Short-chain fatty acid metabolites propionate and butyrate are unique epigenetic regulatory elements linking diet, metabolism and gene expression.

The short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) propionate and butyrate have beneficial health effects, are produced in large amounts by microbial metabolism and have been identified as unique acyl lysine histone marks. To better understand the function of these modifications, we used chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing to map the genome-wide location of four short-chain acyl histone marks, H3K18pr, H3K18bu, H4K12pr and H4K12bu, in treated and untreated colorectal cancer (CRC) and normal cells as well as in mouse intestines in vivo. We correlate these marks with open chromatin regions and gene expression to access the function of the target regions.

Biomarkers.

Background: Increased stress, a proposed risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), is associated with increased brain and cognitive vulnerabilities in older populations, which may be different in women and men.

Objective: To examine cross-sectional associations between circulating stress hormones (epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), and DHEAS/cortisol ratio) and multimodal measures of brain health and cognition sensitive to AD.

Method: 132 cognitively unimpaired older participants without clinical depression (age = 74.

Public Health.

Background: Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) has been repeatedly linked to healthy brain and cognitive outcomes in aging. Treadmill-based graded maximal exercise testing (GXT) is a common technique for measuring CRF in exercise studies. Because it is often challenging for older adults to reach the commonly accepted criterion measure of oxygen consumption, alternate, submaximal measures have been explored.

Biomarkers.

Background: The hippocampus is a key site of atrophy in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and MRI derived estimates of hippocampal volume have been shown to be a robust biomarker of AD-related neurodegeneration. However, its application at the individual level is limited by the lack of reference standards from large normative datasets that can be applied across a wide range of settings. We aimed to investigate the utility of hippocampal volume centile scores adjusted for age, sex and total intracranial volume (TIV) derived from a normative data from 101,457 participants across the life course, as a biomarker of neurodegeneration in AD.

Cutaneous disorders in captive psittacines, a retrospective study of 1454 cases at a university veterinary teaching hospital (1988-2021).

Background: Psittacines (parrots and their allies) are kept under human care as companion animals, live exhibit specimens in zoological institutions and occasionally as research subjects. Cutaneous disorders such as feather destructive behaviour (FDB) and pododermatitis are commonly noted in clinical reviews, case reports and text book chapters.

Hypothesis/objectives: To document the type, signalment associations and prevalence of cutaneous disorders in a large number of captive psittacines in an academic referral teaching hospital population.