Publications by authors named "Ruth Wangondu"

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how genetic ancestry affects the biology and survival outcomes of children and young adults with T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL), focusing on associations between ancestry, genomic subtypes, and overall and event-free survival rates.
  • Among 1309 patients, it was found that T-ALL molecular subtypes differed significantly based on genetic ancestry, with African ancestry patients having a higher prevalence of certain high-risk subtypes.
  • The research highlights that existing risk classification models may inaccurately assess patients of African ancestry, suggesting that incorporating genetic ancestry into cancer prognosis and treatment strategies is crucial for more accurate risk stratification.
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: Although the prevalence of overweight and obesity (OW/OB) has increased in the last three decades, studies show that these conditions are sub-optimally documented by physicians. Health information technology tools have varying effects on improving documentation of OW/OB but often have to be complemented with other interventions to be effective. : Upon identifying low rates of documentation of diagnoses of overweight and obesity by resident and attending physicians, despite the use of an electronic health record (EHR) with automated BMI calculations, we performed a quality improvement (QI) project to improve documentation of these diagnoses for patients in our community hospital primary care clinic.

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Background: Health workers' strikes are a global occurrence. Kenya has had several strikes by health workers in recent years but their effect on mortality is unknown. We assessed the effect on mortality of six strikes by health workers that occurred from 2010 to 2016 in Kilifi, Kenya.

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Group A streptococcus (GAS) is responsible for a wide range of both invasive and noninvasive infections. Severe invasive group A streptococcal infection is associated with morbidity and mortality and has been linked to chronic medical conditions with skin and soft tissues involvement, and intravenous drug use (IVDU). Invasive diseases are, however, rare and have been recognized to affect the extremes of age (younger than 10 years of age and older than 74).

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Hemoptysis, a common sign of diffuse alveolar hemorrhage, can be caused by multiple factors, both infectious and noninfectious. A 45-year-old male with hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, and stage IV pulmonary sarcoidosis with cardiac involvement, presented with a two-month history of cough and acute nonmassive hemoptysis with hypoxia. A chest CT showed ground glass consolidation and interlobular septal thickening, concerning for diffuse alveolar hemorrhage.

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Epstein Barr virus (EBV), like other oncogenic viruses, modulates the activity of cellular DNA damage responses (DDR) during its life cycle. Our aim was to characterize the role of early lytic proteins and viral lytic DNA replication in activation of DNA damage signaling during the EBV lytic cycle. Our data challenge the prevalent hypothesis that activation of DDR pathways during the EBV lytic cycle occurs solely in response to large amounts of exogenous double stranded DNA products generated during lytic viral DNA replication.

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ZEBReplication Activator (ZEBRA), a viral basic zipper protein that initiates the Epstein-Barr viral lytic cycle, binds to DNA and activates transcription through heptamer ZEBRA response elements (ZREs) related to AP-1 sites. A component of the biologic action of ZEBRA is attributable to binding methylated CpGs in ZREs present in the promoters of viral lytic cycle genes. Residue S186 of ZEBRA, Z(S186), which is absolutely required for disruption of latency, participates in the recognition of methylated DNA.

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A 26-year-old male intravenous drug user (IDU) presented twice within 6 months with relapsed polymicrobial infective endocarditis (IE) due to Eikenella corrodens and Streptococcus constellatus after completing two courses of appropriate antimicrobial therapy. This report points to relapsing endocarditis as a clinical entity that warrants attention in IDUs when E. corrodens or S.

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Diverse stimuli reactivate the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) lytic cycle in Burkitt lymphoma (BL) cells. In HH514-16 BL cells, two histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, sodium butyrate (NaB) and trichostatin A (TSA), and the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor azacytidine (AzaCdR) promote lytic reactivation. Valproic acid (VPA), which, like NaB, belongs to the short-chain fatty acid class of HDAC inhibitors, fails to induce the EBV lytic cycle in these cells.

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Nuclear aggresomes induced by proteins containing an expanded polyglutamine (polyQ) tract are pathologic hallmarks of certain neurodegenerative diseases. Some GFP fusion proteins lacking a polyQ tract may also induce nuclear aggresomes in cultured cells. Here we identify single missense mutations within the basic DNA recognition region of Bam HI Z E B virus replication activator (ZEBRA), an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-encoded basic zipper protein without a polyQ tract, that efficiently induced the formation of nuclear aggresomes.

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The Target of Rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1) is a central regulator of eukaryotic cell growth that is inhibited by the drug rapamycin. In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, translational defects associated with TORC1 inactivation inhibit cell cycle progression at an early stage in G1, but little is known about the possible roles for TORC1 later in the cell cycle. We investigated the rapamycin-hypersensitivity phenotype of cells lacking the S phase cyclin Clb5 (clb5Δ) as a basis for uncovering novel connections between TORC1 and the cell cycle regulatory machinery.

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