Prenatal Stress Modulates Placental and Fetal Serotonin Levels and Determines Behavior Patterns in Offspring of Mice.

Available evidence from animal studies suggests that placental serotonin plays an important role in proper fetal development and programming by altering brain circuit formation, which later translates into altered abnormal adult behaviors. Several environmental stimuli, including stress and maternal inflammation, affect placental and, hence, fetal serotonin levels and thus may disturb fetal brain development. We investigated the effect of prenatal stress of varying intensities on the formation of adaptive behaviors in mouse offspring and the role of placental serotonin in these processes.

The Placenta as the Main Source of Serotonin in Ontogenetic Dynamics: Inflammation-Induced Modulation of Placental Serotonin Can Be Prevented by Immunoglobulin Administration.

Placental serotonin is recognized as a key component of feto-placental physiology and can be influenced by environmental factors such as maternal diet, drugs, stress, and immune activation. In this study, we compared the contribution of placental and fetal sources to the maintenance of serotonin levels required for normal fetal development during ontogenetic dynamics. Our results demonstrated the leading role of the placenta at almost all stages of development.

The Generation of Genetically Engineered Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Overexpressing IFN-β for Future Experimental and Clinically Oriented Studies.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be generated from various adult cells, genetically modified and differentiated into diverse cell populations. Type I interferons (IFN-Is) have multiple immunotherapeutic applications; however, their systemic administration can lead to severe adverse outcomes. One way of overcoming the limitation is to introduce cells able to enter the site of pathology and to produce IFN-Is locally.

Effects of Chitosan and -Succinyl Chitosan on Metabolic Disorders Caused by Oral Administration of Olanzapine in Mice.

Background: The issue of human mental health is gaining more and more attention nowadays. However, most mental disorders are treated with antipsychotic drugs that cause weight gain and metabolic disorders, which include olanzapine (OLZ). The search for and development of natural compounds for the prevention of obesity when taking antipsychotic drugs is an urgent task.

Monoaminergic Systems in Flight-Induced Potentiation of Phonotactic Behavior in Female Crickets .

We have recently shown that experience of flight remarkably enhanced subsequent terrestrial phonotaxis in females in response to the male calling song. Here, we elucidated the possible roles of octopamine and serotonin in the enhancing effect of flying on phonotactic behavior. Octopamine is known to be released into the hemolymph during flight in insects; however, the octopamine receptor antagonist epinastine did not abolish the effects of flight in our study.

A Model of iPSC-Derived Macrophages with Overexpression Reveals the Peculiarities of TNFAIP3 Protein Expression and Function in Human Macrophages.

Macrophages play a crucial role in the development and control of inflammation. Understanding the mechanisms balancing macrophage inflammatory activity is important to develop new strategies for treating inflammation-related diseases. TNF-α-induced protein 3 (TNFAIP3, A20) is a negative regulator of intracellular inflammatory cascades; its deficiency induces hyper-inflammatory reactions.

Determination of Greenhouse Gas Concentrations from the 16U CubeSat Spacecraft Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy.

Greenhouse gases absorb the Earth's thermal radiation and partially return it to the Earth's surface. When accumulated in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases lead to an increase in the average global air temperature and, as a result, climate change. In this paper, an approach to measuring CO2 and CH4 concentrations using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is proposed.

The Analysis of Stress Raisers Affecting the GFRP Strength at Quasi-Static and Cyclic Loads by the Theory of Critical Distances, Digital Image Correlation, and Acoustic Emission.

The purpose of this work is to analyze the stress-raisers that affect the tensile strength and fatigue resistance of GFRP parts using the point and line methods of the theory of critical distances (TCD) to obtain a quantitative measure of the defect size that can be tolerated by the composite before it fails. In the course of the work, a method combining TCD and the Weibull function was developed. In the course of the work, GFRP structural fiberglass for electrical purposes was tested under uniaxial quasi-static and cyclic loading with digital image correlation (DIC) and acoustic emission (AE), as well as a numerical simulation of deformation.

Impact of Depression on Cognitive Function and Disease Severity in Idiopathic Cervical Dystonia Patients: One-Center Data in Cross-Sectional Study.

Cervical dystonia is a highly disabling hyperkinetic movement disorder with a lot of nonmotor symptoms. One symptom with a high prevalence is depression, which may negatively affect dystonia patients. The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of depression on disease severity and cognitive functions in cervical dystonia patients.

Serotonin limits generation of chromaffin cells during adrenal organ development.

Adrenal glands are the major organs releasing catecholamines and regulating our stress response. The mechanisms balancing generation of adrenergic chromaffin cells and protecting against neuroblastoma tumors are still enigmatic. Here we revealed that serotonin (5HT) controls the numbers of chromaffin cells by acting upon their immediate progenitor "bridge" cells via 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor 3A (HTR3A), and the aggressive HTR3A human neuroblastoma cell lines reduce proliferation in response to HTR3A-specific agonists.

Prenatal Stress and Adaptive Behavior of Offspring: The Role of Placental Serotonin.

The effect of mild prenatal stress in mice, leading to an increase in the placental serotonin level, on the formation of adaptive behavior in male offspring at the age of 35 days was studied. It was shown that, in BalbC mice, daily immobilization for 1 h during the period from 11 to 14 days of pregnancy led to an increase in placental and fetal serotonin levels on the 15th day of prenatal development. According to "resident-intruder" behavioral test, the prenatally stressed mice showed more reactive behavior in adulthood and low tendency to defend their territory.

A link between social isolation during the coronavirus outbreak and social alignment in balcony parties.

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing need for assessing the psychological costs of social isolation (SI). We examine whether the balcony party during the first outbreak of the pandemic is associated with how individuals cope with SI as well as its causes and consequences during the COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 303 quarantined persons responded to a Web-based survey.

Morphological and Immunohistochemical Features of Placental Damage in Cases of Perinatal Death: Institutional Experience with Emphasis on Viral Etiology.

Objective: Intrauterine hypoxia/asphyxia is not the cause, but a consequence of different pathological conditions that requires a more detailed study of the morphogenesis of perinatal death.

Methods: Structural changes in placentas of intrauterine fetal demise (IUFD) in different stages of intrauterine period and placentas in early neonatal death were reviewed and compared. Control group was composed of term placentas without evidence of perinatal asphyxia or other neonatal abnormalities.

Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone in Regulation of Thymic Development in Rats: Profile of Thymic Cytokines.

An increasing body of recent experimental data confirms the impact of neurohormones on fetal development and function of different body systems. The synthesis of many neurohormones starts in fetal tissues before the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal systems are formed, and their high levels are detected in the bloodstream. Here, we studied the role of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) in rat thymus development and tried to reveal possible mechanisms underlying the GnRH effects in early development.

Transglutaminase Activity Determines Nuclear Localization of Serotonin Immunoreactivity in the Early Embryos of Invertebrates and Vertebrates.

Serotonin (5-HT) is a key player in many physiological processes in both the adult organism and developing embryo. One of the mechanisms for 5-HT-mediated effects is covalent binding of 5-HT to the target proteins catalyzed by transglutaminases (serotonylation). Despite the implication in a variety of physiological processes, the involvement of serotonylation in embryonic development remains unclear.

Genotyping of Matched Urine, Plasma, and Tumor Tissue in Patients With Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Treated With Rociletinib, an Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor.

Purpose: Liquid biopsies represent an attractive alternative to tissue biopsies, particularly rebiopsies, in determining patient eligibility for targeted therapies. Clinical utility of urine genotyping, however, has not been explored extensively. We evaluated epidermal growth factor receptor () T790M detection in matched urine, plasma, and tissue and the clinical outcomes of patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer treated with rociletinib.

Expression of components of the serotonergic system in the developing rat thymus.

The developing thymus of rat fetuses contains all components of the serotonergic system: receptors, enzymes of synthesis, and membrane transporters. The expression of receptors suggests the possibility of a direct influence of serotonin on thymic development. The presence of tryptophan hydroxylase (the key rate-limiting enzyme of serotonin synthesis) and aromatic l-amino acid decarboxylase indicates the ability of fetal thymic cells to synthesize serotonin.

Monitoring Daily Dynamics of Early Tumor Response to Targeted Therapy by Detecting Circulating Tumor DNA in Urine.

Noninvasive drug biomarkers for the early assessment of tumor response can enable adaptive therapeutic decision-making and proof-of-concept studies for investigational drugs. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is released into the circulation by tumor cell turnover and has been shown to be detectable in urine. We tested the hypothesis that dynamic changes in EGFR activating (exon 19del and L858R) and resistance (T790M) mutation levels detected in urine could inform tumor response within days of therapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving osimertinib, a second-line third-generation anti-EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor.

Mutation-Enrichment Next-Generation Sequencing for Quantitative Detection of Mutations in Urine Cell-Free DNA from Patients with Advanced Cancers.

Tumor-derived cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from urine of patients with cancer offers noninvasive biological material for detection of cancer-related molecular abnormalities such as mutations in Exon 2 of A quantitative, mutation-enrichment next-generation sequencing test for detecting mutations in urine cfDNA was developed, and results were compared with clinical testing of archival tumor tissue and plasma cfDNA from patients with advanced cancer. With 90 to 110 mL of urine, the cfDNA test had an analytical sensitivity of 0.002% to 0.

[The difficulties of cytologic diagnostic of breast diseases based on trepanobiopsy samples.].

The article analyses, on the basis of scientific publications and original data, the causes of erroneous cytological conclusion concerning samples of trepanobiopsies of mammary gland. The most prevalent benign affections that are characterized by most frequent hyper diagnostic of cancer are fibro-adenoma with proliferation of epithelium and sclerosing adenosis. At the same time, certain modifications of lobular carcinoma of mammary gland, tubular, papillary cancer as well as highly differentiated invasive carcinoma of nonspecific type from cells with ulterior nuclear atypism sometimes it is difficult to diagnose at the cellular level.

The inhibition of dopamine synthesis in fetuses changes the pattern of T-lymphocyte maturation in the thymus of adult rats.

The mRNA for dopamine receptors of type D1, D3, D5, but not type D2, was detected in the thymus of rats starting from day 16 of embryonic development (E16). Dopamine at concentrations of 10-10 M inhibited fetus thymocyte response to mitogen, confirming the functionality of the receptors and the possibility of a direct effect of dopamine on the developing thymus. Pharmacological inhibition of catecholamine synthesis in the crucial period of thymus development leads to long-term changes in the T-system immunity due to increased production of natural regulatory T-lymphocytes.

[Reciprocal Humoral Regulation of Endocrine Noradrenaline Sources in Perinatal Development of Rats].

The goal of the present study was to verify our hypothesis of humoral interaction between the norepinephrine secreting organs in the perinatal period of ontogenesis that is aimed at the sustaining of physiologically active concentration of norepinephrine in blood. The objects of the study were the transitory organs, such as brain, organ of Zuckerkandl, and adrenals, the permanent endocrine organ of rats that releases norepinephrine into the bloodstream. To reach this goal, we assessed the adrenal secretory activity (norepinephrine level) and activity of the Zuckerkandl’s organ under the conditions of destructed noradrenergic neurons of brain caused by (1) their selective death induced by introduction of a hybrid molecular complex, which consisted of antibodies against dopamine-β-hydroxylase (DBH) conjugated with saporin cytotoxin (anti-DBH-saporin) into the lateral brain ventricles of neonatal rats; and (2) microsurgical in utero destruction of embryo’s brain (in utero encephalectomy).

A Highly Sensitive and Quantitative Test Platform for Detection of NSCLC EGFR Mutations in Urine and Plasma.

Introduction: In approximately 60% of patients with NSCLC who are receiving EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors, resistance develops through the acquisition of EGFR T790M mutation. We aimed to demonstrate that a highly sensitive and quantitative next-generation sequencing analysis of EGFR mutations from urine and plasma specimens is feasible.

Methods: Short footprint mutation enrichment next-generation sequencing assays were used to interrogate EGFR activating mutations and the T790M resistance mutation in urine or plasma specimens from patients enrolled in TIGER-X (NCT01526928), a phase 1/2 clinical study of rociletinib in previously treated patients with EGFR mutant-positive advanced NSCLC.

Serotonin Mediates Maternal Effects and Directs Developmental and Behavioral Changes in the Progeny of Snails.

Many organisms survive in constantly changing environments, including cycling seasons. Developing embryos show remarkable instant adaptations to the variable environmental challenges they encounter during their adult life, despite having no direct contact with the changing environment until after birth or hatching. The mechanisms by which such non-genetic information is transferred to the developing embryos are largely unknown.