bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Primary tumor location affects recurrence-free survival for patients with colorectal liver metastases after hepatectomy: a propensity score matching analysis
Authors: Zhang Yuanping , Wang Yongjin , Yuan Yichuan , Qiu Jiliang , Qiu Yuxiong , He Wei , Zheng Yun , Wang Zhiqiang , Gu Yangkui , Lu Zhenhai , Chen Gong , Ding Peirong , Wu Xiaojun , Pan Zhizhong , Wan Desen , Li Yuhong , Xu Ruihua , Yuan Yunfei , Li Binkui 
Published: May 2020

Abstract
Background
Whether primary tumor location of colorectal cancer (CRC) affects survival of patients after resection of liver metastases remains controversial. This study was conducted to investigate the differences in clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis between right-sided CRC and left-sided CRC patients with liver metastases after hepatectomy.

Methods
From 2002 to 2018, 611 patients with colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) who underwent hepatectomy at our center were reviewed. Primary tumors located from the cecum to transverse colon were defined as right-sided group (n = 141); tumors located from the splenic flexure to rectum were defined as left-sided group (n = 470). Patients were compared between two groups before and after a 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) analysis.

Results
Before PSM, median survival time and 5-year overall survival (OS) rate in right-sided group were 77 months and 56.3%, and those in left-sided group were 64 months and 51.1%, respectively. After PSM, median survival time and 5-year OS rate in right-sided group were 77 months and 55.9%, and those in left-sided group were 58.8 months and 47.3%, respectively. The OS rates did not differ between two groups before and after PSM (P = 0.575, P = 0.453). However, significant different recurrence-free survival (RFS) rate was found before and after PSM between right-sided and left-sided group (P = 0.028, P = 0.003).

Conclusions
Compared to patients with left-sided primary tumors, patients with right-sided primary tumors had a worse RFS but similar OS. Careful preoperative evaluation, intensive preoperative chemotherapy, and frequent follow-up to detect early recurrence might be justified for CRLM patients with right-sided primary tumors.
Protection from DNA re-methylation by transcription factors in primordial germ cells and pre-implantation embryos can explain trans-generational epigenetic inheritance
Authors: Kremsky Isaac , Corces Victor G. 
Published: May 2020

Abstract
Background
A growing body of evidence suggests that certain epiphenotypes can be passed across generations via both the male and female germlines of mammals. These observations have been difficult to explain owing to a global loss of the majority of known epigenetic marks present in parental chromosomes during primordial germ cell development and after fertilization.

Results
By integrating previously published BS-seq, DNase-seq, ATAC-seq, and RNA-seq data collected during multiple stages of primordial germ cell and pre-implantation development, we find that the methylation status of the majority of CpGs genome-wide is restored after global de-methylation, despite the fact that global CpG methylation drops to 10% in primordial germ cells and 20% in the inner cell mass of the blastocyst. We estimate the proportion of such CpGs with preserved methylation status to be 78%. Further, we find that CpGs at sites bound by transcription factors during the global re-methylation phases of germline and embryonic development remain hypomethylated across all developmental stages observed. On the other hand, CpGs at sites not bound by transcription factors during the global re-methylation phase have high methylation levels prior to global de-methylation, become de-methylated during global de-methylation, and then become re-methylated.

Conclusions
The results suggest that transcription factors can act as carriers of epigenetic information during germ cell and pre-implantation development by ensuring that the methylation status of CpGs is maintained. These findings provide the basis for a mechanistic description of trans-generational inheritance of epigenetic information in mammals.
Effect of an interprofessional care concept on the hospitalization of nursing home residents: study protocol for a cluster-randomized controlled trial
Authors: Piotrowski Alexandra , Meyer Martha , Burkholder Iris , Renaud Dagmar , Müller Markus Alexander , Lehr Thorsten , Laag Sonja , Meiser Joachim , Manderscheid Lisa , Köberlein-Neu Juliane 
Published: May 2020

Abstract
Background
The rising number of nursing home (NH) residents and their increasingly complex treatment needs pose a challenge to the German health care system. In Germany, there is no specialized geriatric medical care for NH residents. Nursing staff and general practitioners (GPs) in particular have to compensate for the additional demand, which is compounded by organizational and structural hurdles. As a result, avoidable emergency calls and hospital admissions occur.
In the SaarPHIR project (Saarländische PflegeHeimversorgung Integriert Regelhaft), a complex intervention focusing on a medical care concept was developed in a participatory practice-based approach involving NH representatives and GPs. The complex intervention addresses the collaboration between nurses and GPs and aims to help restructure and optimize the existing daily care routine. It is expected to improve the medical care of geriatric patients in NHs and reduce stressful, costly hospital admissions. The intervention was pilot-tested during the first 12 months of the project. In the present study, its effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and safety will be evaluated.

Methods
The study is a cluster-randomized controlled trial, comparing an intervention group with a control group. The intervention includes a concept of interprofessional collaboration, in which GPs group into regional cooperating teams. Teams are encouraged to cooperate more closely with NH staff and to provide on-call schedules, pre-weekend visits, joint team meetings, joint documentation, and improved medication safety. At least 32 NHs in Saarland, Germany (with at least 50 residents each) will be included and monitored for 12 months. The primary endpoint is hospitalization. Secondary endpoints are quality of life, quality of care, and medication safety. The control group receives treatment as usual. Process evaluation and health economic evaluation accompany the study. The data set contains claims data from German statutory health insurance companies as well as primary data. Analysis will be conducted using a generalized linear mixed model.

Conclusion
A reduction in hospital admissions of NH residents and relevant changes in secondary endpoints are expected. In turn, these will have a positive impact on the economic assessment.

Trial registration
German Clinical Trials Register: DRKS00017129. Registered on 23 April 2019. https://www.drks.de/drks_web/setLocale_EN.do.
Metabolic engineering of a fast-growing cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 11801 for photoautotrophic production of succinic acid
Authors: Sengupta Shinjinee , Jaiswal Damini , Sengupta Annesha , Shah Shikha , Gadagkar Shruti , Wangikar Pramod P. 
Published: May 2020

AbstractBackgroundCyanobacteria, a group of photosynthetic prokaryotes, are being increasingly explored for direct conversion of carbon dioxide to useful chemicals. However, efforts to engineer these photoautotrophs have resulted in low product titers. This may be ascribed to the bottlenecks in metabolic pathways, which need to be identified for rational engineering. We engineered the recently reported, fast-growing and robust cyanobacterium,Synechococcus elongatusPCC 11801 to produce succinate, an important platform chemical. Previously, engineering of the model cyanobacteriumS. elongatusPCC 7942 has resulted in succinate titer of 0.43 g l−1in 8 days.ResultsBuilding on the previous report, expression of α-ketoglutarate decarboxylase, succinate semialdehyde dehydrogenase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase yielded a succinate titer of 0.6 g l−1in 5 days suggesting that PCC 11801 is better suited as host for production. Profiling of the engineered strains for 57 intermediate metabolites, a number of enzymes and qualitative analysis of key transcripts revealed potential flux control points. Based on this, we evaluated the effects of overexpression of sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase, citrate synthase and succinate transporters and knockout of succinate dehydrogenase and glycogen synthase A. The final construct with seven genes overexpressed and two genes knocked out resulted in photoautotrophic production of 0.93 g l−1succinate in 5 days.ConclusionWhile the fast-growing strain PCC 11801 yielded a much higher titer than the model strain, the efficient photoautotrophy of this novel isolate needs to be harnessed further for the production of desired chemicals. Engineered strains ofS. elongatusPCC 11801 showed dramatic alterations in the levels of several metabolites suggesting far reaching effects of pathway engineering. Attempts to overexpress enzymes deemed to be flux controlling led to the emergence of other potential rate-limiting steps. Thus, this process of debottlenecking of the pathway needs to be repeated several times to obtain a significantly superior succinate titer.
Deciphering the transcriptional regulatory networks that control size, color, and oil content in Brassica rapa seeds
Authors: Niu Yue , Wu Limin , Li Yanhua , Huang Hualei , Qian Mingchao , Sun Wei , Zhu Hong , Xu Yuanfang , Fan Yonghai , Mahmood Umer , Xu Benbo , Zhang Kai , Qu Cunmin , Li Jiana , Lu Kun 
Published: May 2020

AbstractBackgroundBrassica rapais an important oilseed and vegetable crop species and is the A subgenome donor of two important oilseedBrassicacrops,Brassica napusandBrassica juncea. Although seed size (SZ), seed color (SC), and oil content (OC) substantially affect seed yield and quality, the mechanisms regulating these traits inBrassicacrops remain unclear.ResultsWe collected seeds from a pair ofB. rapaaccessions with significantly different SZ, SC, and OC at seven seed developmental stages (every 7 days from 7 to 49 days after pollination), and identified 28,954 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from seven pairwise comparisons between accessions at each developmental stage.K-means clustering identified a group of cell cycle-related genes closely connected to variation in SZ ofB. rapa. A weighted correlation analysis using the WGCNA package in R revealed two important co-expression modules comprising genes whose expression was positively correlated with SZ increase and negatively correlated with seed yellowness, respectively. Upregulated expression of cell cycle-related genes in one module was important for the G2/M cell cycle transition, and the transcription factorBra.A05TSO1seemed to positively stimulate the expression of twoCYCB1;2genes to promote seed development. In the second module, a conserved complex regulated by the transcription factor TT8 appear to determine SC through downregulation ofTT8and its target genesTT3,TT18, andANR. In the third module, WRI1 and FUS3 were conserved to increase the seed OC, andBra.A03GRF5was revealed as a key transcription factor on lipid biosynthesis. Further, upregulation of genes involved in triacylglycerol biosynthesis and storage in the seed oil body may increase OC. We further validated the accuracy of the transcriptome data by quantitative real-time PCR of 15 DEGs. Finally, we used our results to construct detailed models to clarify the regulatory mechanisms underlying variations in SZ, SC, and OC inB. rapa.ConclusionsThis study provides insight into the regulatory mechanisms underlying the variations of SZ, SC, and OC in plants based on transcriptome comparison. The findings hold great promise for improving seed yield, quality and OC through genetic engineering of critical genes in future molecular breeding.
Polygenic risk scores: from research tools to clinical instruments
Authors: Lewis Cathryn M. , Vassos Evangelos 
Published: May 2020

AbstractGenome-wide association studies have shown unequivocally that common complex disorders have a polygenic genetic architecture and have enabled researchers to identify genetic variants associated with diseases. These variants can be combined into a polygenic risk score that captures part of an individual’s susceptibility to diseases. Polygenic risk scores have been widely applied in research studies, confirming the association between the scores and disease status, but their clinical utility has yet to be established. Polygenic risk scores may be used to estimate an individual’s lifetime genetic risk of disease, but the current discriminative ability is low in the general population. Clinical implementation of polygenic risk score (PRS) may be useful in cohorts where there is a higher prior probability of disease, for example, in early stages of diseases to assist in diagnosis or to inform treatment choices. Important considerations are the weaker evidence base in application to non-European ancestry and the challenges in translating an individual’s PRS from a percentile of a normal distribution to a lifetime disease risk. In this review, we consider how PRS may be informative at different points in the disease trajectory giving examples of progress in the field and discussing obstacles that need to be addressed before clinical implementation.
Sex hormone-binding globulin and arthritis: a Mendelian randomization study
Authors: Qu Zihao , Huang Jiawei , Yang Fangkun , Hong Jianqiao , Wang Wei , Yan Shigui 
Published: May 2020

AbstractBackgroundSex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) has been reported to be a risk factor associated with the development of arthritis by previous observational studies more so of three common forms of arthritis: osteoarthritis (OA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and ankylosing spondylitis (AS). This study aimed to determine whether the concentrations of circulating SHBG are causally associated with the risk of OA, RA, and AS.MethodsThe two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) approach was used for this study. The inverse-variance-weighted (IVW) method was used for the main analysis. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with SHBG were selected from a large genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 28,837 European individuals. The summary statistics for OA, RA, and AS were extracted from the UK Biobank Resource (n = 361,141) and a GWAS dataset (n = 455,221).ResultsPositive causal associations were found between circulating SHBG concentrations and OA (effect = 1.086; 95% CI, 1.009 to 1.168;P = 0.027) and RA (effect = 1.003; 95% CI, 1.000 to 1.007;P = 0.047) in overall analyses. However, there was no evidence of association between SHBG levels and AS. Based on the stratification of skeletal sites, SHBG levels were found to be significantly associated with hip OA (effect = 1.423; 95% CI, 1.219 to 1.660;P = 7.753 × 10−6). However, this was not the case with knee OA.ConclusionsThere were positive causal effects of circulating SHBG on the development of OA and RA. Moreover, there was a site-specific association between SHBG and hip OA. Evidently, measurement of SHBG in serum could be valuable in the clinical assessment of arthritis especially in early screening and prevention of OA and RA. However, the mechanisms by which SHBG plays causal roles in the development of arthritis require further investigations.
An economic analysis of transhumance in the Central Spanish Pyrenees
Authors: Fernández-Giménez María E. , Ritten John 
Published: May 2020

AbstractThe ecological and risk -management rationales for livestock mobility are well established. Yet, few studies evaluate the economic benefits and costs of maintaining or resuming mobile, extensive livestock production compared to sedentary or semi-extensive production. Here, we empirically evaluate pastoralists’ claims that transhumance, a specific type of long-distance herd mobility, is a more profitable system compared to semi-extensive production in the Central Spanish Pyrenees. Specifically, we use enterprise budget data from transhumant and semi-extensive operations to develop a baseline typical sheep operation budget. We then use partial budget analysis coupled with economic simulations to determine the conditions under which transhumance by truck or on foot becomes profitable relative to semi-extensive production. We find that transhumance by foot is more profitable than transhumance by truck and that relative profitability compared to semi-extensive production depends on operational scale, feed prices, and the lambing rates (productivity) of each system. Over all simulated scenarios, transhumance is more profitable 64–78% of the time. This analysis thus provides initial evidence of the economic rationality of transhumance under contemporary environmental and economic conditions, filling a notable gap in research on the economics of transhumance. Future research could expand the analysis to cattle operations and to other regions of Spain, assess the full social and environmental benefits and costs of transhumance, and evaluate the effects of exogenous factors like drought on production costs and profitability to determine if transhumance is an adaptive strategy under a changing climate. The analysis we present could be used as a basis to develop and pilot test interactive budgeting tools that support herder decision-making and planning under economic and environmental uncertainty.
Amid COVID-19: the importance of developing an positive adverse drug reaction (ADR) and medical device incident (MDI) reporting culture for Global Health and public safety
Authors: Elbeddini Ali , Yeats Aniko , Lee Stephanie 
Published: May 2020

AbstractAmid COVID-19 Crisis, reporting adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and medical device incidents (MDIs) to Health Canada or health authorities in every country is crucial for monitoring medication safety and improving public health. Health Canada, for example, through their online database, has facilitated the process of reporting side effects relating to drugs and medical devices. However, several patients and health care professionals still fail to voluntarily report adverse events. For health care providers, some barriers to reporting may include fear of negative feedback, apathy, legal concerns, and uncertainty about whether an incident qualifies as an ADR.In the current COVID-19 Crisis, it is especially important for health care providers to be diligent about reporting Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs), since misinformation propagated by the media is causing patients to misuse certain medications. We need to shift the current thought process about ADR reporting in order to encourage a positive reporting culture by patients and health care providers.
Role of ncRNAs in modulation of liver fibrosis by extracellular vesicles
Authors: Chiabotto Giulia , Camussi Giovanni , Bruno Stefania 
Published: May 2020

AbstractExtracellular vesicles (EVs) are small membrane vesicles carrying bioactive lipids, proteins and nucleic acids of the cell of origin. In particular, EVs carry non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) and the vesicle membrane may protect them from degradation. Once released within the extracellular space, EVs can transfer their cargo, including ncRNAs, to neighboring or distant cells, thus inducing phenotypical and functional changes that may be relevant in several physio-pathological conditions. This review provides an overview of the role of EV-carried ncRNAs in the modulation of liver fibrosis. In particular, we focused on EV-associated microRNAs (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) involved into the development of liver fibrosis and on the potential use of EV-associated ncRNAs as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of liver fibrosis.
Potential agricultural and environmental benefits of mulches—a review
Authors: Iqbal Rashid , Raza Muhammad Aown Sammar , Valipour Mohammad , Saleem Muhammad Farrukh , Zaheer Muhammad Saqlain , Ahmad Salman , Toleikiene Monika , Haider Imran , Aslam Muhammad Usman , Nazar Muhammad Adnan 
Published: May 2020

AbstractRapid industrialization and urbanization have resulted in elevated global temperature over the years consequently disturbing the balance of agro-ecological systems worldwide. Therefore, new eco-friendly agricultural practices for sustainable food production are needed. Mulching could potentially serve the purpose by reducing soil evaporation, conserving moisture, controlling soil temperature, reducing weed growth, and improving microbial activities. Additionally, mulches could provide economical, aesthetic, and environmental advantages to agriculture and landscape. Moreover, in the restoration sites, mulches are widely used for the plantation of trees which need no significant care. Mulches combat with different stress conditions in agricultural lands as well as in landscapes. This review paper focuses on multiple significant impacts of mulches for the production and establishment of different crops in nature. Mulches conserve the soil moisture, enhance the nutrients status of soil, control the erosion losses, suppress the weeds in crop plants, and remove the residual effects of pesticides, fertilizers, and heavy metals. Mulches improve the aesthetic value of landscapes and economic value of crops. This paper also describes some problems associated with various mulch materials. There are contradictions about mulching materials as some researchers favor mulches and others have denoted some concerns. The selection of mulching material is important with respect to crop type, management practices, and climatic conditions. The appropriate mulching technique could provide the aforementioned benefits to the agro-ecological systems. Therefore, the impacts of low-cost, eco-friendly, and biodegradable mulching materials on soil microbes, nutrient balance, plant growth, and soil erosion should be explored in the future.