A Code of Ethics for Gene Drive Research.

Gene drives hold promise for use in controlling insect vectors of diseases, agricultural pests, and for conservation of ecosystems against invasive species. At the same time, this technology comes with potential risks that include unknown downstream effects on entire ecosystems as well as the accidental or nefarious spread of organisms that carry the gene drive machinery. A code of ethics can be a useful tool for all parties involved in the development and regulation of gene drives and can be used to help ensure that a balanced analysis of risks, benefits, and values is taken into consideration in the interest of society and humanity.

Critical appraisal of a mHealth-assisted community-based cardiovascular disease risk screening program in rural Kenya: an operational research study.

Community health workers (CHWs) can participate in the cascade of hypertension and diabetes management in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Their services may be enhanced with mobile health (mHealth) tools. In this operational research study, we describe the AFYACHAT mHealth-assisted cardiovascular health screening program in rural Kenya.

Community-based screening for cardiovascular risk using a novel mHealth tool in rural Kenya.

Background: An increasing burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in low-resource settings demands innovative public health approaches.

Objectives: To design and test a novel mHealth tool for use by community health workers (CHWs) to identify individuals at high CVD risk who would benefit from education and/or pharmacologic interventions.

Methods: We designed and implemented a novel two-way mobile phone application, "AFYACHAT," to rapidly screen for CVD risk in rural Kenya.

Cholesterol efflux stimulates metalloproteinase-mediated cleavage of occludin and release of extracellular membrane particles containing its C-terminal fragments.

That changes in membrane lipid composition alter the barrier function of tight junctions illustrates the importance of the interactions between tetraspan integral tight junction proteins and lipids of the plasma membrane. Application of methyl-beta-cyclodextrin to both apical and basolateral surfaces of MDCK cell monolayers for 2 h, results in an approximately 80% decrease in cell cholesterol, a fall in transepithelial electrical resistance, and a 30% reduction in cell content of occludin, with a smaller reduction in levels of claudins-2, -3, and -7. There were negligible changes in levels of actin and the two non-tight junction membrane proteins GP-135 and caveolin-1.

Cholesterol depletion alters detergent-specific solubility profiles of selected tight junction proteins and the phosphorylation of occludin.

Differential centrifugation of Triton X-100 or CHAPS lysates from control and cholesterol (CH)-depleted MDCK II cells, segregated integral tight junction (TJ) proteins associated with detergent-resistant membranes (DRMs) into two groups. Group A proteins (occludin, claudin-2 and -3) were detected in large, intermediate and small aggregates in both detergents, whereas group B proteins (claudin-1, -4 and -7) were observed in small aggregates in TX-100 and in intermediate and small aggregates in CHAPS. Depletion of CH altered the distribution of group A and B proteins among the three size categories in a detergent-specific manner.

Knockdown of occludin expression leads to diverse phenotypic alterations in epithelial cells.

The function of occludin (Occ) in the tight junction is undefined. To gain insight into its role in epithelial cell biology, occludin levels in Madin-Darby canine kidney II cells were suppressed by stably expressing short interfering RNA. Suppression of occludin was associated with a decrease in claudins-1 and -7 and an increase in claudins-3 and -4.