Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
November 2024
Ribosome structure and activity are challenged at high temperatures, often demanding modifications to ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) to retain translation fidelity. LC-MS/MS, bisulfite-sequencing, and high-resolution cryo-EM structures of the archaeal ribosome identified an RNA modification, 4,4-dimethylcytidine (mC), at the universally conserved C918 in the 16S rRNA helix 31 loop. Here, we characterize and structurally resolve a class of RNA methyltransferase that generates mC whose function is critical for hyperthermophilic growth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRNAs are often modified to invoke new activities. While many modifications are limited in frequency, restricted to non-coding RNAs, or present only in select organisms, 5-methylcytidine (mC) is abundant across diverse RNAs and fitness-relevant across Domains of life, but the synthesis and impacts of mC have yet to be fully investigated. Here, we map mC in the model hyperthermophile, Thermococcus kodakarensis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic-related social distancing practices that colleges implemented in Spring 2020 disrupted the typical mechanisms of propinquity (physical proximity) and homophily (shared characteristics) that physical institutions rely on to help students build and maintain relationships critical to learning and wellbeing. To explore how social distancing shaped students' academic and social networks and associated educational outcomes, we conceptualized it as a "network shock" and collected unique ego network data in April 2020. For participating students, maintaining interactions with the same set of individuals before and after social distancing was related to more positive outcomes across a range of self-reported wellbeing and learning indicators.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman-to-swine transmission of seasonal influenza viruses has led to sustained human-like influenza viruses circulating in the U.S. swine population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDengue is the most prevalent arboviral disease in humans and a continually increasing global public health burden. To date, there are no approved antiviral therapies against dengue virus (DENV) and the only licensed vaccine, Dengvaxia, is exclusively indicated for individuals with prior DENV infection. Endothelial hyperpermeability and vascular leak, pathogenic hallmarks of severe dengue disease, can be directly triggered by DENV non-structural protein 1 (NS1).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(SVA) is an emerging picornavirus that causes vesicular disease (VD) in swine. The virus has been circulating in swine in the United Stated (USA) since at least 1988, however, since 2014 a marked increase in the number of SVA outbreaks has been observed in swine worldwide. The factors that led to the emergence of SVA remain unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFlavivirus nonstructural protein 5 (NS5) contains an N-terminal methyltransferase (MTase) domain and a C-terminal polymerase (RNA-dependent RNA polymerase [RdRp]) domain fused through a 9-amino-acid linker. While the individual NS5 domains are structurally conserved, in the full-length protein, their relative orientations fall into two classes: the NS5 proteins from Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) adopt one conformation, while the NS5 protein from dengue virus serotype 3 (DENV3) adopts another. Here, we report a crystallographic structure of NS5 from DENV2 in a conformation similar to the extended one seen in JEV and ZIKV NS5 crystal structures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Zika virus (ZIKV) is a newly emerged pathogen in the Western hemisphere. It was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization in 2016. There have been 223,477 confirmed cases, including 3720 congenital syndrome cases since 2015.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVesicular stomatitis (VS) is caused by a contagious rhabdovirus that affects horses, cattle, and swine. Clinical signs of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) infection in pigs and cattle are indistinguishable from foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), a foreign animal disease and reportable disease in the United States (Rodriguez et al., 2000).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn 2016, a total of 18 human infections with influenza A(H3N2) virus occurred after exposure to influenza-infected swine at 7 agricultural fairs. Sixteen of these cases were the result of infection by a reassorted virus with increasing prevalence among US swine containing a hemagglutinin gene from 2010-11 human seasonal H3N2 strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS) are severe disease manifestations that can occur following sequential infection with different dengue virus serotypes (DENV1-4). At present, there are no licensed therapies to treat DENV-induced disease. DHF and DSS are thought to be mediated by serotype cross-reactive antibodies that facilitate antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) by binding to viral antigens and then Fcγ receptors (FcγR) on target myeloid cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOn August 3, 2016, the Ohio Department of Health Laboratory reported to CDC that a respiratory specimen collected on July 28 from a male aged 13 years who attended an agricultural fair in Ohio during July 22-29, 2016, and subsequently developed a respiratory illness, tested positive by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) for influenza A(H3N2) variant* (H3N2v). The respiratory specimen was collected as part of routine influenza surveillance activities. The next day, CDC was notified of a child aged 9 years who was a swine exhibitor at an agricultural fair in Michigan who became ill on July 29, 2016, and tested positive for H3N2v virus at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Laboratory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Prisoners constitute a high-risk population, particularly for infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to estimate the level of infectious risk in the prisons of five different European countries by measuring to what extent the prison system adheres to WHO/UNODC recommendations.
Methods: Following the methodology used in a previous French survey, a postal/electronic questionnaire was sent to all prisons in Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Italy to collect data on the availability of several recommended HIV-HCV prevention interventions and HBV vaccination for prisoners.
Andes virus (ANDV) and ANDV-like viruses are responsible for most hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) cases in South America. Recent studies in Chile indicate that passive transfer of convalescent human plasma shows promise as a possible treatment for HPS. Unfortunately, availability of convalescent plasma from survivors of this lethal disease is very limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResilience research with war-affected populations has long conceptualized resilience as the absence of psychopathology and operationalized it by use of standardized measures. However, literature on resilience increasingly highlights the importance of also including indicators of positively valued functioning as well as contextually sensitive indicators of resilience. This study used a participatory approach to examine the contextual conceptualization of youth resilience in the aftermath of war in northern Uganda, as defined by groups of stakeholders (youths, parents, elders, leaders, teachers) in four communities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA comparative study of men and women suffering from a break-up of their life project allowed us examining the typically female and male manners to cope with trauma, anxiety, guilt, depression and internal destructivity. In a first stage, an exploratory study was focussed on 206 subjects, belonging to several clinical subgroups: people living in great precarity and long-term unemployed people, asylum seekers and refugees, drug addicts, prisoners and people coming out of prison. Secondly, arts therapeutic sessions were proposed with the aim of helping the participants finding an outlet to their situation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Vet Diagn Invest
September 2013
Vesicular stomatitis is a viral disease primarily affecting horses and cattle when it occurs in the United States. Outbreaks in the southwestern United States occur sporadically, with initial cases typically occurring in Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona and subsequent cases occurring in a northward progression. The viruses causing vesicular stomatitis can be transmitted by direct contact of lesioned animals with other susceptible animals, but transmission is primarily through arthropod vectors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBull Soc Sci Med Grand Duche Luxemb
August 2010
2D-shape analysis of biological objects is described first in 2007 with MRI-data (magnetic resonance imaging) of renal tumours of infancy. For shape analysis the evaluation of landmarks is necessary (n >2). In this study 24 landmarks are selected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCytokines produced during infection/inflammation activate adaptive central nervous system (CNS) responses, including acute stress responses mediated by the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The mechanisms by which cytokines engage HPA control circuitry remain unclear, though stimulated release of prostanoids from neighboring vascular cells has been implicated in this regard. How specific vascular cell types, endothelial cells (ECs) versus perivascular cells (PVCs; a subset of brain-resident macrophages), participate in this response remains unsettled.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInjuries sustained from illicit drug use or alcohol intoxication are common in emergency departments. Ongoing assessments of psychosocial issues in trauma patients are imperative, even after the patient leaves the specialized area of the emergency department. Oftentimes, bedside nurses are ill prepared to identify the subtle clues of deeper psychosocial issues in complex patients such as trauma patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBull Soc Sci Med Grand Duche Luxemb
May 2008
We present the general structure of a multi-annual research project. Our general expectancy concerns the possibilities of arts psychotherapy as a means of launching the blocked process of subjectivation with people suffering from exclusion, precarity and marginalization. The research project follows a complex research design with a sequential strategy, the first part consisting in an integrated psychosocial and clinical study using a mixed methodology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCatecholamine-containing projections from the medulla have been implicated in the mediation of activational responses of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVH) provoked by moderate doses of interleukin-1 (IL-1). To test the generality of this mechanism, rats bearing unilateral transections of aminergic projections were challenged with intravenous IL-1 (2 microg/kg), bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 0.1, 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe normal expression pattern of HMGA2, an architectural transcription factor, is primarily restricted to cells of the developing mesenchyme before their overt differentiation during organogenesis. A detailed in situ hybridization analysis showed that the undifferentiated mesoderm of the embryonic lung expressed Hmga2 but it was not expressed in the newborn or adult lung. Previously, HMGA2 was shown to be misexpressed in a number of benign, differentiated mesenchymal tumors including lipomas, uterine leiomyomas, and pulmonary chondroid hamartomas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBull Soc Sci Med Grand Duche Luxemb
January 2007
Including the temporal and developmental dimension into the measurement of human conduct is a fundamental concern for those who do research in natural surroundings. Observing an individual day after day may possibly give a more complete vision of how behavior works than measuring a group of individuals at a single time and analyzing the differences found among them. Unfortunately most of the tools allowing analyzing individual time series call for large numbers of repeated observations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Serotonin syndrome (SS) and neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) are medical emergencies associated with psychotropic administration. Differentiation and treatment can be complex, especially when features of both syndromes are present and the patient has taken both serotonergic and neuroleptic agents.
Method: Case analysis of a poly-drug overdose (venlafaxine, topiramate, divalproex sodium, risperidone, and carbamazepine) presenting with mixed SS/NMS features and whose clinical management suggests a practical algorithm for treatment of undifferentiated SS/NMS in critical care settings.