bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ribo-uORF: a comprehensive data resource of upstream open reading frames (uORFs) based on ribosome profiling
Authors: Liu Qi , Peng Xin , Shen Mengyuan , Qian Qian , Xing Junlian , Li Chen , Gregory Richard I
Published: November 2022

Upstream open reading frames (uORFs) are typically defined as translation sites located within the 5′ untranslated region upstream of the main protein coding sequence (CDS) of messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Although uORFs are prevalent in eukaryotic mRNAs and modulate the translation of downstream CDSs, a comprehensive resource for uORFs is currently lacking. We developed Ribo-uORF (http://rnainformatics.org.cn/RiboUORF) to serve as a comprehensive functional resource for uORF analysis based on ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq) data. Ribo-uORF currently supports six species: human, mouse, rat, zebrafish, fruit fly, and worm. Ribo-uORF includes 501 554 actively translated uORFs and 107 914 upstream translation initiation sites (uTIS), which were identified from 1495 Ribo-seq and 77 quantitative translation initiation sequencing (QTI-seq) datasets, respectively. We also developed mRNAbrowse to visualize items such as uORFs, cis-regulatory elements, genetic variations, eQTLs, GWAS-based associations, RNA modifications, and RNA editing. Ribo-uORF provides a very intuitive web interface for conveniently browsing, searching, and visualizing uORF data. Finally, uORFscan and UTR5var were developed in Ribo-uORF to precisely identify uORFs and analyze the influence of genetic mutations on uORFs using user-uploaded datasets. Ribo-uORF should greatly facilitate studies of uORFs and their roles in mRNA translation and posttranscriptional control of gene expression.
scAB detects multiresolution cell states with clinical significance by integrating single-cell genomics and bulk sequencing data
Authors: Zhang Qinran , Jin Suoqin , Zou Xiufen
Published: November 2022

Although single-cell sequencing has provided a powerful tool to deconvolute cellular heterogeneity of diseases like cancer, extrapolating clinical significance or identifying clinically-relevant cells remains challenging. Here, we propose a novel computational method scAB, which integrates single-cell genomics data with clinically annotated bulk sequencing data via a knowledge- and graph-guided matrix factorization model. Once combined, scAB provides a coarse- and fine-grain multiresolution perspective of phenotype-associated cell states and prognostic signatures previously not visible by single-cell genomics. We use scAB to enhance live cancer single-cell RNA-seq data, identifying clinically-relevant previously unrecognized cancer and stromal cell subsets whose signatures show a stronger poor-survival association. The identified fine-grain cell subsets are associated with distinct cancer hallmarks and prognosis power. Furthermore, scAB demonstrates its utility as a biomarker identification tool, with the ability to predict immunotherapy, drug responses and survival when applied to melanoma single-cell RNA-seq datasets and glioma single-cell ATAC-seq datasets. Across multiple single-cell and bulk datasets from different cancer types, we also demonstrate the superior performance of scAB in generating prognosis signatures and survival predictions over existing models. Overall, scAB provides an efficient tool for prioritizing clinically-relevant cell subsets and predictive signatures, utilizing large publicly available databases to improve prognosis and treatments.
Whole transcriptome profiling of liquid biopsies from tumour xenografted mouse models enables specific monitoring of tumour-derived extracellular RNA
Authors: Vermeirssen Vanessa , Deleu Jill , Morlion Annelien , Everaert Celine , De Wilde Jilke , Anckaert Jasper , Durinck Kaat , Nuytens Justine , Rishfi Muhammad , Speleman Frank , Van Droogenbroeck Hanne , Verniers Kimberly , Baietti Maria Francesca , Albersen Maarten , Leucci Eleonora , Post Edward , Best Myron G , Van Maerken Tom , De Wilde Bram , Vandesompele Jo , Decock Anneleen
Published: November 2022

While cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is widely being investigated, free circulating RNA (extracellular RNA, exRNA) has the potential to improve cancer therapy response monitoring and detection due to its dynamic nature. However, it remains unclear in which blood subcompartment tumour-derived exRNAs primarily reside. We developed a host-xenograft deconvolution framework, exRNAxeno, with mapping strategies to either a combined human-mouse reference genome or both species genomes in parallel, applicable to exRNA sequencing data from liquid biopsies of human xenograft mouse models. The tool enables to distinguish (human) tumoural RNA from (murine) host RNA, to specifically analyse tumour-derived exRNA. We applied the combined pipeline to total exRNA sequencing data from 95 blood-derived liquid biopsy samples from 30 mice, xenografted with 11 different tumours. Tumoural exRNA concentrations are not determined by plasma platelet levels, while host exRNA concentrations increase with platelet content. Furthermore, a large variability in exRNA abundance and transcript content across individual mice is observed. The tumoural gene detectability in plasma is largely correlated with the RNA expression levels in the tumour tissue or cell line. These findings unravel new aspects of tumour-derived exRNA biology in xenograft models and open new avenues to further investigate the role of exRNA in cancer.
Ancient Sardis
Authors: Cahill Nicholas
Published: November 2022

Sardis was one of the great cities of western Anatolia from the Bronze Age into the Byzantine period. It was most famous as the capital city of the Lydians, as the city where coins were first minted. The site is located at the foot of Mt. Tmolus, around a sheer acropolis at the edge of the Hermos plain. The Pactolus River became famous for its “golden sands” which enriched the Lydians; the river kept its reputation into late antiquity, although the gold had long run out. In the Hellenistic period it became the western capital of the Seleucid empire until it was incorporated into the Pergamene kingdom. It remained an important city under Roman rule, and was elevated to a provincial capital in Diocletian’s reorganization of the empire. After the disasters of the early 7th century ce, which included a devastating earthquake as well as invasions, it remained a powerful and strategic citadel with imposing fortifications built largely of spolia from the lower city; and remained a strategic spot even into the twentieth century, when this area was fiercely contested in the Turkish War of Independence.
Epistemic Virtues
Authors: McCraw Benjamin
Published: November 2022

Broadly, virtues are excellences. Applied to epistemology, then, virtues are excellences of epistemic agents, thinkers, or cognizers. As virtue epistemology has risen to prominence in the past several decades, virtue-theoretic approaches to epistemology have become numerous, systematic, and diverse. Accordingly, the work on epistemic virtues and vices, the focus of such approaches, has blossomed in number, extent, and diversity. This bibliography will cover a range of central issues in the philosophical reflection on epistemic virtues and vices, and lay out some of the central views, monographs, edited collections, and articles in the field. Two main approaches to the nature of epistemic virtue have come to occupy central roles: views that take something like skills, abilities, or competences as definitive of epistemic virtues, and theories that analyze epistemic virtues as kinds of intellectual traits of character. Another central debate concerns the relation of epistemic virtues to the wider debate in epistemology regarding internalism and externalism on positive epistemic status. As with the advent of any significant family of philosophical theory, objections will soon be levied against it. In particular, worries extended from the situationist challenge to moral virtues and concerns about epistemic luck and credit have become major players in the literature on virtue epistemology. This bibliography will also devote extensive discussion to specific epistemic virtues, as work on them has boomed relatively recently in step with work on epistemic virtue in general. Two more recent discussions—on vice epistemology and social epistemic virtue—will also merit their own sections. Finally, this bibliography will discuss the applications of epistemic virtues, both within different branches of philosophy and in other professional fields outside of it.
Contemporary Globalized and Commercialized Yoga
Authors: Black Shameem
Published: November 2022

By the late twentieth century, yoga had become widely available around the world and accessible through commercial markets. The globalization and commercialization of yoga represent distinct yet interconnected developments. In this period, as in the past, concepts of yoga were remediated to suit changing social and political needs through new institutions and discourses. Health, wellness, and fitness cultures; spiritual and devotional regimes; and expanding media connectivities were key forces that helped to integrate yoga into diverse societies. These mediating forces helped to configure yoga as a tool for expansive forms of life guidance. The rising appeal of yoga often reflected the pressures of expanding capitalisms in these parts of the world. As many states have withdrawn forms of welfare provisioning and their economies have grown more reliant on precarious labor, yoga has appealed to many people as an alternative form of health care, spiritual valuation, and ideal person-making that can help them withstand the pressures and precarities of everyday life. This growth in popularity within and beyond India, especially in the West and in East Asia, has thus raised important questions about the ideals, values, and identities that are produced and promoted through the practice. It has prompted new scholarly inquiries into the economic dimensions of yoga, with questions of cost, access, and profit revealing key hierarchies that shape the expanded profile of yoga around the world. In different geographical contexts, yoga has sometimes been appropriated to the needs of socially privileged groups and used to naturalize those advantages in ways that can obscure unequal structures. At the same time, yoga has also been harnessed to counteract or critique such uneven landscapes of power. Scholars have thus sought to understand the intersecting social hierarchies and (neo-)imperial configurations that are amplified and potentially challenged through the practice. Work in the humanities and social sciences has questioned how the globalization and commercialization of yoga affects how the practice changes in places like India, where transnational dynamics and market mechanisms intersect with local histories and alternative economies. Trends in scholarship have explored how yoga is categorized, analyzing debates around whether yoga should be understood as religious and whether it should be considered culturally South Asian. Scholars have queried how yoga is imagined in literature, art, and media to understand how these representations often challenge or complicate previous forms of yogic authority and significance. Finally, trends in scholarship have investigated the connections and tensions between yoga’s liberating and repressive social potential. Such work charts how yoga in contemporary globalized and commercialized contexts can be understood in light of broader conversations around power, decoloniality, neoliberalism, and social justice.
Paramahansa Yogananda
Authors: Foxen Anya
Published: November 2022

Paramahansa Yogananda (b. 1893–d. 1952), born Mukunda Lal Ghosh, was a teacher and popularizer of yoga and Hindu spirituality. Known today chiefly for his classic Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda has become a global emissary of India’s ancient wisdom. The text has sold over four million copies, has been translated into thirty-three languages, and has been lauded as a source of inspiration by such cultural idols as George Harrison and Steve Jobs. In reality, Yogananda’s identity as a guru is rather more complex, syncretic, and modern. He arrived in the United States in 1920 at the age of twenty-seven, as a presenter at the International Conference of Religious Liberals in Boston. Excepting a brief return to India in 1935–1936, he remained in the United States for the subsequent thirty-two years of his life. At the heart of Yogananda’s teachings is Kriya Yoga, a method of physical techniques and visionary meditation that closely follows the tantric forms of haṭha yoga that emerged in South Asia beginning around the twelfth century. Yogananda was initiated into this practice by his guru Swami Sri Yukteswar, who in turn received it from the householder guru Lahiri Mahasaya, who attributed the teachings to his contact with the immortal mountain-dwelling sage known only as Babaji. During Yogananda’s sojourn in North America, Kriya practice remained foundational to his work, but was transmitted (usually in an adapted form) only to committed disciples. Yogananda’s public-facing teachings, meanwhile, combined basic elements of tantric meditative techniques with Western calisthenics to yield a series of “Energization Exercises,” an alternative form of modern postural yoga. These exercises were disseminated via pamphlets, and eventually a mail-order course, alongside a wealth of other literary and spiritual material. Yogananda had a love of poetry and thus a number of his earliest publications adopt this format to communicate his personal fusion of bhakti-style devotionalism, Neo-Vedanta, Christianity, and other Western metaphysical ideas in line with the contemporary New Thought movement. Yogananda’s legacy is carried on chiefly by the Los Angeles–based Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), which he initially founded under the name of Yogoda Satsanga in 1925. In India, this legacy is represented by the sister organization, still called the Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS), which dates its founding to 1917, preceding Yogananda’s departure to the United States. However, Yogananda’s teachings are also represented by the Ananda Church of Self-Realization, as well as a number of smaller communities founded by his disciples. Though Yogananda spent most of his life in the United States, his vision had a global reach, as evidenced by his utopian goal of establishing a series of World Brotherhood Colonies. Today, the SRF boasts over five hundred locations worldwide, spanning every inhabited continent, and the YSS oversees an additional two hundred centers.
Feminism and Human Rights
Authors: Zwingel Sussane , Hernandez Brianna
Published: November 2022

Feminism is about striking down gender hierarchies that exist in various forms in all societies. The notion of human rights envisions dignified lives for all humans based on their equal value. Both feminism and human rights are multivocal discourses and struggles for social transformation and justice. Despite these parallels, feminist and human rights ideas and activisms have long developed in separation, with some exceptions such as the women’s suffrage movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Both discourses have gained international significance in the second half of the 20th century. Since the 1980s, there is significant engagement between human rights and feminist thinking that has produced a transdisciplinary array of literature. For this bibliography, human rights are framed as a discourse of Eurocentric origin that has become a global standard starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. It is also a framework that has attracted many forms of criticism, e.g., that it is an expression of Western imperialism, statism, individualism, and androcentrism. The structure follows the twofold engagement of feminists who have made the human rights framework fruitful for their goals: the first is the attempt to incorporate women, as the slogan “women’s rights are human rights” suggests; the second is to analytically read gender as a relationship of power into the human rights framework. This bibliography emphasizes global level dynamics and draws only occasionally on regional or domestic processes. However, feminist human rights work has been developed from many parts of the globe and typically takes an intersectional approach in which gender hierarchies are not targeted in isolation, but in combination with other forms of discrimination. Attempts to engender the human rights framework have expanded even further to critique binary and heteronormative gender orders and the exclusions they produce. In response, defendants of non-egalitarian gender orders have become more forceful in reclaiming traditional gender-binary and -complementary values. Besides the vast amount of academic literature, activists have played a tremendously important role in shaping feminist and human rights ideas. Therefore, the bibliography contains a mix of scholarly and practitioner writings, as well as some particularly influential feminist organizations. The sections evolve chronologically, but the contributions selected mutually influence and respond to each other: The global rise of women’s movements; feminist critique of human rights androcentrism; global institutions promoting gender equality; substantive concepts of women’s rights and gender equality; human rights, anti-essentialism and gender fluidity; and antifeminism: reclaiming traditional gender orders.
Self-Report Tests, Measures, and Inventories in Clinical Psychology
Authors: Tarescavage Anthony
Published: November 2022

There are thousands of psychological tests that rely on test-takers’ reports of themselves to measure their standing on psychological constructs of interest. This annotated bibliography on self-report inventories delineates over fifty of these self-report measures. Specifically, this review includes some of the most relevant self-report assessments in the major measurement domains of personality and psychopathology. All can be administered in the traditional paper-and-pencil format. Pertinent background information on using and evaluating these tests is described next.
Geographies of Abortion
Authors: Calkin Sydney
Published: November 2022

Geographical scholarship on abortion is a relatively new and growing field, although abortion is a well-studied topic. Abortion means the termination of a pregnancy; it is a very common procedure that people obtain when they have an unwanted pregnancy, medical complications from pregnancy, or a pregnancy with serious abnormalities. Geographical study of the topic places emphasis on the spatiality of abortion and the mobility that is often required to access abortion. Geographers of abortion understand the topic’s spatiality in different ways: their scholarship explores the geographical distribution of abortion healthcare, international and domestic travel routes that abortion-seekers must use to access distant facilities, activist networks, and the spatiality of abortion healthcare facilities themselves. The most developed area of geographical scholarship on abortion deals with abortion travel across borders, when abortion-seekers move between different places to obtain safe abortion, usually crossing the boundaries of different legal jurisdictions. As abortion technology transforms access, geographers are also accounting for new abortion methods and activist alliances which change the relationship between space, place, and abortion. Geographers of abortion are increasingly interested in dimensions of abortion spatiality and mobility that intersect with other disciplines or subdisciplines: cultural, legal, technological, and political analyses of abortion geography are on the rise. Like all writing on abortion and reproduction, this field has also been influenced by critiques from reproductive justice scholarship, which calls for greater attention to intersecting inequalities around race, class, gender identity, and disability in abortion care. While acknowledging that abortion is an emotive and contested topic, the scholarship on the geography of abortion does not pretend to adopt a neutral position on the topic. Almost without exception, geographical analyses of abortion take an explicitly feminist position in favor of access to affordable, safe, legal, and local abortion. As the field of feminist geography diversifies its areas of interest—beyond the category of ‘women’ and their experiences—it maintains an overt commitment to transnational collective action and social justice. In this tradition, geographical scholarship on abortion examines the spatiality of abortion in order to build the intellectual and political project of reproductive justice. This bibliography is limited to work published in English and, as such, may overrepresent work on English-speaking places.
Geographies of Pragmatism
Authors: Bridge Gary
Published: November 2022

Pragmatism is a philosophy that sees life as being defined by the relations of organisms and things in an environment that is ever changing and uncertain. The nature of these relationships (or transactions, as pragmatists call them) is such that they are persistently co-constitutive, with no rounded-out clearly defined objects or organisms. This relational, processual view of life embeds human organisms in an active environment such that their knowledge of it is primarily acquired through action, in situations, and is only provisional and not based on solid foundations. Situations are contextual, though not necessarily geographically and spatially so. Acquiring robust knowledge to operate in this environment involves persistent experimentation and the testing out of ideas through active intervention in the world. Active experimentation comes about when the habitual relations of organisms to their environment become obstructed or uncertain (in problematic situations), otherwise most organic activity (including that of humans) is noncognitive and based on habit that is embodied and involving affect. Humans’ problem-solving capacities have been expanded by language use, and thus communication takes on an important role as a collective problem-solving capacity (or mind), a type of rationality that exists beyond individual cognitive capacities. The effective functioning of these capacities is the pragmatist’s idea of democratic life. This normative aspiration acts as a critique of actually existing democratic systems, with all their institutional anachronisms, social divisions, and obstacles to the realization of individual and thus collective capacities. Pragmatism emerged in the United States in the second half of the 19th century, involving figures such as William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey. It was a philosophy strongly influenced by Darwinian naturalism but also by the traumatic experience of civil war. From both these influences pragmatism has taken an assumption of the ineluctable nature of relations all things but also of the dangers of beliefs that separate or deny this interrelatedness. Despite its environmental sensibilities (and some early connections via urban sociology) there have been no consistent relations between geographical thinking and pragmatism. But as an antifoundational and process philosophy of material things and organisms pragmatism has stimulated a flurry of recent engagement through variants of poststructuralist thinking that have involved geographical enquiry and critique.
Expanded roles and divergent regulation of FAMA in Brachypodium and Arabidopsis stomatal development
Authors: McKown Katelyn H , Anleu Gil M Ximena , Mair Andrea , Xu Shou-Ling , Raissig Michael T , Bergmann Dominique C
Published: November 2022

Stomata, cellular valves found on the surfaces of aerial plant tissues, present a paradigm for studying cell fate and patterning in plants. A highly conserved core set of related basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors regulates stomatal development across diverse species. We characterized BdFAMA in the temperate grass Brachypodium distachyon and found this late-acting transcription factor was necessary and sufficient for specifying stomatal guard cell fate, and unexpectedly, could also induce the recruitment of subsidiary cells in the absence of its paralogue, BdMUTE. The overlap in function is paralleled by an overlap in expression pattern and by unique regulatory relationships between BdMUTE and BdFAMA. To better appreciate the relationships among the Brachypodium stomatal bHLHs, we used in vivo proteomics in developing leaves and found evidence for multiple shared interaction partners. We reexamined the roles of these genes in Arabidopsis thaliana by testing genetic sufficiency within and across species, and found that while BdFAMA and AtFAMA can rescue stomatal production in Arabidopsis fama and mute mutants, only AtFAMA can specify Brassica-specific myrosin idioblasts. Taken together, our findings refine the current models of stomatal bHLH function and regulatory feedback among paralogues within grasses as well as across the monocot/dicot divide.
Physiological mechanisms underlying extreme longevity in mountain pine trees
Authors: Pasques Ot , Munné-Bosch Sergi
Published: November 2022

Ancient trees are life history longevity winners that mostly persist in remote and environmentally harsh mountainous areas. Here, we performed a multifeature analysis in a protected mature mountain pine (Pinus uncinata) forest to identify the morphological and physiological traits that make these trees unique. We compared the physiology of meristematic and somatic tissues (apical buds and needles, respectively) from juvenile, mature young, mature old, and mature ancient trees under cold stress and nonstress conditions. We successfully identified key morphological features of extreme longevity at the organism level, as well as various growth, vigor, stress, and dormancy markers underlying extreme longevity in old and ancient trees. Results indicated that evolution has exerted selective pressure on specific physiological traits that make trees become longevity winners (<0.1% of the tree population were ancient trees, with an average trunk diameter >100 cm and an estimated age of 700 years). Traits entailing longevity not only included apical dominance loss, epicormic growth, and modular senescence, but also an extreme plasticity in both meristematic and somatic tissues (buds and needles, respectively), as shown by various physiological markers. In conclusion, ancient trees are oddities that not only possess a unique ecological value but also show divergent physiological behaviors selected during their evolution to allow them to cope with adversities and attain long life.
Mitochondria in photosynthetic cells: Coordinating redox control and energy balance
Authors: Igamberdiev Abir U , Bykova Natalia V
Published: November 2022

In photosynthetic tissues in the light, the function of energy production is associated primarily with chloroplasts, while mitochondrial metabolism adjusts to balance ATP supply, regulate the reduction level of pyridine nucleotides, and optimize major metabolic fluxes. The tricarboxylic acid cycle in the light transforms into a noncyclic open structure (hemicycle) maintained primarily by the influx of malate and the export of citrate to the cytosol. The exchange of malate and citrate forms the basis of feeding redox energy from the chloroplast into the cytosolic pathways. This supports the level of NADPH in different compartments, contributes to the biosynthesis of amino acids, and drives secondary metabolism via a supply of substrates for 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase and for cytochrome P450-catalyzed monooxygenase reactions. This results in the maintenance of redox and energy balance in photosynthetic plant cells and in the formation of numerous bioactive compounds specific to any particular plant species. The noncoupled mitochondrial respiration operates in coordination with the malate and citrate valves and supports intensive fluxes of respiration and photorespiration. The metabolic system of plants has features associated with the remarkable metabolic plasticity of mitochondria that permit the use of energy accumulated during photosynthesis in a way that all anabolic and catabolic pathways become optimized and coordinated.
Quantifying farmers’ preferences for antimicrobial use for livestock diseases in northern Tanzania
Authors: Nthambi Mary , Lembo Tiziana , Davis Alicia , Nasuwa Fortunata , Mmbaga Blandina Theophil , Matthews Louise , Hanley Nick
Published: November 2022

Understanding the choice behaviours of farmers around the treatment of their livestock is critical to counteracting the risks of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) emergence. Using varying disease scenarios, we measure the differences in livestock species’ treatment preferences and the effects of context variables (such as grazing patterns, herd size, travel time to agrovet shops, previous disease experience, previous vaccination experience, education level, and income) on the farmers’ treatment choices for infections across three production systems—agro-pastoral, pastoral, and rural smallholder—in northern Tanzania, where reliance on antimicrobial treatment to support the health and productivity of livestock is high. Applying a context-dependent stated choice experiment, we surveyed 1224 respondents. Mixed logit model results show that farmers have higher preferences for professional veterinary services when treating cattle, sheep, and goats, while they prefer to self-treat poultry. Antibiotics sourced from agrovet shops are the medicine of choice, independent of the health condition to treat, whether viral, bacterial, or parasitic. Nearness to agrovet shops, informal education, borrowing and home storage of medicines, and commercial poultry rearing increase the chances of self-treatment. Based on our findings, we propose interventions such as awareness and education campaigns aimed at addressing current practices that pose AMR risks, as well as vaccination and good livestock husbandry practices, capacity building, and provision of diagnostic tools.
Exosomal miR-93-5p from cancer-associated fibroblasts confers malignant phenotypes on bladder cancer cells by targeting PAFAH1B1
Authors: Lu Xiaoming , Wang Jinfeng , Dong Binbin , Wang Liping , Liu Yadong
Published: November 2022

Background

Dysregulation of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) still greatly challenges the treatments for bladder cancer (BC), where exosomal miRNAs derived from CAFs are one of the essential effectors for tumor progression. miR-93-5p is reported to be upregulated in BC, however, it is barely investigated in BC-derived CAFs.

Method

The CAF markers were immunofluorescent-labeled and examined by western blotting assay in CAFs and normal fibroblasts (NFs). CAFs- and NFs-derived exosomes (CAFs-exo/NFs-exo) were authenticated by transmission electron microscope and nanoparticle tracking analysis. Cell viability was determined by cell counting kit-8 assay, and cell mobility was evaluated by wound healing and transwell assays. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to quantify the RNA expressions, and a western blotting assay was used for protein expression. Interaction between miR-93-5p and Platelet-Activating Factor Acetylhydrolase IB Subunit Beta (PAFAH1B1) was verified by luciferase reporter assay. HE staining assay was applied to assess the histological changes of xenografts.

Results

CAFs-exo notably enhanced cell mobility and the expression levels of miR-93-5p of BC cells compared to NFs-exo. However, inhibition of miR-93-5p in CAFs-exo exhibited attenuated pro-metastatic ability on BC cells. PAFAH1B1 was one of the predicted targets of miR-93-5p, whose mRNA level was most significantly downregulated after miR-93-5p transfection. The interaction between PAFAH1B1 and miR-93-5p was verified, and miR-93-5p negatively regulated the protein level of PAFAH1B1. Overexpression of PAFAH1B1 could efficiently reverse the effects of miR-93-5p mimic on BC cell mobility. Finally, inhibition of miR-93-5p was proved to impair the carcinogenic function of CAFs-exo in vivo.

Conclusion

Exosomal miR-93-5p derived from CAFs confers oncogenicity on BC cells via sponging PAFAH1B1, suggesting a novel therapeutic strategy for BC.
“Racing-stripe” Modification of Radial Forearm Free Flap: Technique and Experience (704 Consecutive Cases)
Authors: Melissinos Emmanuel G. , Marques Erik S.
Published: November 2022

Background:

The radial forearm fasciocutaneous free flap (RFFF) has proven to be a versatile and reliable tool for the reconstructive microsurgeon when addressing soft-tissue defects. A significant drawback of the traditional RFFF is related to donor site morbidity and wound healing complications, especially when coverage of sizable defects is planned. The authors describe the “racing-stripe” modification of the RFFF (RS-RFFF) that involves harvesting a large segment of the deep forearm fascia with a narrow strip of skin overlying the radial vessels, thus allowing primary closure of the donor site.

Methods:

Retrospective chart review was conducted of a single surgeon’s (E.G.M.) experience of patients who underwent RS-RFFF.

Results:

Seven hundred four RS-RFFFs were performed in 698 patients over a 19-year period (2000–2019) for lower extremity reconstruction (657 flaps, 93.3%), upper extremity reconstruction (32 flaps, 4.5%), and head and neck reconstruction (15 flaps, 2.1%). Wounds secondary to trauma were the most common reason for flap reconstruction (655 wounds, 93.8%). Five hundred four RS-RFFFs were used for soft-tissue defects of the foot (129 flaps, 18.3%), ankle (309 flaps, 43.9%), and heel (66 flaps, 9.4%; 27 of which provided coverage for Achilles tendon repair or exposure). There were three flap losses (0.4%). Limb salvage rate was 100% for extremity wounds. Forearm donor site wound complications were minimal.

Conclusions:

The RS-RFFF can be consistently and safely harvested and permits low-profile, reliable coverage of small-to-medium size soft-tissue defects. Primary closure of the donor site is possible in all cases, thus minimizing wound healing complications.
Targeting Obesity to Optimize Weight Loss in Cardiac Rehabilitation
Authors: Brinkley Tina E. , Hsu Fang-Chi , Bowman Benita M. , Addison Theresa , Kitzman Dalane W. , Houston Denise K.
Published: November 2022

Purpose:

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs are integral in the treatment of coronary heart disease (CHD). However, most programs do not incorporate structured, evidence-based obesity treatment, potentially limiting efficacy for the large number of CHD patients with overweight/obesity. This pilot study determined the feasibility of adding a behavioral weight loss intervention during standard CR.

Methods:

Adults aged ≥40 yr with CHD and overweight/obesity were randomized to 6 mo of CR alone or CR plus a behavioral weight loss program incorporating meal replacements and individual dietary counseling (CR + WL). Body weight, adiposity, cardiometabolic risk factors, self-efficacy for eating, and stages and processes of change for weight management (S-Weight, P-Weight) were assessed at baseline and during follow-up.

Results:

Thirty-eight participants (64.5 ± 7.9 yr, 24% female, 16% Black/Hispanic) were enrolled over 18 mo. Retention was high, with 95% of participants completing the 6-mo follow-up visit. Participants attended ∼58% of the prescribed exercise sessions, and those in the CR + WL group attended 98% of the prescribed weight loss sessions. The CR + WL group lost significantly more weight than the CR group (6.4 ± 4.7% vs 1.2 ± 3.0%, P = .001), and there were significant treatment effects for total/regional adiposity, eating self-efficacy, and P-weight scores (all P values < .05). Overall, greater weight loss was associated with improvements in self-efficacy (P = .014) and P-weight scores for weight consequences evaluation (P = .007) and weight management actions (P = .04).

Conclusions:

A behavioral weight loss intervention during CR is feasible and safe, leading to greater weight and fat loss and related improvements in weight maintenance behaviors in overweight/obese adults with CHD.
Accelerated vascular age in adolescents with primary hypertension
Authors: Obrycki Łukasz , Sarnecki Jędrzej , Pac Michał , Dereziński Tadeusz , Lewandowska Weronika , Feber Janusz , Litwin Mieczysław
Published: November 2022

Background:

Primary hypertension may lead to early vascular ageing. We aimed to evaluate differences between expected vascular age based on pulse wave velocity (PWV)/carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) and actual chronological age (CHA) in adolescents with primary hypertension.

Methods:

Three hundred and fifty-two children (median age of 15.5 years) with office hypertension and 64 normotensive healthy children of the same age underwent anthropometry, office and ambulatory blood pressure (BP), left ventricular mass index, cIMT, PWV, pulse wave analysis and biochemistry measurements. Vascular age was calculated using pooled pediatric and adult normative PWV and cIMT data. The difference between vascular age and CHA was calculated in relation to the 90th percentile for PWV (PWVAgeDiff90) and the 95th percentile for cIMT (cIMTAgeDiff95).

Results:

One hundred and sixty-six patients had white-coat hypertension (WCH), 32 had ambulatory prehypertension (AmbPreHT), 55 had isolated systolic hypertension with normal central SBP (ISH+cSBPn), 99 had elevated office, ambulatory and cSBP (true hypertension, tHT). The differences between vascular age (both PWV and cIMT based) and CHA were significantly higher in AmbPreHT and tHT compared with normotension, WCH and ISH+cSBPn. Median PWVAgeDidff90 was −3.2, −1.2, −2.1, +0.8 and +0.3 years in normotension, WCH, ISH+cSBPn, AmbPreHT and tHT, respectively. Median cIMTAgeDiff95 was −8.0, −6.3, −6.8, −3.8 and −4.3 years in normotension, WCH, ISH+cSBPn, AmbPreHT and tHT, respectively. Significant predictors of PWVAge90Diff were the DBP and serum cholesterol, whereas cSBP and augmentation index were significant predictors of cIMTAgeDiff95.

Conclusion:

Children with AmbPreHT and tHT show accelerated vascular age compared with their normotensive peers.
Impact of Wire Sensor Location on Coronary Physiological Measurement
Authors: Lotfi Amir , Haider Ali , Pervaiz Abdullah , Kadado Anis John , Bachman Marcos , Rodriguez-Arciniega Jose A. , Visintainer Paul
Published: November 2022

Background:

The location of the wire sensor to measure fractional flow reserve (FFR) and diastolic pressure ratio (dPR) has not been systematically studied. Therefore, we hypothesize that the coronary physiological measurements will vary with the location of the sensor.

Methods:

Fifty-four patients were screened, and 30 consecutive patients were enrolled. The OptoWire 2 or 3 generation fiberoptic pressure wire was used to assess whole cycle pressure distal/pressure aorta, dPR, and FFR. Our primary goal is to test if those measurements vary with the wire sensor placed at 10 mm (proximal), 35–45 mm (mid), and greater than or equal to 60–70 mm (distal) distal to the target lesion, respectively. We used a multilevel linear regression approach.

Results:

Of 30 patients enrolled, 23 (76.6%) were males, mean age was 64.7 years (± 11.0 years), and mean stenosis was 61.6% (±13.4%). Adjusting for age, gender, and severity of stenosis, results showed that for all 3 measures (whole cycle pressure distal/pressure aorta, dPR, and FFR), pressure decreased in a linear fashion the further the sensor was from the target lesion (P < 0.001). Further, pairwise comparisons of the measurements at adjacent locations similarly showed significant declines in pressure (P < 0.001).

Conclusions:

This is the first study to demonstrate that the location of the pressure wire can impact the results of both resting and hyperemic pressures, which can cause a false-negative result. This is especially important where the values are near the cutoff.
Factors Predicting Misidentification of Acute Ischemic Stroke and Large Vessel Occlusion by Paramedics
Authors: Glober Nancy K. , Fulks Tyler , Supples Michael , Panagos Peter , Kim David
Published: November 2022

The emergence of thrombectomy for large vessel occlusions has increased the importance of accurate prehospital identification and triage of acute ischemic stroke (AIS). Despite available clinical scores, prehospital identification is suboptimal. Our objective was to improve the sensitivity of prehospital AIS identification by combining dispatch information with paramedic impression. We performed a retrospective cohort review of emergency medical services and hospital records of all patients for whom a stroke alert was activated in 1 urban, academic emergency department from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2019. Using admission diagnosis of acute stroke as outcome, we calculated the sensitivity and specificity of dispatch and paramedic impression in identifying AIS and large vessel occlusion. We identified factors that, when included together, would improve the sensitivity of prehospital AIS identification. Two-hundred twenty-six stroke alerts were activated by emergency department physicians after transport by Indianapolis emergency medical services. Forty-four percent (99/226) were female, median age was 58 years (interquartile range, 50–67 years), and median National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale was 6 (interquartile range, 2–12). Paramedics demonstrated superior sensitivity (59% vs. 48%) but inferior specificity (56% vs. 73%) for detection of stroke as compared with dispatch. A strategy incorporating dispatch code of stroke, or paramedic impression of altered mental status or weakness in addition to stroke, would be 84% sensitive and 27% specific for identification of stroke. To optimize rapid and sensitive stroke detection, prehospital systems should consider inclusion of patients with dispatch code of stroke and provider impression of altered mental status or generalized weakness.
Peripartum management of deep venous thrombosis in the context of antithrombin deficiency and May–Thurner syndrome
Authors: Stevens-Haas Claire L. , Livergood Mary Christine , Perez Botero Juliana , McIntosh Jennifer J.
Published: November 2022

Literature regarding the management of thrombus refractory to first-line treatment in the setting of pregnancy is limited, and management is made even more complicated in the context of thrombophilia. This case reviews the management of a patient with antithrombin deficiency who developed a massive thrombus during pregnancy, which was complicated by May–Thurner syndrome, lack of improvement with heparin, and preterm labor. The patient received multidisciplinary care throughout the pregnancy. At 35 weeks, anticoagulation was paused as she underwent induction of labor and delivery followed by postpartum placement of inferior vena cava filter and restarting heparin. Successful management of our pregnant patient with thrombus refractory to heparin hinged on individualized treatment for medical optimization with anticoagulation and antithrombin concentrate prior to labor followed by immediate postpartum placement of inferior vena cava filter.
Value of 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT in the localization of recurrent lesions in patients with suspected recurrent parathyroid carcinoma
Authors: Guo Yue-Hong , Huang Jing-Wei , Wang Ying , Lu Ruigang , Yang Min-Fu
Published: November 2022

Purpose

Accurate preoperative localization of tumor-bearing lesions is crucial for the successful surgical management of suspected recurrent parathyroid carcinoma. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of 99m-technetium-labeled methoxyisobutylisonitrile (99mTc-MIBI) single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) and cervical ultrasound, individually and in combination, for preoperative localization of recurrent/metastatic lesions. We also analyzed the value of 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT in detecting ectopic lesions in patients with suspected recurrent parathyroid carcinoma.

Methods

Twenty-nine patients with suspected recurrent parathyroid carcinoma were included in this retrospective cohort study. Patients underwent preoperative 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT and cervical ultrasound. The reference standard was postsurgical histopathology. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value, and accuracy of the two diagnostic modalities alone and in combination were analyzed.

Results

Of the 29 patients, histopathological results revealed 48 metastases/recurrent lesions in 26 patients. The diagnostic value of 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT, cervical ultrasound, and the two modalities in combination were compared for the 27 patients who underwent new cervical surgery. Patient-level analysis of the combined use of 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT and cervical ultrasound had the highest sensitivity (100.00%) and accuracy (96.30%). At the lesion level, 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT had the highest specificity and PPV, at 100.00% respectively, whereas the combined use of 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT and cervical ultrasound had the highest sensitivity, at 97.62%. Moreover, 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT detected six ectopic lesions, and five of them showed increased 99mTc-MIBI uptake.

Conclusions

The combined use of 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT and cervical ultrasound is the most efficient strategy in the diagnosis of parathyroid carcinoma relapse, whereas 99mTc-MIBI SPECT/CT is the preferred method for localizing and analyzing cervical and extra-cervical lesions before the new surgery.
45 Is the new 50: improving colon cancer screening rates
Authors: Levy Benjamin H. , Thelin Camille , Da Silva Juliana
Published: November 2022

Purpose of review

The colonoscopy guidelines recently changed to begin screening at age 45. This review discusses the reasons for lowering the age, adenomatous polyp detection rates for patients 45–49, and to discover innovative health education campaigns aimed at younger patients.

Recent findings

There are currently approximately 20 million Americans between the age of 45–49 who will need to be screened by gastroenterologists. The prevalence of overall and advanced colorectal neoplasia on screening colonoscopy for average-risk individuals younger than 50 years is 14% and 2%. An important 2022 study using the GI Quality Improvement Consortium Registry demonstrated that patients aged 45–49 had an overall adenoma detection rate of >25%.

Health education campaigns need to immediately target 20 million Americans to begin colorectal cancer screening. Additional research should focus on whether there are sex differences for adenoma detection rates among patients aged 46–49. Innovative health education campaigns such as “Tune It Up: A Concert To Raise Colorectal Cancer” organized by the American College of Gastroenterology are educating younger patients to begin colorectal screening by combining concerts and health communication.