Factors associated with maternal well-being during childbirth among postpartum women in Minas Gerais.

Objectives: to analyze the factors associated with maternal well-being during childbirth among postpartum women in Minas Gerais.

Methods: a cross-sectional study nested within a cohort was conducted with postpartum women in a municipality of Minas Gerais. The Maternal Well-being in Childbirth Scale 2 was used.

Systematic mapping of organism-scale gene-regulatory networks in aging using population asynchrony.

In aging, physiologic networks decline in function at rates that differ between individuals, producing a wide distribution of lifespan. Though 70% of human lifespan variance remains unexplained by heritable factors, little is known about the intrinsic sources of physiologic heterogeneity in aging. To understand how complex physiologic networks generate lifespan variation, new methods are needed.

Experimental Testing on Tuned Liquid Dampers for Implementation in Industrial Chimneys.

A TLD is a passive damping device that works by dissipating energy through the sloshing of the liquid and the effect of wave breaking, thereby controlling the vibrations of the structure. One of the applications where TLDs are of great interest is in the case of industrial chimneys since these structures often have a very low natural frequency, which can be easily achieved in a control device of this type. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the behaviour of an annular TLD composed of multiple cells through laboratory tests and investigate if it is adequate to design it as an agglomeration of smaller rectangular TLDs.

Structural Monitoring of a Large-Span Arch Bridge Using Customized Sensors.

Due to the increasing importance of the continuous monitoring of Civil Structures, this research aims to take advantage of new solutions of measurement systems and sensors in the Structural Health Monitoring of bridges, using the reinforced concrete arch Arrábida Bridge as a case study. With the support of customized sensors, this work starts by performing preliminary ambient vibration tests on Arrábida Bridge, aiming at the identification of the natural frequencies and respective vibration modes of the deck. Then, the measurement campaigns carried over time are described, which involved different types of customized sensors, namely, accelerometers, temperature sensors and displacement sensors.

A village in a dish model system for population-scale hiPSC studies.

The mechanisms by which DNA alleles contribute to disease risk, drug response, and other human phenotypes are highly context-specific, varying across cell types and different conditions. Human induced pluripotent stem cells are uniquely suited to study these context-dependent effects but cell lines from hundreds or thousands of individuals are required. Village cultures, where multiple induced pluripotent stem lines are cultured and differentiated in a single dish, provide an elegant solution for scaling induced pluripotent stem experiments to the necessary sample sizes required for population-scale studies.

Transitioning single-cell genomics into the clinic.

The use of genomics is firmly established in clinical practice, resulting in innovations across a wide range of disciplines such as genetic screening, rare disease diagnosis and molecularly guided therapy choice. This new field of genomic medicine has led to improvements in patient outcomes. However, most clinical applications of genomics rely on information generated from bulk approaches, which do not directly capture the genomic variation that underlies cellular heterogeneity.

Bullying among Brazilian adolescents: evidence from the National Survey of School Health, Brazil, 2015 and 2019.

Objective: to estimate the prevalence rate of indicators related to bullying among Brazilian students aged 13 to 17 years and compare its occurrence between 2015 and 2019.

Method: this is a descriptive cross-sectional study, with data from the National Survey of School Health, carried out in all Brazilian states. The prevalence rate and confidence intervals (95%CI) of the indicators were estimated in 2019.

A single-cell tumor immune atlas for precision oncology.

The tumor immune microenvironment is a main contributor to cancer progression and a promising therapeutic target for oncology. However, immune microenvironments vary profoundly between patients, and biomarkers for prognosis and treatment response lack precision. A comprehensive compendium of tumor immune cells is required to pinpoint predictive cellular states and their spatial localization.

Analysis of Stiffness of Clamped Joints versus Bolted Joints in Steel Structures by Means of Accelerometers and Shaking Table Tests.

This work analyzes the difference in stiffness in a steel laboratory structure using clamped joints or bolted joints and analyzes if the stiffness varies in the same way when the frame is subjected to external dynamic loads that bring the joint materials to their yield strength. To make this comparison, the differences between clamp joint and bolted joint were evaluated using a novel methodology based on the analysis of the structure's natural frequencies from accelerometers. To perform this comparison, several laboratory tests were carried out on a frame made by clamped joints and the same frame made by bolted joints, using a set of tests on a medium-scale shake table for this purpose.

Genome-based therapeutic interventions for β-type hemoglobinopathies.

For decades, various strategies have been proposed to solve the enigma of hemoglobinopathies, especially severe cases. However, most of them seem to be lagging in terms of effectiveness and safety. So far, the most prevalent and promising treatment options for patients with β-types hemoglobinopathies, among others, predominantly include drug treatment and gene therapy.

Immune cell profiling of the cerebrospinal fluid enables the characterization of the brain metastasis microenvironment.

Brain metastases are the most common tumor of the brain with a dismal prognosis. A fraction of patients with brain metastasis benefit from treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) and the degree and phenotype of the immune cell infiltration has been used to predict response to ICI. However, the anatomical location of brain lesions limits access to tumor material to characterize the immune phenotype.

Benchmarking single-cell RNA-sequencing protocols for cell atlas projects.

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is the leading technique for characterizing the transcriptomes of individual cells in a sample. The latest protocols are scalable to thousands of cells and are being used to compile cell atlases of tissues, organs and organisms. However, the protocols differ substantially with respect to their RNA capture efficiency, bias, scale and costs, and their relative advantages for different applications are unclear.

Zonation of Ribosomal DNA Transcription Defines a Stem Cell Hierarchy in Colorectal Cancer.

Colorectal cancers (CRCs) are composed of an amalgam of cells with distinct genotypes and phenotypes. Here, we reveal a previously unappreciated heterogeneity in the biosynthetic capacities of CRC cells. We discover that the majority of ribosomal DNA transcription and protein synthesis in CRCs occurs in a limited subset of tumor cells that localize in defined niches.

Sampling time-dependent artifacts in single-cell genomics studies.

Robust protocols and automation now enable large-scale single-cell RNA and ATAC sequencing experiments and their application on biobank and clinical cohorts. However, technical biases introduced during sample acquisition can hinder solid, reproducible results, and a systematic benchmarking is required before entering large-scale data production. Here, we report the existence and extent of gene expression and chromatin accessibility artifacts introduced during sampling and identify experimental and computational solutions for their prevention.

Three-Dimensional Genomic Structure and Cohesin Occupancy Correlate with Transcriptional Activity during Spermatogenesis.

Mammalian gametogenesis involves dramatic and tightly regulated chromatin remodeling, whose regulatory pathways remain largely unexplored. Here, we generate a comprehensive high-resolution structural and functional atlas of mouse spermatogenesis by combining in situ chromosome conformation capture sequencing (Hi-C), RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), and chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) of CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) and meiotic cohesins, coupled with confocal and super-resolution microscopy. Spermatogonia presents well-defined compartment patterns and topological domains.

Epigenetic loss of the endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation inhibitor SVIP induces cancer cell metabolic reprogramming.

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of cancer cells needs to adapt to the enhanced proteotoxic stress associated with the accumulation of unfolded, misfolded and transformation-associated proteins. One way by which tumors thrive in the context of ER stress is by promoting ER-Associated Degradation (ERAD), although the mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we show that the Small p97/VCP Interacting Protein (SVIP), an endogenous inhibitor of ERAD, undergoes DNA hypermethylation-associated silencing in tumorigenesis to achieve this goal.

Germline variation in O-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) as cause of hereditary colorectal cancer.

Somatic epigenetic inactivation of the DNA repair protein O6-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) is frequent in colorectal cancer (CRC); however, its involvement in CRC predisposition remains unexplored. We assessed the role and relevance of MGMT germline mutations and epimutations in familial and early-onset CRC. Mutation and promoter methylation screenings were performed in 473 familial and/or early-onset mismatch repair-proficient nonpolyposis CRC cases.

Tutorial: guidelines for the experimental design of single-cell RNA sequencing studies.

Single-cell RNA sequencing is at the forefront of high-resolution phenotyping experiments for complex samples. Although this methodology requires specialized equipment and expertise, it is now widely applied in research. However, it is challenging to create broadly applicable experimental designs because each experiment requires the user to make informed decisions about sample preparation, RNA sequencing and data analysis.

MicroRNAs and Epigenetics.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression mainly at the posttranscriptional level. Similar to protein-coding genes, their expression is also controlled by genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. Disruption of these control processes leads to abnormal expression of miRNAs in cancer.

Bromodomain inhibition shows antitumoral activity in mice and human luminal breast cancer.

BET bromodomain inhibitors, which have an antitumoral effect against various solid cancer tumor types, have not been studied in detail in luminal breast cancer, despite the prevalence of this subtype of mammary malignancy. Here we demonstrate that the BET bromodomain inhibitor JQ1 exerts growth-inhibitory activity in human luminal breast cancer cell lines associated with a depletion of the C-MYC oncogene, but does not alter the expression levels of the BRD4 bromodomain protein. Interestingly, expression microarray analyses indicate that, upon JQ1 administration, the antitumoral phenotype also involves downregulation of relevant breast cancer oncogenes such as the Breast Carcinoma-Amplified Sequence 1 (BCAS1) and the PDZ Domain-Containing 1 (PDZK1).