Blood-based tumor mutational burden impacts clinical outcomes of immune checkpoint inhibitor treated breast and prostate cancers.

Background: Breast and prostate tumors are known to be less responsive to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Tissue-based tumor mutation burden (tTMB) has emerged as a predictive biomarker of response to ICIs, including in these "cold tumors". In clinical practice, when tTMB is not available, blood-based TMB score (bTMB) can be used to consider treatment with ICIs.

A prospective observational study of operating room traffic during shunt surgery: who comes in and why?

Objective: Shunt infections are costly and stressful for families, patients, and providers. Many institutions use shunt checklists in an effort to reduce the risk of infection following shunt surgery. Such protocols often aim to limit operating room (OR) foot traffic, but there is little evidence that supports the theory that greater OR traffic increases the risk of acquiring a shunt infection through contamination of the air.

Incidence of pneumococcal disease in children in Germany, 2014-2019: a retrospective cohort study.

Background: Novel, expanded valency pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) are in development to reduce the burden of pneumococcal disease (PD) in children. To understand the potential value of new vaccines in Germany, this study estimated the residual burden of PD in children < 16 years old from 2014 to 2019, using administrative health data from a large German claims database.

Methods: Outpatient and inpatient cases of all-cause pneumonia (ACP), pneumococcal pneumonia (PP) and invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) were identified in the InGef database.

An integrated view of the structure and function of the human 4D nucleome.

The dynamic three-dimensional (3D) organization of the human genome (the "4D Nucleome") is closely linked to genome function. Here, we integrate a wide variety of genomic data generated by the 4D Nucleome Project to provide a detailed view of human 3D genome organization in widely used embryonic stem cells (H1-hESCs) and immortalized fibroblasts (HFFc6). We provide extensive benchmarking of 3D genome mapping assays and integrate these diverse datasets to annotate spatial genomic features across scales.

A Neural Basis for Mutant ATAXIN-1 Induced Respiratory Dysfunction in Mouse Models of Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 1.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1), a dominantly inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by an expanded trinucleotide repeat in the gene, is characterized by motor dysfunction, cognitive impairment, and death from compromised swallowing and respiration. To delineate specific cell types that contribute to respiratory dysfunction, we utilized the floxed conditional knock-in mouse. Whole body plethysmography during spontaneous respiration and respiratory challenge showed that mice exhibit a spontaneous respiratory phenotype characterized by elevated respiratory frequency, volumes, and respiratory output.