested this technology by interrupting the six3 gene, which is required for proper eye and brain formation.

Defining progressive stages in the commitment process leading to embryonic lens formation.

The commitment of regions of the embryo to form particular tissues or organs is a central concept in development, but the mechanisms controlling this process remain elusive. The well-studied model of lens induction is ideal for dissecting key phases of the commitment process. We find in Xenopus tropicalis, at the time of specification of the lens, i.

Convergence of a head-field selector Otx2 and Notch signaling: a mechanism for lens specification.

Xenopus is ideal for systematic decoding of cis-regulatory networks because its evolutionary position among vertebrates allows one to combine comparative genomics with efficient transgenic technology in one system. Here, we have identified and analyzed the major enhancer of FoxE3 (Lens1), a gene essential for lens formation that is activated in the presumptive lens ectoderm (PLE) when commitment to the lens fate occurs. Deletion and mutation analyses of the enhancer based on comparison of Xenopus and mammalian sequences and in vitro and in vivo binding assays identified two essential transcriptional regulators: Otx2, a homeodomain protein expressed broadly in head ectoderm including the PLE, and Su(H), a nuclear signal transducer of Notch signaling.

A gynogenetic screen to isolate naturally occurring recessive mutations in Xenopus tropicalis.

In the rapidly developing, diploid amphibian Xenopus tropicalis, genetics can be married to the already powerful tools of the amphibian system to overcome a disability that has hampered Xenopus laevis as a model organism: the difficulties inherent in conducting genetic analyses in a tetraploid organism with a longer generation time. We describe here a gynogenetic screen to uncover naturally occurring recessive mutations in wild X. tropicalis populations, a procedure that is both faster and easier than conventional genetic screens traditionally employed in model organisms to dissect early developmental pathways.

Xenopus tropicalis transgenic lines and their use in the study of embryonic induction.

For over a century, amphibian embryos have been a source of significant insight into developmental mechanisms, including fundamental discoveries about the process of induction. The recently developed transgenesis for Xenopus offers new approaches to these poorly understood processes, particularly when undertaken in the quickly maturing species Xenopus tropicalis, which greatly facilitates establishment of permanent transgenic lines. Several X.

PIGMENTATION IN THE ORANGE TUNICATE, ECTEINASCIDIA TURBINATA.

Some chemical properties of the orange pigment from eggs and embryos and the mantle tissue of adult Ecteinascidia turbinata, as well as ultrastructural characteristics of pigment masses in the mantle, have been examined. The diffuse egg and embryo pigment has solubility and absorbence characteristics of carotenoids, which are solubilized within yolk platelets. The granular mantle pigment, however, is not carotenoid.