PSMA-PET/CT Findings in Patients With High-Risk Biochemically Recurrent Prostate Cancer With No Metastatic Disease by Conventional Imaging.

Importance: The phase 3 randomized EMBARK trial evaluated enzalutamide with or without leuprolide in high-risk nonmetastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. Eligibility relied on conventional imaging, which underdetects metastatic disease compared with prostate-specific membrane antigen-positron emission tomography (PSMA-PET).

Objective: To describe the staging information obtained by PSMA-PET/computed tomography (PSMA-PET/CT) in a patient cohort eligible for the EMBARK trial.

Interaction between the leg recovery test and subjective measures of fatigue in handball players: short-, mid-, and long-term assessment.

Background: The physical and mental demands of handball during training or competition often lead to fatigue which can impair performance. Many attempts have been made to assess the level of fatigue in athletes either by objective (neuromuscular performance) or subjective (questionnaires) measures, however, their interplay over short-, mid-, and long-term periods is currently unknown. Knowledge about both types of assessments is important as load management by coaches is traditionally based on direct adjustments following a training session, adjustments of content structure of training weeks between games, as well as adjustments of load management over the entire competitive season.

Outcomes and Impact of Device Iterations in Mitral Valve Transcatheter Edge-to-Edge Repair: The REPAIR Study.

Background: The PASCAL P10 system for mitral valve transcatheter edge-to-edge repair has undergone iterations, including introduction of the narrower Ace implant and the Precision delivery system.

Objectives: The study sought to evaluate outcomes and the impact of PASCAL mitral valve transcatheter edge-to-edge repair device iterations.

Methods: The REPAIR (REgistry of PAscal for mltral Regurgitation) study is an investigator-initiated, multicenter registry including consecutive patients with mitral regurgitation (MR) treated from 2019 to 2024.

Quantity of spontaneous touches to body and surface in very preterm and healthy term infants.

Background: Spontaneous movements are a crucial part of early motor development. Healthy term infants may produce up to 200 spontaneous touches to their body and surface in 10 minutes with their hands. The existing literature shows differences in early motor development between very preterm (<32 weeks gestation) and healthy term infants.

Spatial proteomics reveals sirtuin 1 to be a determinant of T-cell infiltration in human melanoma.

Background: The tumour microenvironment significantly influences the clinical response of patients to therapeutic immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI), but a comprehensive understanding of the underlying immune-regulatory proteome is still lacking.

Objectives: To decipher targetable biologic processes that determine tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TiLs) as a cellular equivalent of clinical response to ICI.

Methods: We mapped the spatial distribution of proteins in TiL-enriched vs.

Consumption patterns before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among patients admitted to inpatient drug detoxification treatment: Results of two cross-sectional surveys from 2018 and 2021.

Background: The lockdown measures during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic could have influenced drug consumption patterns of persons with drug use disorder, especially due to a reduced availability of drugs, an increased consumption of sedating substances as a coping strategy, or a shift to novel psychotropic substances (NPS) associated with an increased drug buying in the internet. In this study, the consumption patterns of people mainly with opioid use disorder entering inpatient drug detoxification treatment were investigated in the same hospitals with the same methods before and during the pandemic.

Methods: At admission, patients were interviewed regarding their consumption patterns using the EuropASI questionnaire.

Training needs of German healthcare professionals regarding sexual health and sex workers: results of a nationwide, cross-sectional survey.

Background: Sexual health is an important aspect of human well-being. In terms of sexual health and healthcare, sex workers might need more specialized care than others, given their higher risk for both discrimination and various sexually transmitted diseases. However, little is known about the quality of healthcare professionals' training regarding sexual health and healthcare of sex workers in Germany.

- a large-scale dataset of 3D medical shapes for computer vision.

Objectives: The shape is commonly used to describe the objects. State-of-the-art algorithms in medical imaging are predominantly diverging from computer vision, where voxel grids, meshes, point clouds, and implicit surface models are used. This is seen from the growing popularity of ShapeNet (51,300 models) and Princeton ModelNet (127,915 models).

Sex differences in the reactivity of gastric myoelectrical activity and heart rate variability as putative psychophysiological markers in human pain research.

Background: This study explored the potential of electrogastrography (EGG) and heart rate variability (HRV) as psychophysiological markers in experimental pain research related to the gut-brain axis. We investigated responses to the experience of pain from the visceral (rectal distension) and somatic (cutaneous heat) pain modalities, with a focus on elucidating sex differences in EGG and HRV responses.

Methods: In a sample of healthy volunteers (29 males, 43 females), EGG and ECG data were collected during a baseline and a pain phase.

NGS Detects Extensive Genomic Alterations in Survivors of Irradiated Normal Human Fibroblast Cells.

It is thought that cells surviving ionizing radiation exposure repair DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and restore their genomes. However, the recent biochemical and genetic characterization of DSB repair pathways reveals that only homologous recombination (HR) can function in an error-free manner and that the non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) pathways canonical NHEJ (c-NHEJ), alternative end joining (alt-EJ), and single-strand annealing (SSA) are error-prone, and potentially leave behind genomic scars and altered genomes. The strong cell cycle restriction of HR to S/G2 phases and the unparalleled efficiency of c-NHEJ throughout the cell cycle, raise the intriguing question as to how far a surviving cell "reaches" after repairing the genome back to its pre-irradiation state.

Earth's most needed uncultivated aquatic prokaryotes.

Aquatic ecosystems house a significant fraction of Earth's biosphere, yet most prokaryotes inhabiting these environments remain uncultivated. While recently developed genome-resolved metagenomics and single-cell genomics techniques have underscored the immense genetic breadth and metabolic potential residing in uncultivated Bacteria and Archaea, cultivation of these microorganisms is required to study their physiology via genetic systems, confirm predicted biochemical pathways, exploit biotechnological potential, and accurately appraise nutrient turnover. Over the past two decades, the limitations of culture-independent investigations highlighted the importance of cultivation in bridging this vast knowledge gap.

Kinetochores get a grip!

A new study by Larson and colleagues (2025. J. Cell Biol.

The host gene regulates HBV replication via HBV PRE-induced nuclear export.

The persistent global burden of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection has prompted ongoing investigations into host determinants of viral control. In this study, we investigate the regulatory influence of the host gene cleavage stimulation factor subunit 2 (CSTF2) on HBV replication dynamics. We demonstrate differential CSTF2 expression across the spectrum of HBV infection phases, with upregulated expression noted during the immune-reactive and inactive carrier states compared with the immune-tolerant phase.

Light-Activatable Ubiquitin for Studying Linkage-Specific Ubiquitin Chain Formation Kinetics.

Ubiquitination is a dynamic post-translational modification governing protein abundance, function, and localization in eukaryotes. The Ubiquitin protein is conjugated to lysine residues of target proteins, but can also repeatedly be ubiquitinated itself, giving rise to a complex code of ubiquitin chains with different linkage types. To enable studying the cellular dynamics of linkage-specific ubiquitination, light-activatable polyubiquitin chain formation is reported here.

Socioeconomic position interacts with the genetic effect of a CRP gene common variant to influence C-reactive protein values.

Objectives: C-Reactive Protein (CRP) values are partly determined by variation at the CRP gene locus, but also influenced by socioeconomic position (SEP) and related lifestyle factors. As gene-by-SEP interactions have been suggested for traits associated with CRP and SEP (e.g.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy: a half-century historical perspective.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has evolved significantly over fifty years into a powerful analytical technique. This review aims to achieve five main goals. (1) Providing a comprehensive history of SERS's discovery, its experimental and theoretical foundations, its connections to advances in nanoscience and plasmonics, and highlighting collective contributions of key pioneers.

Systematic assessment of COVID-19 host genetics using whole genome sequencing data.

Courses of SARS-CoV-2 infections are highly variable, ranging from asymptomatic to lethal COVID-19. Though research has shown that host genetic factors contribute to this variability, cohort-based joint analyses of variants from the entire allelic spectrum in individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections are still lacking. Here, we present the results of whole genome sequencing in 1,220 mainly vaccine-naïve individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, including 827 hospitalized COVID-19 cases.

Stepwise Modulation of Bridged Single-Benzene-Based Fluorophores for Materials Science.

In recent years, researchers studying fluorogenic samples have steadily shifted from using large, expensive, poorly soluble fluorophores with complex synthetic sequences to smaller, simpler p scaffolds with low molecular weight. This research article presents an in-depth study of the photophysical properties of five bridged single-benzene-based fluorophores (SBBFs) investigated for their solution and solid-state emission (SSSE) properties. The compounds O4, N1O3, N2O2, N3O1, and N4 are derived from a central terephthalonitrile core and vary in the amount of oxygen and nitrogen bridging atoms.

Quantum Optical Binding of Nanoscale Particles.

Optical binding refers to the light-induced interaction between two or more objects illuminated by laser fields. The high tunability of the strength, sign, and reciprocity of this interaction renders it highly attractive for controlling nanoscale mechanical motion. Here, we discuss the quantum theory of optical binding and identify unique signatures of this interaction in the quantum regime.

Influence of HLA-G 3' Untranslated Region Haplotypes and SNP +3422 Gene Variants as Host Genetic Factors on the Outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 Infection During Acute and Post-Acute Phases in a German Cohort.

HLA-G, an important immune-checkpoint (IC) molecule that exerts inhibitory signalling on immune effector cells, has been suggested to represent a key player in regulating the immune response to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Type 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the HLA-G 3'untranslated region (UTR), which arrange as haplotypes, are crucial for the regulation of HLA-G expression, we analysed the contribution of these genetic variants as host factors in SARS-CoV-2 infection during acute and post-acute phases. HLA-G gene polymorphisms in the 3'UTR were investigated by sequencing in an unvaccinated Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) cohort during acute SARS-CoV-2 infection (N = 505) and in the post-acute phase (N = 253).

Impact of progestin type on the risk of drug interactions between combined oral contraceptives and psychotropic drugs: a pooled analysis of real-world data.

Objective: To assess the risk of contraceptive failure and adverse events (AEs) associated with the type of progestin when co-administered with psychotropic drugs within a routine clinical practice setting.

Study Design: A pooled analysis of four large, prospective, multinational cohort studies including women with a new prescription of combined oral contraceptives (COCs) and concomitant psychotropic drug use from 13 European countries and the United States. We determined the frequency of contraceptive failures and AEs within six months after COC initiation by progestin type.