Chiroptical Switching and Quantitative Chirality Sensing with (Pseudo)halogenated Quinones.

(Pseudo)halogenated quinones react smoothly with chiral amines, amino alcohols, and amino acids toward push-pull conjugates with optical sensing and switching applications. The chiroptically active conjugates serve as redox switches between two reversibly interconverting states with remarkably different UV and CD signatures. Addition of sodium borohydride generates a hydroquinone derivative that is quantitatively re-oxidized to the original quinone upon exposure to air.

SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Binding and Neutralization in Dried Blood Spot Eluates and Paired Plasma.

Wide-scale assessment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-specific antibodies is critical to understanding population seroprevalence, correlates of protection, and the longevity of vaccine-elicited responses. Most SARS-CoV-2 studies characterize antibody responses in plasma/sera. While reliable and broadly used, these samples pose several logistical restrictions, such as requiring venipuncture for collection and a cold chain for transportation and storage.

Preanalytical errors on zinc concentrations caused by single-use gloves.

Preanalytical errors causing specimen contamination with zinc (Zn) are disastrous for routine medical diagnostics or scientific studies. The aim of the study presented here is to simulate contamination possibilities when using single-use gloves. The ability to release Zn into the specimen was tested using nitril (A), vinyl (B) and latex (C) gloves with 15 (14) replications.

Comprehensive characterization of the antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein after infection and/or vaccination.

Background: Control of the COVID-19 pandemic will rely on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-elicited antibodies to protect against emerging and future variants; an understanding of the unique features of the humoral responses to infection and vaccination, including different vaccine platforms, is needed to achieve this goal.

Methods: The epitopes and pathways of escape for Spike-specific antibodies in individuals with diverse infection and vaccination history were profiled using Phage-DMS. Principal component analysis was performed to identify regions of antibody binding along the Spike protein that differentiate the samples from one another.

Determination of ghrelin and desacyl ghrelin in human plasma and urine by means of LC-MS/MS for doping controls.

The hunger hormone ghrelin (G) is classified as prohibited substance in professional sport by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), due to its known growth hormone releasing properties. The endogenous bioactive peptide consists of 28 amino acids with a caprylic acid attached to serine at position 3. Within this study, it was aimed to develop methods to determine G and desacyl ghrelin (DAG) in plasma and urine by means of LC-MS/MS.

Glutathione-S-transferase P promotes glycolysis in asthma in association with oxidation of pyruvate kinase M2.

Background: Interleukin-1-dependent increases in glycolysis promote allergic airways disease in mice and disruption of pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) activity is critical herein. Glutathione-S-transferase P (GSTP) has been implicated in asthma pathogenesis and regulates the oxidation state of proteins via S-glutathionylation. We addressed whether GSTP-dependent S-glutathionylation promotes allergic airways disease by promoting glycolytic reprogramming and whether it involves the disruption of PKM2.

Altered resting-state functional connectome in major depressive disorder: a mega-analysis from the PsyMRI consortium.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with abnormal neural circuitry. It can be measured by assessing functional connectivity (FC) at resting-state functional MRI, that may help identifying neural markers of MDD and provide further efficient diagnosis and monitor treatment outcomes. The main aim of the present study is to investigate, in an unbiased way, functional alterations in patients with MDD using a large multi-center dataset from the PsyMRI consortium including 1546 participants from 19 centers ( www.

Enantioseparation and racemization of α-aryl-α-fluoroacetonitriles.

The 2-Aryl-2-fluoroacetonitriles have garnered increasing interest as versatile building blocks in asymmetric synthesis. However, the configurational stability of these organofluorines is poorly understood and analytical methods that can be used to differentiate between their enantiomers remain underdeveloped. In this study, baseline high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) enantioseparation of ten 2-aryl-2-fluoroacetonitriles was achieved by screening frequently used chiral stationary phases.

Machine learning techniques demonstrating individual movement patterns of the vertebral column: the fingerprint of spinal motion.

Surface topography systems enable the capture of spinal dynamic movement; however, it is unclear whether vertebral dynamics are unique enough to identify individuals. Therefore, in this study, we investigated whether the identification of individuals is possible based on dynamic spinal data. Three different data representations were compared (automated extracted features using contrastive loss and triplet loss functions, as well as simple descriptive statistics).

VisQA: X-raying Vision and Language Reasoning in Transformers.

Visual Question Answering systems target answering open-ended textual questions given input images. They are a testbed for learning high-level reasoning with a primary use in HCI, for instance assistance for the visually impaired. Recent research has shown that state-of-the-art models tend to produce answers exploiting biases and shortcuts in the training data, and sometimes do not even look at the input image, instead of performing the required reasoning steps.

Erythrocyte fatty acid membrane composition in children on long-term parenteral nutrition enriched with ω-3 fatty acids.

Background: Composite lipid emulsions containing soybean oil (30%), medium-chain triglycerides (30%), olive oil (25%), and fish oil (15%) (SMOF) are now widely used.

Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the tolerance, the efficiency, and the erythrocyte fatty acid (FA) profile for children on long-term home parenteral nutrition (HPN) receiving a composite fish oil-based emulsion (FOLE).

Methods: At baseline, children (n = 46) with severe intestinal failure highly dependent on parenteral nutrition (PN) for ≥1 y were included in the study when they had received the composite FOLE for >6 mo.

Classification and Automated Interpretation of Spinal Posture Data Using a Pathology-Independent Classifier and Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI).

Clinical classification models are mostly pathology-dependent and, thus, are only able to detect pathologies they have been trained for. Research is needed regarding pathology-independent classifiers and their interpretation. Hence, our aim is to develop a pathology-independent classifier that provides prediction probabilities and explanations of the classification decisions.

Novel Ubiquitin Specific Protease-13 Inhibitors Alleviate Neurodegenerative Pathology.

Ubiquitin Specific Protease-13 (USP13) promotes protein de-ubiquitination and is poorly understood in neurodegeneration. USP13 is upregulated in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), and USP13 knockdown via shRNA reduces neurotoxic proteins and increases proteasome activity in models of neurodegeneration. We synthesized novel analogues of spautin-1 which is a non-specific USP13 inhibitor but unable to penetrate the brain.

Mapping Orbital-Resolved Magnetism in Single Lanthanide Atoms.

Single lanthanide atoms and molecules are promising candidates for atomic data storage and quantum logic due to the long lifetime of their magnetic quantum states. Accessing and controlling these states through electrical transport requires precise knowledge of their electronic configuration at the level of individual atomic orbitals, especially of the outer shells involved in transport. However, no experimental techniques have so far shown the required sensitivity to probe single atoms with orbital selectivity.

Nrf2 activation does not affect adenoma development in a mouse model of colorectal cancer.

Transcription factor nuclear factor erythroid 2 p45-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and its main negative regulator, Kelch-like ECH associated protein 1 (Keap1), are at the interface between redox and intermediary metabolism. Nrf2 activation is protective in models of human disease and has benefits in clinical trials. Consequently, the Keap1/Nrf2 protein complex is a drug target.

Referential alarm calling elicits future vigilance in a host of an avian brood parasite.

Yellow warblers () use referential 'seet' calls to warn mates of brood parasitic brown-headed cowbirds (). In response to seet calls during the day, female warblers swiftly move to sit tightly on their nests, which may prevent parasitism by physically blocking female cowbirds from inspecting and laying in the nest. However, cowbirds lay their eggs just prior to sunrise, not during daytime.

The STE20 kinase TAOK3 controls the development of house dust mite-induced asthma in mice.

Background: The most common endotype of asthma is type 2-high asthma, which is sometimes driven by adaptive allergen-specific T2 lymphocytes that react to allergens presented by dendritic cells (DCs), or sometimes by an innate immune response dominated by type 2 innate lymphocytes (ILC2s). Understanding the underlying pathophysiology of asthma is essential to improve patient-tailored therapy. The STE20 kinase thousand-and-one kinase 3 (TAOK3) controls key features in the biology of DCs and lymphocytes, but to our knowledge, its potential usefulness as a target for asthma therapy has not yet been addressed.

Affinity Tag Coating Enables Reliable Detection of Antigen-Specific B Cells in Immunospot Assays.

Assessment of humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious agents is typically restricted to detecting antigen-specific antibodies in the serum. Rarely does immune monitoring entail assessment of the memory B-cell compartment itself, although it is these cells that engage in secondary antibody responses capable of mediating immune protection when pre-existing antibodies fail to prevent re-infection. There are few techniques that are capable of detecting rare antigen-specific B cells while also providing information regarding their relative abundance, class/subclass usage and functional affinity.

Salient objects dominate the central fixation bias when orienting toward images.

Short-latency saccades are often biased toward salient objects or toward the center of images, for example, when inspecting photographs of natural scenes. Here, we measured the contribution of salient objects and central fixation bias to visual selection over time. Participants made saccades to images containing one salient object on a structured background and were instructed to either look at (i) the image center, (ii) the salient object, or (iii) at a cued position halfway in between the two.

One Gene, Many Facets: Multiple Immune Pathway Dysregulation in SOCS1 Haploinsufficiency.

Background: Inborn errors of immunity (IEI) present with a large phenotypic spectrum of disease, which can pose diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. Suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 (SOCS1) is a key negative regulator of cytokine signaling, and has recently been associated with a novel IEI. Of patients described to date, it is apparent that haploinsufficiency has a pleiotropic effect in humans.

Photosensitivity and cGAS-Dependent IFN-1 Activation in Patients with Lupus and TREX1 Deficiency.

The exonuclease TREX1 safeguards the cells against DNA accumulation in the cytosol and thereby prevents innate immune activation and autoimmunity. TREX1 mutations lead to chronic DNA damage and cell-intrinsic IFN-1 response. Associated disease phenotypes include Aicardi‒Goutières syndrome, familial chilblain lupus, and systemic lupus erythematosus.