Prevalence of Popular Smoking Cessation Aids in England and Associations With Quit Success.

Importance: A wide range of medications, noncombustible nicotine products, behavioral support, and alternative treatments are available in England to help people stop smoking. Understanding their effectiveness outside of clinical trial settings can support informed decision-making.

Objectives: To provide up-to-date estimates of the prevalence of different smoking cessation aids and associations with quit success and to explore moderation by socioeconomic position.

Hypomorphic RAG2 Deficiency Promotes Selection of Self-Reactive B Cells.

Reduced function or hypomorphic variants in recombination-activating genes (RAG) 1 or 2 result in a broad clinical phenotype including common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) and even adult-onset disease. Milder RAG variants are less characterized. Here we describe the longitudinal course of a milder combined RAG deficiency in 3 of 7 siblings sharing the same RAG2 mutations over a 50-year study.

A sensitivity analysis of methodological variables associated with microbiome measurements.

The experimental methods employed during metagenomic sequencing analyses of microbiome samples significantly impact the resulting data and typically vary substantially between laboratories. In this study, a full factorial experimental design was used to compare the effects of a select set of methodological choices (sample, operator, lot, extraction kit, variable region, and reference database) on the analysis of biologically diverse stool samples. For each parameter investigated, a main effect was calculated that allowed direct comparison both between methodological choices (bias effects) and between samples (real biological differences).

ENDOTHELIAL PROX1 INDUCES BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER DISRUPTION IN THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM.

The central nervous system (CNS) parenchyma has conventionally been believed to lack lymphatic vasculature, likely due to a non-permissive microenvironment that hinders the formation and growth of lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs). Recent findings of ectopic expression of LEC markers including Prospero Homeobox 1 (PROX1), a master regulator of lymphatic differentiation, and the vascular permeability marker Plasmalemma Vesicle Associated Protein (PLVAP), in certain glioblastoma and brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), has prompted investigation into their roles in cerebrovascular malformations, tumor environments, and blood-brain barrier (BBB) abnormalities. To explore the relationship between ectopic LEC properties and BBB disruption, we utilized endothelial cell-specific overexpression mutants.