Phenome-wide association network demonstrates close connection with individual disease trajectories from the HUNT study.

Disease networks offer a potential road map of connections between diseases. Several studies have created disease networks where diseases are connected either based on shared genes or Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) associations. However, it is still unclear to which degree SNP-based networks map to empirical, co-observed diseases within a different, general, adult study population spanning over a long time period.

Author Correction: Predictive evolution of metabolic phenotypes using model-designed environments.

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Differences in bile acid profiles between cholestatic diseases - Development of a high throughput assay for dried bloodspots.

Background: Cholestasis causes accumulation of bile acids (BAs) and changes the circulating bile acid profile. Quantification of circulating BAs in dried bloodspots (DBS) may demonstrate obstruction of bile flow and altered bile acid metabolism in the liver. High sample throughput enables rapid screening of cholestatic diseases.

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy among women with cardiovascular disease in Norway: A historical cohort study.

Introduction: Women with cardiovascular disease may be at increased risk of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP). We aimed to: (1) Investigate the occurrence of HDP in a cohort of pregnant women with cardiovascular disease and compare it with the occurrence in the general population. (2) Assess the association between maternal cardiovascular risk and risk of HDP.

Elevated interleukin 8 and matrix metalloproteinase 9 levels are associated with myocardial pathology in users of anabolic-androgenic steroids.

Aims: In the current paper, we aim to explore the effect of both current and former long-term anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) use on regulation of systemic inflammatory markers and mediators of extracellular matrix (ECM) remodelling and their association with hormones and echocardiographic myocardial pathology in weightlifters.

Methods And Results: In a cross-sectional study, 93 weightlifting AAS users, of whom 62 were current and 31 were past users, with at least 1-year cumulative AAS use (mean 11 ± 7 accumulated years of AAS use), were compared with 54 non-using weightlifting controls (WLCs) using clinical interview, blood pressure measurements, and echocardiography. Serum levels of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, tumour necrosis factor (TNF), interferon (IFN)-γ, growth differentiation factor (GDF)-15, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9, sex hormones, and lipids were analysed.

Treatment-seeking behavior and cardiovascular morbidity among men with anabolic-androgenic steroid use: A cross-sectional study.

Aims: To determine associations between anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) use-related morbidity including cardiovascular disease (CVD) and engagement to health services.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 90 males with at least 12 months cumulative current or former use of AAS were included. The participants were divided into a treatment-seeking group (TSG) and a non-treatment seeking group (non-TSG) based on their responses to a self-report web questionnaire.

Temporal expression and spatial distribution of the proteoglycan versican during cardiac fibrosis development.

Cardiac fibrosis is a central pathological feature in several cardiac diseases, but the underlying molecular players are insufficiently understood. The extracellular matrix proteoglycan versican is elevated in heart failure and suggested to be a target for treatment. However, the temporal expression and spatial distribution of versican and the versican cleavage fragment containing the neoepitope DPEAAE in cardiac fibrosis remains to be elucidated.

Severe biventricular cardiomyopathy in both current and former long-term users of anabolic-androgenic steroids.

Aims: This study aims to explore the cardiovascular effects of long-term anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) use in both current and former weightlifting AAS users and estimate the occurrence of severe reduced myocardial function and the impact of duration and amount of AAS.

Methods And Results: In this cross-sectional study, 101 weightlifting AAS users with at least 1 year cumulative AAS use (mean 11 ± 7 accumulated years of AAS use) were compared with 71 non-using weightlifting controls (WLC) using clinical data and echocardiography. Sixty-nine were current, 30 former (>1 year since quitted), and 2 AAS users were not available for this classification.

Genome-scale metabolic models reveal determinants of phenotypic differences in non-Saccharomyces yeasts.

Background: Use of alternative non-Saccharomyces yeasts in wine and beer brewing has gained more attention the recent years. This is both due to the desire to obtain a wider variety of flavours in the product and to reduce the final alcohol content. Given the metabolic differences between the yeast species, we wanted to account for some of the differences by using in silico models.

Phage therapy minimally affects the water microbiota in an Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) rearing system while still preventing infection.

Excessive usage of antibiotics threatens the bacterial diversity in the microbiota of animals. An alternative to antibiotics that has been suggested to not disturb the microbiota is (bacterio)phage therapy. In this study, we challenged germ-free and microbially colonized yolk sac fry of Atlantic salmon with Flavobacterium columnare and observed that the mere presence of a microbiota protected the fish against lethal infection.

Hunting for the elusive target antigen in gestational alloimmune liver disease (GALD).

The prevailing concept is that gestational alloimmune liver disease (GALD) is caused by maternal antibodies targeting a currently unknown antigen on the liver of the fetus. This leads to deposition of complement on the fetal hepatocytes and death of the fetal hepatocytes and extensive liver injury. In many cases, the newborn dies.

High prevalence of pre-eclampsia in women with coarctation of the aorta.

Aims: The aim was to study pregnancy outcomes in women with coarctation of the aorta (CoA) and associations to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Maternal morbidity and mortality are higher in women with heart disease and pre-eclampsia. Chronic hypertension, frequently encountered in CoA, is a risk factor for pre-eclampsia.

Inflammation and Syndecan-4 Shedding from Cardiac Cells in Ischemic and Non-Ischemic Heart Disease.

Circulating biomarkers reflecting cardiac inflammation are needed to improve the diagnostics and guide the treatment of heart failure patients. The cardiac production and shedding of the transmembrane proteoglycan syndecan-4 is upregulated by innate immunity signaling pathways. Here, we investigated the potential of syndecan-4 as a blood biomarker of cardiac inflammation.

Parameter inference for enzyme and temperature constrained genome-scale models.

The metabolism of all living organisms is dependent on temperature, and therefore, having a good method to predict temperature effects at a system level is of importance. A recently developed Bayesian computational framework for enzyme and temperature constrained genome-scale models (etcGEM) predicts the temperature dependence of an organism's metabolic network from thermodynamic properties of the metabolic enzymes, markedly expanding the scope and applicability of constraint-based metabolic modelling. Here, we show that the Bayesian calculation method for inferring parameters for an etcGEM is unstable and unable to estimate the posterior distribution.

A study of a diauxic growth experiment using an expanded dynamic flux balance framework.

Flux balance analysis (FBA) remains one of the most used methods for modeling the entirety of cellular metabolism, and a range of applications and extensions based on the FBA framework have been generated. Dynamic flux balance analysis (dFBA), the expansion of FBA into the time domain, still has issues regarding accessibility limiting its widespread adoption and application, such as a lack of a consistently rigid formalism and tools that can be applied without expert knowledge. Recent work has combined dFBA with enzyme-constrained flux balance analysis (decFBA), which has been shown to greatly improve accuracy in the comparison of computational simulations and experimental data, but such approaches generally do not take into account the fact that altering the enzyme composition of a cell is not an instantaneous process.

Lumican accumulates with fibrillar collagen in fibrosis in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Aims: Familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common form of inherited cardiac disease. It is characterized by myocardial hypertrophy and diastolic dysfunction, and can lead to severe heart failure, arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death. Cardiac fibrosis, defined by excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) components, is central to the pathophysiology of HCM.