Publications by authors named "Wees S"

Background: Stroke prevalence is one of the most pressing issues in many sub-Saharan African countries. Stroke survivors often face disabilities, mental health problems, and experience stigma. Research on post-stroke experiences and interventions is limited, particularly in low and middle-income countries, including Ghana.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mistreatment during institutional childbirth is multifactorial and can have a detrimental effect on women's health and future care-seeking behaviour. Understanding its determinants is essential for improving respectful maternity care. This study aimed to explore women's experiences of mistreatment during childbirth in Nepal.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays a key role in regulating plant development and stress responses by triggering a complex gene regulatory network involving many transcription factors (TFs) and genes.
  • An RNA-seq time series identified 7151 differentially expressed genes in response to ABA treatment, which were organized into 44 coexpressed modules responsible for various biological functions.
  • The study further analyzed TF regulation and interaction within the ABA gene regulatory network, highlighting the significance of the bZIP TF family and identifying GT3a as a positive regulator of drought tolerance, validated by drought assays.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have revolutionized the treatment landscape of advanced malignancies, but come with a diverse spectrum of immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Mechanistic studies can aid the transition from expert-opinion to evidence-based irAE treatment strategies. We aimed to longitudinally characterize peripheral blood T and B cell dynamics in ICI-treated patients by multicolor flow cytometry and serum multiplex immunoassay at baseline, ± 3 weeks and ± 6 weeks or upon clinically relevant irAEs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Current whole sporozoite (SPZ) vaccines show limited effectiveness in malaria-endemic regions, possibly due to reduced immune responses from prior malaria exposure.
  • Researchers have developed a method to enhance SPZ vaccine immunogenicity by attaching a TLR7 agonist-based adjuvant, leading to significantly higher immune responses, including a 35-fold increase in pro-inflammatory IL-6 production.
  • Mice immunized with this enhanced SPZ vaccine demonstrated improved production of specific immune cells, suggesting that this chemical augmentation strategy could make malaria vaccines more effective.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Vaccination efforts are a vital part of controlling the spread of diseases, however, lack of vaccine acceptance undermines the efficacy of this public health effort. Current evidence suggests that the most effective interventions to support vaccination uptake and positive vaccination beliefs are multicomponent, and dialogue based. Peer-based education interventions are such a strategy that involves an individual within the same group to act as the vaccine educator.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * This study focused on Pieris butterflies' oviposition preferences across 350 Arabidopsis plant variations and identified genes WRKY42 and AOC1 influencing these choices.
  • * Results showed that while WRKY42 strongly affected butterfly oviposition preferences, its presence led to poor performance of caterpillars, highlighting how plant traits can impact both insect behavior and offspring survival.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Covering: up to 2022With the emergence of large amounts of omics data, computational approaches for the identification of plant natural product biosynthetic pathways and their genetic regulation have become increasingly important. While genomes provide clues regarding functional associations between genes based on gene clustering, metabolome mining provides a foundational technology to chart natural product structural diversity in plants, and transcriptomics has been successfully used to identify new members of their biosynthetic pathways based on coexpression. Thus far, most approaches utilizing transcriptomics and metabolomics have been targeted towards specific pathways and use one type of omics data at a time.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Transcriptional reprogramming is an integral part of plant immunity. Tight regulation of the immune transcriptome is essential for a proper response of plants to different types of pathogens. Consequently, transcriptional regulators are proven targets of pathogens to enhance their virulence.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Plants detect neighboring competitors through a decrease in the ratio between red and far-red light (R:FR). This decreased R:FR is perceived by phytochrome photoreceptors and triggers shade avoidance responses such as shoot elongation and upward leaf movement (hyponasty). In addition to promoting elongation growth, low R:FR perception enhances plant susceptibility to pathogens: the growth-defense tradeoff.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers identified eight SA-responsive PCM genes that are activated in response to various pathogens, suggesting a previously uncharacterized role in plant immunity.
  • * Experiments showed that PCM proteins primarily localize to the plasma membrane, and overexpressing these proteins enhances resistance against both biotrophic and hemi-biotrophic pathogens while also affecting light signaling and development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The resurgence of measles globally and the increasing number of unvaccinated clusters call for studies exploring factors that influence measles vaccination uptake. Armenia is a middle-income post-Soviet country with an officially high vaccination coverage. However, concerns about vaccine safety are common.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Plant hormones are essential for regulating the interactions between plants and their complex biotic and abiotic environments. Each hormone initiates a specific molecular pathway and these different hormone pathways are integrated in a complex network of synergistic, antagonistic and additive interactions. This inter-pathway communication is called hormone crosstalk.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Substantial global advocacy efforts have been made over the past decade to encourage partnerships and funding of faith-based organizations in international development programmes in efforts to improve social and health outcomes. Whilst there is a wealth of knowledge on religion and development, including its controversies, less attention has been payed to the role that donors might play. The aim of this study was to describe and analyse the engagement between donors and faith-based organizations in Cameroon's health sector, following the implementation of the Cameroon Health Sector Partnership Strategy (2012).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Plants experience a decrease in the red:far-red light ratio (R:FR) when grown at high planting density. In addition to eliciting the shade avoidance response, low R:FR also enhances plant susceptibility to pathogens via modulation of defense hormone-mediated responses. However, other mechanisms, also affected by low R:FR, have not been considered as potential components in FR-induced susceptibility.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Carbonic anhydrases CA1 and CA4 attenuate plant immunity and can contribute to altered disease resistance levels in response to changing atmospheric CO conditions. β-Carbonic anhydrases (CAs) play an important role in CO metabolism and plant development, but have also been implicated in plant immunity. Here we show that the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae and application of the microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP) flg22 repress CA1 and CA4 gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Thrips are tiny, cell-content-feeding insects that are a major pest on crops and ornamentals. Besides causing direct feeding damage, thrips may also cause indirect damage by vectoring tospoviruses. Novel resistance mechanisms to thrips need to be discovered and validated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Approximately 29% of all vascular plant species are unable to establish an arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis. Despite this, AM fungi (Rhizophagus spp.) are enriched in the root microbiome of the nonhost Arabidopsis thaliana, and Arabidopsis roots become colonized when AM networks nurtured by host plants are available.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In this genome-wide association study, we obtained novel insights into the genetic basis of the effect of herbivory or drought stress on the level of resistance against the fungus Botrytis cinerea. In nature, plants function in complex environments where they encounter different biotic and abiotic stresses individually, sequentially or simultaneously. The adaptive response to a single stress does not always reflect how plants respond to such a stress in combination with other stresses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Whiteflies are among the world's most significant agricultural pests and chemical insecticides are extensively used to reduce crop damage to acceptable levels. However, nearly all insecticides pose a threat to the environment and alternative control methods, such as breeding of crop varieties that are inherently insect-resistant, are needed. Previously, a strong source of plant-age dependent resistance to the cabbage whitefly (Aleyrodes proletella) has been identified in the modern white cabbage (Brassica oleracea var.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Modern animal and crop production practices are associated with the regular use of antimicrobials, potentially increasing selection pressure on bacteria to become resistant. Alternative approaches are needed in order to satisfy the demands of the growing human population without the indiscriminate use of antimicrobials. Researchers have brought a different perspective to solve this problem and have emphasized the exploitation of animal- and plant-associated microorganisms that are beneficial to their hosts through the modulation of the innate immune system.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Jasmonic acid (JA) regulates plant defenses against necrotrophic pathogens and insect herbivores. Salicylic acid (SA) and abscisic acid (ABA) can antagonize JA-regulated defenses, thereby modulating pathogen or insect resistance. We performed a genome-wide association (GWA) study on natural genetic variation in Arabidopsis thaliana for the effect of SA and ABA on the JA pathway.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Plants have developed diverse defence mechanisms to ward off herbivorous pests. However, agriculture still faces estimated crop yield losses ranging from 25% to 40% annually. These losses arise not only because of direct feeding damage, but also because many pests serve as vectors of plant viruses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF