Publications by authors named "THORPE H"

Interpreting the phenotypes of alleles in genomes is complex. Whilst all strains are expected to carry a chromosomal copy conferring resistance to ampicillin, they may also carry mutations in chromosomal alleles or additional plasmid-borne alleles that have extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) activity and/or β-lactamase inhibitor (BLI) resistance activity. In addition, the role of individual mutations/a changes is not completely documented or understood.

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Mutations in glycosylation pathways, such as N-linked glycosylation, O-linked glycosylation, and GPI anchor synthesis, lead to Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG). CDG typically present with seizures, hypotonia, and developmental delay but display large clinical variability with symptoms affecting every system in the body. This variability suggests modifier genes might influence the phenotypes.

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Loss of function mutations in the X-linked gene lead to PIGA-CDG, an ultra-rare congenital disorder of glycosylation (CDG), typically presenting with seizures, hypotonia, and neurodevelopmental delay. We identified two brothers (probands) with PIGA-CDG, presenting with epilepsy and mild developmental delay. Both probands carry , an ultra-rare variant predicted to be damaging.

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  • The study aimed to evaluate the risk and prevalence of hospital-acquired bacterial infections in intensive care units during the first wave of COVID-19 by using advanced deep-sequencing techniques.
  • Conducted in a hard-hit region in northern Italy, the research involved collecting and analyzing samples from patients in both regular wards and ICUs to identify specific bacterial pathogens.
  • The findings highlighted the effectiveness of this novel sequencing approach in tracking bacterial transmission and understanding antimicrobial resistance during a time of increased patient load.
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Studies of bacterial adaptation and evolution are hampered by the difficulty of measuring traits such as virulence, drug resistance, and transmissibility in large populations. In contrast, it is now feasible to obtain high-quality complete assemblies of many bacterial genomes thanks to scalable high-accuracy long-read sequencing technologies. To exploit this opportunity, we introduce a phenotype- and alignment-free method for discovering coselected and epistatically interacting genomic variation from genome assemblies covering both core and accessory parts of genomes.

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  • Cannabis is among the most widely used drugs around the world, and its decriminalization has led to increased consumption rates.
  • Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on lifetime and frequency of cannabis use revealed genetic links to specific loci associated with these traits, indicating that both are heritable.
  • The findings suggest that genetic predispositions for cannabis use correlate with other substance use and mood disorders, highlighting the importance of understanding these genetic factors in the context of cannabis use disorder.
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Individuals with schizophrenia frequently experience co-occurring substance use, including tobacco smoking and heavy cannabis use, and substance use disorders. There is interest in understanding the extent to which these relationships are causal, and to what extent shared genetic factors play a role. We explored the relationships between schizophrenia (Scz; European ancestry N = 161,405; African ancestry N = 15,846), cannabis use disorder (CanUD; European ancestry N = 886,025; African ancestry N = 120,208), and ever-regular tobacco smoking (Smk; European ancestry N = 805,431; African ancestry N = 24,278) using the largest available genome-wide studies of these phenotypes in individuals of African and European ancestries.

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  • Multi-drug resistant (MDR) E. coli is a significant public health issue, especially in developing regions like the global south, with travelers spreading it to other areas.
  • A study in Punjab, Pakistan, involved 494 outpatients and 423 community members, analyzing the genetic diversity of E. coli and its antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by collecting and sequencing stool samples, resulting in 5,247 genomes from 1,411 samples.
  • The research found that the genetic lineages and AMR profiles of E. coli in the Punjabi population differed notably from those in high-income countries, and antibiotic use was linked to increased prevalence of MDR strains, highlighting the need for ongoing regional genomic surveillance to understand and manage this
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Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of coffee intake in US-based 23andMe participants (N = 130,153) and identified 7 significant loci, with many replicating in three multi-ancestral cohorts. We examined genetic correlations and performed a phenome-wide association study across hundreds of biomarkers, health, and lifestyle traits, then compared our results to the largest available GWAS of coffee intake from the UK Biobank (UKB; N = 334,659).

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Population genomics has revolutionized our ability to study bacterial evolution by enabling data-driven discovery of the genetic architecture of trait variation. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have more recently become accompanied by genome-wide epistasis and co-selection (GWES) analysis, which offers a phenotype-free approach to generating hypotheses about selective processes that simultaneously impact multiple loci across the genome. However, existing GWES methods only consider associations between distant pairs of loci within the genome due to the strong impact of linkage-disequilibrium (LD) over short distances.

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  • Most lung cancer patients, especially those with EGFR mutations, develop resistance to treatment drugs like osimertinib and gefitinib, often leading to relapse.* -
  • Genome-wide CRISPR screenings pinpointed key resistance pathways, revealing that regulation of the Hippo pathway is a significant factor in this drug resistance among cancer cells.* -
  • Targeting both the Hippo pathway and EGFR together shows promise as a new treatment approach for EGFR mutant lung cancer, potentially improving outcomes for patients.*
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The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore the everyday and exceptional challenges for mothers. Rarely, however, did research or social commentary acknowledge the multiplicities of motherhood during this prolonged period of risk, disruption, and uncertainty. This paper draws upon interviews with 24 mothers living in Aotearoa New Zealand during the pandemic, including women who were pregnant and gave birth during lockdowns, teenage mothers, single and low-income mothers, and working mothers.

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Objective: This study aims to investigate how athlete ethnicity is discussed in the inclusion and exclusion criteria, methodology, findings, and conclusions of research focused on menstrual health in sports science and medicine.

Design: A scoping review of sports-based research conducted on athletes related to (1) menstrual health and ethnicity, (2) how researchers include/exclude participants based on ethnicity and (3) how ethnicity is discussed.

Data Sources: Electronic search of PubMed and ProQuest.

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Individuals with schizophrenia frequently experience co-occurring substance use, including tobacco smoking and heavy cannabis use, and substance use disorders. There is interest in understanding the extent to which these relationships are causal, and to what extent shared genetic factors play a role. We explored the relationships between schizophrenia (Scz), cannabis use disorder (CanUD), and ever-regular tobacco smoking (Smk) using the largest available genome-wide studies of these phenotypes in individuals of African and European ancestries.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Recent advances in single-cell biology have sparked interest in pinpointing condition-specific cell subtypes, which show consistent gene expression patterns in relation to biological conditions, particularly in disease versus normal scenarios.
  • - Current methods for identifying these cell subtypes have key limitations, including neglecting the interactions between gene expression and biological conditions, improperly controlling weights from both data types, and failing to account for non-linear relationships.
  • - To overcome these limitations, researchers developed scDeepJointClust, a novel method that uses a deep neural network to simultaneously analyze gene expression and biological conditions, showing improved sensitivity and specificity in tests with both simulation and actual disease data.
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Mutations in the phosphatidylinositol glycan biosynthesis class A (PIGA) gene cause a rare, X-linked recessive congenital disorder of glycosylation. Phosphatidylinositol glycan biosynthesis class A congenital disorder of glycosylation (PIGA-CDG) is characterized by seizures, intellectual and developmental delay, and congenital malformations. The PIGA gene encodes an enzyme involved in the first step of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor biosynthesis.

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Mutations in the phosphatidylinositol glycan biosynthesis class A (PIGA) gene cause a rare, X-linked recessive congenital disorder of glycosylation (CDG). PIGA-CDG is characterized by seizures, intellectual and developmental delay, and congenital malformations. The gene encodes an enzyme involved in the first step of GPI anchor biosynthesis.

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  • - The study investigates antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Klebsiella bacteria across various sources in Ghana, as part of a One Health approach that considers health across humans, animals, and the environment, especially in the context of low- and middle-income countries.
  • - Researchers collected and analyzed samples from 78 locations in and around Tamale, Ghana, including hospitals, farms, and residential areas, comparing their findings to data from Pavia, Italy, and Tromsø, Norway, to examine the prevalence of AMR-associated genes.
  • - Out of 957 samples, 620 were positive for Klebsiella, with the majority being Klebsiella pneumoniae; while carbapenem-resistant strains were rare, extended-spectrum
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Article Synopsis
  • A genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 130,153 participants from 23andMe identified 7 genetic loci related to coffee intake, which were also found in other diverse groups.
  • When comparing findings with a larger UK Biobank sample (334,659), significant differences in genetic correlations were observed, particularly regarding health traits and cognition.
  • The study highlights how varying cultural and behavioral contexts in different cohorts can impact the relationship between genetics and coffee consumption.
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Impulsivity is a multidimensional heritable phenotype that broadly refers to the tendency to act prematurely and is associated with multiple forms of psychopathology, including substance use disorders. We performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of eight impulsive personality traits from the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and the short UPPS-P Impulsive Personality Scale (N = 123,509-133,517 23andMe research participants of European ancestry), and a measure of Drug Experimentation (N = 130,684). Because these GWAS implicated the gene CADM2, we next performed single-SNP phenome-wide studies (PheWAS) of several of the implicated variants in CADM2 in a multi-ancestral 23andMe cohort (N = 3,229,317, European; N = 579,623, Latin American; N = 199,663, African American).

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This paper explores the gendered, disruptive effects and affective intensities of COVID-19 and the ways that women working in the sport and fitness sector were prompted to establish more-than-human connection through technologies, the environment, and objects. Bringing together theoretical and embodied insights from object interviews with 17 women sport and fitness professionals (i.e.

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Athlete health and wellbeing requires a holistic, multidimensional approach to understanding, supporting, and treating individual athletes. Building more supportive, inclusive, and equitable environments for the health and wellbeing of women and gender expansive people further requires gender-responsive approaches that promote broader cultural change. Feminist sport and exercise medicine practitioners, sports scientists, and social science researchers are increasingly coming together in their efforts to do this work.

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Opportunistic bacterial pathogen species and their strains that colonise the human gut are generally understood to compete against both each other and the commensal species colonising this ecosystem. Currently we are lacking a population-wide quantification of strain-level colonisation dynamics and the relationship of colonisation potential to prevalence in disease, and how ecological factors might be modulating these. Here, using a combination of latest high-resolution metagenomics and strain-level genomic epidemiology methods we performed a characterisation of the competition and colonisation dynamics for a longitudinal cohort of neonatal gut microbiomes.

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Article Synopsis
  • The Klebsiella group is diverse and found in various environments, but some species are opportunistic pathogens that can carry antimicrobial resistance genes.
  • The study analyzed 3,482 genome sequences of 15 Klebsiella species over 17 months in Pavia, Italy, which is known for high rates of carbapenem-resistant strains.
  • Researchers found no evidence of carbapenem resistance outside healthcare settings and noted limited transmission from animals and the environment to humans, while providing insights into the group's genomic diversity and structure.
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