Quantifying the relationship between gardening and health and well-being in the UK: a survey during the covid-19 pandemic.

Background: Rates of non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, and mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, are high and rising in the urbanising world. Gardening could improve both mental and physical health and help prevent a range of conditions by increasing fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption, promoting physical activity, and reducing stress. However, good quality quantitative research in the area is scarce, and our understanding of the role of allotments and home gardens, and the effects of the level of engagement in gardening and involvement with food production has thus far been limited.

Role of PMR4 and PDLP1 in priming of early acting penetration defense by resistance-inducing β-amino acids.

R-β-homoserine (RBH) and β-aminobutyric acid (BABA) induce resistance against the oomycete () in Arabidopsis, which is based on priming of multiple defense layers, including early acting penetration resistance at the cell wall. Here, we have examined the molecular basis of RBH- and BABA-primed defense by cell wall papillae against . Three-dimensional reconstruction of -induced papillae by confocal microscopy revealed no structural differences between control-, RBH-, and BABA-treated plants after challenge.

Equivalence trial of proposed denosumab biosimilar GP2411 and reference denosumab in postmenopausal osteoporosis: the ROSALIA study.

Denosumab is a monoclonal antibody used to reduce risk of fractures in osteoporosis. ROSALIA was a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, integrated phase I/phase III study comparing the efficacy, pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD), immunogenicity, and safety of proposed biosimilar denosumab GP2411 with reference denosumab (REF-DMAb) (Prolia®; Amgen). Postmenopausal women with osteoporosis were randomized 1:1 to 2 60-mg doses of GP2411 or REF-DMAb, one at study start and one at week 26.

The Role of β-Dystroglycan in Nuclear Dynamics.

Dystroglycan is a ubiquitously expressed heterodimeric cell-surface laminin receptor with roles in cell adhesion, signalling, and membrane stabilisation. More recently, the transmembrane β-subunit of dystroglycan has been shown to localise to both the nuclear envelope and the nucleoplasm. This has led to the hypothesis that dystroglycan may have a structural role at the nuclear envelope analogous to its role at the plasma membrane.

N-methyladenosine modification is not a general trait of viral RNA genomes.

Despite the nuclear localization of the mA machinery, the genomes of multiple exclusively-cytoplasmic RNA viruses, such as chikungunya (CHIKV) and dengue (DENV), are reported to be extensively mA-modified. However, these findings are mostly based on mA-Seq, an antibody-dependent technique with a high rate of false positives. Here, we address the presence of mA in CHIKV and DENV RNAs.

Antimicrobial peptide AK as a gene delivery vector in cancer cells.

Designed peptides are promising biomaterials for biomedical applications. The amphiphilic cationic antimicrobial peptide (AMP), AK, can self-assemble into nano-rod structures and has shown cancer cell selectivity and could therefore be a promising candidate for therapeutic delivery into cancer cells. In this paper, we investigate the selectivity of AK for cancer cell models, examining its effect on two human cancer cell lines, A431 and HCT-116.

A flow cytometry-based assay to determine the ability of anti-Streptococcus pyogenes antibodies to mediate monocytic phagocytosis in human sera.

Streptococcus pyogenes, commonly referred to as Group A Streptococcus (Strep A), causes a spectrum of diseases, with the potential to progress into life-threatening illnesses and autoimmune complications. The escalating threat of antimicrobial resistance, stemming from the prevalent reliance on antibiotic therapies to manage Strep A infections, underscores the critical need for the development of disease control strategies centred around vaccination. Phagocytes play a critical role in controlling Strep A infections, and phagocytosis-replicating assays are essential for vaccine development.

Adaptive Relation-Aware Network for zero-shot classification.

Supervised learning-based image classification in computer vision relies on visual samples containing a large amount of labeled information. Considering that it is labor-intensive to collect and label images and construct datasets manually, Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL) achieves knowledge transfer from seen categories to unseen categories by mining auxiliary information, which reduces the dependence on labeled image samples and is one of the current research hotspots in computer vision. However, most ZSL methods fail to properly measure the relationships between classes, or do not consider the differences and similarities between classes at all.

Generalized biomolecular modeling and design with RoseTTAFold All-Atom.

Deep-learning methods have revolutionized protein structure prediction and design but are presently limited to protein-only systems. We describe RoseTTAFold All-Atom (RFAA), which combines a residue-based representation of amino acids and DNA bases with an atomic representation of all other groups to model assemblies that contain proteins, nucleic acids, small molecules, metals, and covalent modifications, given their sequences and chemical structures. By fine-tuning on denoising tasks, we developed RFdiffusion All-Atom (RFdiffusionAA), which builds protein structures around small molecules.

Telomere length is an epigenetic trait - Implications for the use of telomerase-deficient organisms to model human disease.

Telomere length, unlike most genetic traits, is epigenetic, in the sense that it is not fully coded by the genome. Telomeres vary in length and randomly assort to the progeny leaving some individuals with longer and others with shorter telomeres. Telomerase activity counteracts this by extending telomeres in the germline and during embryogenesis but sizeable variances remain in telomere length.

Interactions between the protein barnase and co-solutes studied by NMR.

Protein solubility and stability depend on the co-solutes present. There is little theoretical basis for selection of suitable co-solutes. Some guidance is provided by the Hofmeister series, an empirical ordering of anions according to their effect on solubility and stability; and by osmolytes, which are small organic molecules produced by cells to allow them to function in stressful environments.

Importin 13-dependent axon diameter growth regulates conduction speeds along myelinated CNS axons.

Axon diameter influences the conduction properties of myelinated axons, both directly, and indirectly through effects on myelin. However, we have limited understanding of mechanisms controlling axon diameter growth in the central nervous system, preventing systematic dissection of how manipulating diameter affects myelination and conduction along individual axons. Here we establish zebrafish to study axon diameter.

Differences in polygenic score distributions in European ancestry populations: implications for breast cancer risk prediction.

The 313-variant polygenic risk score (PRS) provides a promising tool for breast cancer risk prediction. However, evaluation of the PRS across different European populations which could influence risk estimation has not been performed. Here, we explored the distribution of PRS across European populations using genotype data from 94,072 females without breast cancer, of European-ancestry from 21 countries participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) and 225,105 female participants from the UK Biobank.

Wearable-Sensor-Based Weakly Supervised Parkinson's Disease Assessment with Data Augmentation.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most prevalent dementia in the world. Wearable technology has been useful in the computer-aided diagnosis and long-term monitoring of PD in recent years. The fundamental issue remains how to assess the severity of PD using wearable devices in an efficient and accurate manner.

The origins of human pluripotent stem cells: the road from a cancer to regenerative medicine.

The notion of using pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) as a source of differentiated cell types for replacement of disease or damaged tissues in regenerative medicine is now an active area of research, with approaches to treating eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration or Parkinson's disease now on the horizon. But the foundations for this research lie in a quite different area of science, namely the role of genetics of cancer. In this review, we trace the evolution of ideas starting with the discovery that strain 129 mice are particularly subject to develop germ cell tumors, through the identification of embryonal carcinoma (EC) cells as the stem cells of the teratocarcinoma manifestation of these tumors, to the recognition of their relationship to pluripotent cells of the early embryo, and eventually their role in the derivation of embryonic stem cells, first from mouse embryos and then from primates including humans.

C photosynthesis provided an immediate demographic advantage to populations of the grass Alloteropsis semialata.

C photosynthesis is a key innovation in land plant evolution, but its immediate effects on population demography are unclear. We explore the early impact of the C trait on the trajectories of C and non-C populations of the grass Alloteropsis semialata. We combine niche models projected into paleoclimate layers for the last 5 million years with demographic models based on genomic data.

Chemistry-albedo feedbacks offset up to a third of forestation's CO removal benefits.

Forestation is widely proposed for carbon dioxide (CO) removal, but its impact on climate through changes to atmospheric composition and surface albedo remains relatively unexplored. We assessed these responses using two Earth system models by comparing a scenario with extensive global forest expansion in suitable regions to other plausible futures. We found that forestation increased aerosol scattering and the greenhouse gases methane and ozone following increased biogenic organic emissions.

Enhanced weathering in the US Corn Belt delivers carbon removal with agronomic benefits.

Terrestrial enhanced weathering (EW) of silicate rocks, such as crushed basalt, on farmlands is a promising scalable atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy that urgently requires performance assessment with commercial farming practices. We report findings from a large-scale replicated EW field trial across a typical maize-soybean rotation on an experimental farm in the heart of the United Sates Corn Belt over 4 y (2016 to 2020). We show an average combined loss of major cations (Ca and Mg) from crushed basalt applied each fall over 4 y (50 t ha y) gave a conservative time-integrated cumulative CDR potential of 10.

How Important Is Sexual Isolation to Speciation?

A central role for sexual isolation in the formation of new species and establishment of species boundaries has been noticed since Darwin and is frequently emphasized in the modern literature on speciation. However, an objective evaluation of when and how sexual isolation plays a role in speciation has been carried out in few taxa. We discuss three approaches for assessing the importance of sexual isolation relative to other reproductive barriers, including the relative evolutionary rate of sexual trait differentiation, the relative strength of sexual isolation in sympatry, and the role of sexual isolation in the long-term persistence of diverging forms.