Neutrophil chemotaxis and transcriptomics in term and preterm neonates.

Neutrophils play a crucial role in combating life-threatening bacterial infections in neonates. Previous studies investigating neonatal cell function have been limited because of restricted volume sampling. Here, using novel microfluidic approaches, we provide the first description of neutrophil chemotaxis and transcriptomics from whole blood of human term and preterm neonates, as well as young adults.

Branched Peptides: Acridine and Boronic Acid Derivatives as Antimicrobial Agents.

The emergence of microbial resistance presents a challenge in the development of next generation therapeutics. Herein, we report the discovery of branched peptides decorated with acridine and boronic acid moieties with potent antimicrobial activity. The results revealed minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) as low as 1 μg/mL against , , and .

Late Pliocene environmental change during the transition from Australopithecus to Homo.

It has long been hypothesized that the transition from Australopithecus to Homo in eastern Africa was linked to the spread of open and arid environments near the Plio-Pleistocene boundary, but data for the latest Pliocene are scarce. Here we present new stable carbon isotope data from the late Pliocene mammalian fauna from Ledi-Geraru, in the lower Awash Valley (LAV), Ethiopia, and mammalian community analyses from the LAV and Turkana Basin. These data, combined with pedogenic carbonate stable isotopes, indicate that the two regions were largely similar through the Plio-Pleistocene, but that important environmental differences existed during the emergence of Homo around 2.

Congenital diaphragmatic hernias: from genes to mechanisms to therapies.

Congenital diaphragmatic hernias (CDHs) and structural anomalies of the diaphragm are a common class of congenital birth defects that are associated with significant morbidity and mortality due to associated pulmonary hypoplasia, pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. In ∼30% of CDH patients, genomic analyses have identified a range of genetic defects, including chromosomal anomalies, copy number variants and sequence variants. The affected genes identified in CDH patients include transcription factors, such as , , and , and signaling pathway components, including members of the retinoic acid pathway.

Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Readmission after Deceased Donor Renal Transplantation.

Early hospital readmissions after kidney transplantation pose a significant financial burden and hardship for patients and health-care institutions alike. We sought to identify the risk factors associated with increased likelihood of readmission after transplantation, and examined to determine whether patient socioeconomic demographics impacted the likelihood of perioperative readmissions. We evaluated all deceased donor renal transplants performed at our institution between August 2011 and December 2015.

Impact of Early-Life Exposures to Infections, Antibiotics, and Vaccines on Perinatal and Long-term Health and Disease.

Essentially, all neonates are exposed to infections, antibiotics, or vaccines early in their lives. This is especially true for those neonates born underweight or premature. In contrast to septic adults and children who are at an increased risk for subsequent infections, exposure to infection during the neonatal period is not associated with an increased risk of subsequent infection and may be paradoxically associated with reductions in late-onset sepsis (LOS) in the most premature infants.

The effect of bilateral transcranial direct current stimulation on early auditory processing in schizophrenia: a preliminary study.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was applied bilaterally over the auditory cortex in 12 schizophrenia patients to modulate early auditory processing. Performance on a tone discrimination task (tone-matching task-TMT) and auditory mismatch negativity were assessed after counterbalanced anodal, cathodal, and sham tDCS. Cathodal stimulation improved TMT performance (p < 0.

Social Disconnection in Schizophrenia and the General Community.

Social disability is a defining characteristic of schizophrenia and a substantial public health problem. It has several components that are difficult to disentangle. One component, social disconnection, occurs extensively in the general community among nonhelp-seeking individuals.

Survival, bacterial clearance and thrombocytopenia are improved in polymicrobial sepsis by targeting nuclear transport shuttles.

The rising tide of sepsis, a leading cause of death in the US and globally, is not adequately controlled by current antimicrobial therapies and supportive measures, thereby requiring new adjunctive treatments. Severe microvascular injury and multiple organ failure in sepsis are attributed to a "genomic storm" resulting from changes in microbial and host genomes encoding virulence factors and endogenous inflammatory mediators, respectively. This storm is mediated by stress-responsive transcription factors that are ferried to the nucleus by nuclear transport shuttles importins/karyopherins.

Single-Atom Scale Structural Selectivity in Te Nanowires Encapsulated Inside Ultranarrow, Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes.

Extreme nanowires (ENs) represent the ultimate class of crystals: They are the smallest possible periodic materials. With atom-wide motifs repeated in one dimension (1D), they offer a privileged perspective into the physics and chemistry of low-dimensional systems. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) provide ideal environments for the creation of such materials.

Holocene winter climate variability in Central and Eastern Europe.

Among abundant reconstructions of Holocene climate in Europe, only a handful has addressed winter conditions, and most of these are restricted in length and/or resolution. Here we present a record of late autumn through early winter air temperature and moisture source changes in East-Central Europe for the Holocene, based on stable isotopic analysis of an ice core recovered from a cave in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains. During the past 10,000 years, reconstructed temperature changes followed insolation, with a minimum in the early Holocene, followed by gradual and continuous increase towards the mid-to-late-Holocene peak (between 4-2 kcal BP), and finally by a decrease after 0.

Validation of the Sepsis MetaScore for Diagnosis of Neonatal Sepsis.

What’s Known On This Subject: Neonates are at increased risk for developing sepsis, but this population often exhibits ambiguous clinical signs that complicate the diagnosis of infection. No biomarker has yet shown enough diagnostic accuracy to rule out sepsis at the time of clinical suspicion.

What This Study Adds: We show that a gene-expression-based signature is an accurate objective measure of the risk of sepsis in a neonate or preterm infant, and it substantially improves diagnostic accuracy over that of commonly used laboratory-based testing.

Cognitive correlates of visual neural plasticity in schizophrenia.

Neuroplasticity may be an important treatment target to improve the cognitive deficits in schizophrenia (SZ). Yet, it is poorly understood and difficult to assess. Recently, a visual high-frequency stimulation (HFS) paradigm that potentiates electroencephalography (EEG)-based visual evoked potentials (VEP) has been developed to assess neural plasticity in the visual cortex.

Linking optic radiation volume to visual perception in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

People with schizophrenia typically show visual processing deficits on masking tasks and other performance-based measures, while people with bipolar disorder may have related deficits. The etiology of these deficits is not well understood. Most neuroscientific studies of perception in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have focused on visual processing areas in the cerebral cortex, but perception also depends on earlier components of the visual system that few studies have examined in these disorders.

Genome-wide enrichment of damaging de novo variants in patients with isolated and complex congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH) is a common and often lethal birth defect characterized by diaphragmatic structural defects and pulmonary hypoplasia. CDH is isolated in 60% of newborns, but may also be part of a complex phenotype with additional anomalies. We performed whole exome sequencing (WES) on 87 individuals with isolated or complex CDH and on their unaffected parents, to assess the contribution of de novo mutations in the etiology of diaphragmatic and pulmonary defects and to identify new candidate genes.

Genome-wide association study of sepsis in extremely premature infants.

Objective: To identify genetic variants associated with sepsis (early-onset and late-onset) using a genome-wide association (GWA) analysis in a cohort of extremely premature infants.

Study Design: Previously generated GWA data from the Neonatal Research Network's anonymised genomic database biorepository of extremely premature infants were used for this study. Sepsis was defined as culture-positive early-onset or late-onset sepsis or culture-proven meningitis.

Immunological Defects in Neonatal Sepsis and Potential Therapeutic Approaches.

Despite advances in critical care medicine, neonatal sepsis remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with the greatest risk affecting very low birth weight, preterm neonates. The presentation of neonatal sepsis varies markedly from its presentation in adults, and there is no clear consensus definition of neonatal sepsis. Previous work has demonstrated that when neonates become septic, death can occur rapidly over a matter of hours or days and is generally associated with inflammation, organ injury, and respiratory failure.

Mutations in BMPR2 are not present in patients with pulmonary hypertension associated with congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

Background: Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is a prevalent major congenital anomaly with significant morbidity and mortality. Thirty to 40% mortality in CDH is largely attributed to pulmonary hypoplasia and pulmonary hypertension (PH). We hypothesized that the underlying genetic risk factors for hereditary PH are shared with CDH associated PH.

A definition of gentle ventilation in congenital diaphragmatic hernia: a survey of neonatologists and pediatric surgeons.

Ventilation practices have changed significantly since the initial reports in the mid 1980 of successful use of permissive hypercapnia and spontaneous ventilation [often called gentle ventilation (GV)] in infants with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH). However, there has been little standardization of these practices or of the physiologic limits that define GV. We sought to ascertain among Diaphragmatic Hernia Research and Exploration; Advancing Molecular Science (DHREAMS) centers' GV practices in the neonatal management of CDH.

Functional connectivity when detecting rare visual targets in schizophrenia.

Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate difficulties in attending to important stimuli (e.g., targets) and ignoring distractors (e.

Research Participants' Preferences for Hypothetical Secondary Results from Genomic Research.

Secondary or incidental results can be identified in genomic research that increasingly uses whole exome/genome sequencing. Understanding research participants' preferences for secondary results and what influences these decisions is important for patient education, counseling, and consent, and for the development of policies regarding return of secondary results. Two hundred nineteen research participants enrolled in genomic studies were surveyed regarding hypothetical preferences for specific types of secondary results, and these preferences were correlated with demographic information and psychosocial data.