bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Chronic pain in narcolepsy type 1 and type 2 – an underestimated reality
Authors: Cremaschi Renata C. , Hirotsu Camila , Tufik Sergio , Coelho Fernando M. 
Published: June 2018

SummaryNarcolepsy is a rare sleep disorder classified in types 1 and 2. The co‐morbidities of narcolepsy type 1, with hypocretin‐1 deficiency, are established. Hypocretin‐1 in the central and peripheral nervous systems regulates nociception and pain. However, the patients with narcolepsy type 2 have similar excessive daytime sleepiness and co‐morbidities without elucidation. The objective of the study was to determine the frequency and the characteristic of chronic pain according to the type of narcolepsy. We also investigated the effect of the interaction between the nutritional status and the type of narcolepsy. It was a cross‐sectional study using self‐administered questionnaires. Patients with narcolepsy (33 type 1 and 33 type 2), from Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil, matched by age and gender to 33 control subjects were included. Both types of narcolepsy presented a high frequency of chronic pain (84.84% type 1 versus 75.75% type 2), with indistinct pain characteristics between them. The odds ratio was 20.8 in type 1 and 11.6 in type 2, compared with controls. Obese individuals with narcolepsy type 1 and type 2 did not present a significant difference in pain intensity, compared with obese controls. Patients with narcolepsy type 1 and type 2 were associated with a high frequency of chronic pain. Chronic pain emerged as a co‐morbidity never reported before in type 2. Depression possibly influences pain perception in these patients. Obesity might play a role in pain intensity in narcolepsy. The treatment of narcolepsy should take account of chronic pain, depression and obesity management.
Inherent behavioural traits enable a widespread lizard to cope with urban life
Authors: Walsh S. , Goulet C. T. , Wong B. B. M. , Chapple D. G. 
Published: June 2018

AbstractThe global human population is increasing at a staggering rate, and more than half of that population resides in urban areas. As urbanization spreads across the landscape, animals are often confronted with a vast number of unfamiliar stimuli. Existing evidence from studies of birds and mammals suggests that increased boldness, arising either through behavioural plasticity or an intrinsic risk‐taking ability, can provide a fitness advantage in urban environments. What is less clear, is if these same patterns are prevalent in other taxa. Accordingly, we measured the expression of boldness in two contexts, novelty and anti‐predatory behaviour, in a successful urban lizard, the delicate skink (Lampropholis delicata). Lizards from genetically related urban and non‐urban populations were exposed to a novel object, scent and noise as well as a simulated predator attack. Contrary to much of the current research, we found no behavioural variation between urban and non‐urban populations, as all lizards exhibited similarly high levels of risk‐taking behaviour in their antipredator response as well as neophobia towards the novel object, scent and noise. Our results suggest that the delicate skink is able to cope with the challenges of urban conditions through its inherent traits. As urbanization becomes more widespread, we need to better understand which animals are able to cope with altered environmental conditions and how that is achieved. This will be critical if we are to fully grasp the impacts of anthropogenic change on faunal communities globally.
A genetics‐based approach confirms immune associations with life history across multiple populations of an aquatic vertebrate (Gasterosteus aculeatus)
Authors: Whiting James R. , Magalhaes Isabel S. , Singkam Abdul R. , Robertson Shaun , D'Agostino Daniele , Bradley Janette E. , MacColl Andrew D. C. 
Published: June 2018

AbstractUnderstanding how wild immune variation covaries with other traits can reveal how costs and trade‐offs shape immune evolution in the wild. Divergent life history strategies may increase or alleviate immune costs, helping shape immune variation in a consistent, testable way. Contrasting hypotheses suggest that shorter life histories may alleviate costs by offsetting them against increased mortality, or increase the effect of costs if immune responses are traded off against development or reproduction. We investigated the evolutionary relationship between life history and immune responses within an island radiation of three‐spined stickleback, with discrete populations of varying life histories and parasitism. We sampled two short‐lived, two long‐lived and an anadromous population using qPCR to quantify current immune profile and RAD‐seq data to study the distribution of immune variants within our assay genes and across the genome. Short‐lived populations exhibited significantly increased expression of all assay genes, which was accompanied by a strong association with population‐level variation in local alleles and divergence in a gene that may be involved in complement pathways. In addition, divergence around the eda gene in anadromous fish is likely associated with increased inflammation. A wider analysis of 15 populations across the island revealed that immune genes across the genome show evidence of having diverged alongside life history strategies. Parasitism and reproductive investment were also important sources of variation for expression, highlighting the caution required when assaying immune responses in the wild. These results provide strong, gene‐based support for current hypotheses linking life history and immune variation across multiple populations of a vertebrate model.
Contrasting effects of Symbiodinium identity on coral host transcriptional profiles across latitudes
Authors: Barfield Sarah J. , Aglyamova Galina V. , Bay Line K. , Matz Mikhail V. 
Published: June 2018

AbstractReef‐building corals can increase their resistance to heat‐induced bleaching through adaptation and acclimatization and/or by associating with a more thermo‐tolerant strain of algal symbiont (Symbiodinium sp.). Here, we show that these two adaptive pathways interact. We collected Acropora millepora corals from two contrasting thermal environments on the Great Barrier Reef: cooler, mid‐latitude Orpheus Island, where all corals hosted a heat‐sensitive clade C Symbiodinium, and warmer, low‐latitude Wilkie Island, where corals hosted either a clade C or a more thermo‐tolerant clade D. Corals were kept in a benign common garden to reveal differences in baseline gene expression, reflecting prior adaptation/long‐term acclimatization. Model‐based analysis identified gene expression differences between Wilkie and Orpheus corals that were negatively correlated with previously described transcriptome‐wide signatures of heat stress, signifying generally elevated thermotolerance of Wilkie corals. Yet, model‐free analyses of gene expression revealed that Wilkie corals hosting clade C were distinct from Wilkie corals hosting clade D, whereas Orpheus corals were more variable. Wilkie corals hosting clade C symbionts exhibited unique functional signatures, including downregulation of histone proteins and ion channels and upregulation of chaperones and RNA processing genes, putatively representing constitutive “frontloading” of stress response genes. Furthermore, clade C Symbiodinium exhibited constitutive expression differences between Wilkie and Orpheus, indicative of contrasting life history strategies. Our results demonstrate that hosting alternative Symbiodinium types is associated with different pathways of local adaptation for the coral host. These interactions could play a significant role in setting the direction of genetic adaptation to global warming in the two symbiotic partners.
The role of senescence, telomere dysfunction and shelterin in vascular aging
Authors: Liu Yu , Bloom Samuel I. , Donato Anthony J. 
Published: June 2018

AbstractIn the United States and other westernized nations, CVDs are the leading cause of death in adults over 65 years of age. Large artery stiffness and endothelial dysfunction are increased with age and age‐associated arterial dysfunction is an important antecedent of CVDs. One age‐associated change that may contribute to vascular dysfunction and CVD risk is an increase in the number of resident senescent cells in the vasculature. Senescent cells display a pro‐oxidant, pro‐inflammatory phenotype known as the SASP. However, the mechanisms that drive the SASP and the vascular aging phenotype remain elusive. A putative mechanism is the involvement of oxidative stress and inflammation in telomere function. Telomeres are the end caps of chromosomes which are maintained by a six‐protein complex known as shelterin. Disruption of shelterin can uncap telomeres and induce cellular senescence. Accordingly, in this review, we propose that oxidative stress and inflammation disrupt shelterin in vascular cells, driving telomere dysfunction and that this mechanism may be responsible for the induction of SASP. The proposed mechanisms may represent some of the initial changes that lead to vascular dysfunction in advanced age.
The tri‐snRNP specific protein FgSnu66 is functionally related to FgPrp4 kinase in Fusarium graminearum
Authors: Sun Manli , Zhang Yimei , Wang Qinhu , Wu Chunlan , Jiang Cong , Xu Jin‐Rong 
Published: June 2018

SummaryDeletion of Prp4, the only kinase among spliceosome components, is not lethal in Fusarium graminearum but Fgprp4 mutants have severe growth defects and produced spontaneous suppressors. To identify novel suppressor mutations of Fgprp4, we sequenced the genome of suppressor S37 that was normal in growth but only partially recovered for intron splicing and identified a tandem duplication of 9‐aa in the tri‐snRNP component FgSNU66. Among the 19 additional suppressor strains found to have mutations in FgSNU66 (out of 260 screened), five had the same 9‐aa duplication event with S37 and another five had the R477H/C mutation. The rest had nonsense or G‐to‐D mutations in the C‐terminal 27‐aa (CT27) region of FgSnu66, which is absent in its yeast ortholog. Truncation of this C‐terminal region reduced the interaction of FgSnu66 with FgHub1 but increased its interaction with FgPrp8 and FgPrp6. Five phosphorylation sites were identified in FgSnu66 by phosphoproteomic analysis and the T418A‐S420A‐S422A mutation was shown to reduce virulence. Overall, our results showed that mutations in FgSNU66 can suppress deletion of Fgprp4, which has not been reported in other organisms, and the C‐terminal tail of FgSnu66 plays a role in its interaction with key tri‐snRNP components during spliceosome activation.
Homospermidine biosynthesis in the cyanobacterium Anabaena requires a deoxyhypusine synthase homologue and is essential for normal diazotrophic growth
Authors: Burnat Mireia , Li Bin , Kim Sok Ho , Michael Anthony J. , Flores Enrique 
Published: June 2018

SummaryPolyamines are primordial, small organic polycations present in almost all cells, but their roles in bacteria are poorly understood. sym‐Homospermidine is the dominant polyamine in the filamentous, N2‐fixing, heterocyst‐forming cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120. Synthesis of homospermidine was dependent on speA (encoding arginine decarboxylase), speB (agmatinase) and speY (deoxyhypusine synthase homologue), which in bacteria is an unprecedented pathway. Inactivation of any of these genes impaired diazotrophic growth. Heterocyst differentiation in the speA mutant was blocked at an early step, after induction of the regulatory gene hetR but before production of heterocyst‐specific glycolipids (HGL). In contrast, the speY mutant produced HGL and showed slow diazotrophic growth. Analysis of fusions to green fluorescent protein revealed that SpeA (like SpeB previously described) accumulates at higher levels in vegetative cells than in heterocysts, and that SpeY accumulates in vegetative cells but also at significant levels in heterocysts. The homospermidine biosynthetic pathway is therefore active primarily in vegetative cells but the last step can be completed in heterocysts. Our findings indicate an important role for polyamines in the diazotrophic biology of Anabaena. Furthermore, inactivation of a gene cluster (potADB) encoding a polyamine ABC transporter disrupted diazotrophic growth, corroborating the importance of polyamine homeostasis in Anabaena.
Major challenges for correlational ecological niche model projections to future climate conditions
Authors: Peterson A. Townsend , Cobos Marlon E. , Jiménez‐García Daniel 
Published: June 2018

AbstractSpecies‐level forecasts of distributional potential and likely distributional shifts, in the face of changing climates, have become popular in the literature in the past 20 years. Many refinements have been made to the methodology over the years, and the result has been an approach that considers multiple sources of variation in geographic predictions, and how that variation translates into both specific predictions and uncertainty in those predictions. Although numerous previous reviews and overviews of this field have pointed out a series of assumptions and caveats associated with the methodology, three aspects of the methodology have important impacts but have not been treated previously in detail. Here, we assess those three aspects: (1) effects of niche truncation on model transfers to future climate conditions, (2) effects of model selection procedures on future‐climate transfers of ecological niche models, and (3) relative contributions of several factors (replicate samples of point data, general circulation models, representative concentration pathways, and alternative model parameterizations) to overall variance in model outcomes. Overall, the view is one of caution: although resulting predictions are fascinating and attractive, this paradigm has pitfalls that may bias and limit confidence in niche model outputs as regards the implications of climate change for species’ geographic distributions.
Optic nerve tissue displacement during mild intraocular pressure elevation: its relationship to central corneal thickness and corneal hysteresis
Authors: Bedggood Phillip , Tanabe Fumi , McKendrick Allison M. , Turpin Andrew , Anderson Andrew J. , Bui Bang V. 
Published: June 2018

AbstractPurposeTo determine the extent to which (1) optic nerve tissue is displaced following mild acute elevation of intraocular pressure, and (2) clinically accessible measures at the anterior eye can be used as a surrogate for such displacements.MethodsWe imaged the optic disc of 21 healthy subjects before and after intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation of ~10 mmHg delivered by ophthalmodynamometry. Steady‐state tissue displacement during IOP elevation was assessed axially from OCT data, and laterally from SLO data. Recovery from IOP elevation was assessed by tracking a single vertical B‐scan through the cup centre. Anatomical structures were demarcated by three masked clinicians to determine lateral shifts for temporal cup edge and central disc vessels, and axial shifts of disc surface and anterior lamina cribrosa. Spatial maps of deformation were constructed within the demarcated cup and disc to assess within‐tissue displacement. Measured displacements were correlated with corneal hysteresis, corneal thickness, and IOP.ResultsThe temporal cup edge moved more temporally with higher baseline IOP (R2 = 0.33, p = 0.006) and with lesser elevation of IOP (R2 = 0.43, p = 0.001); it moved more superiorly for thinner corneas (R2 = 0.35, p = 0.007). Thinner corneas also produced less within‐cup deformation, relative to that of the disc (R2 = 0.39, p = 0.004). Axial displacement of the lamina and lateral displacement of vessels were often substantial (lamina 20 ± 15 μm, range 1–60 μm; vessels 37 ± 25 μm, range 2–102 μm) but did not correlate with measured parameters. Recovery from IOP elevation did not take more than 300–400 ms in any subject.ConclusionsMild acute elevation of IOP produces large and rapidly reversible shifts in optic nerve tissue in young, healthy eyes. The resulting degree, direction and spatial distribution of cup movement are associated with IOP status and corneal thickness, but not corneal hysteresis.
Survey of hospitalization for respiratory syncytial virus in Nagano, Japan
Authors: Yanagisawa Toshimitsu , Nakamura Tomohiko 
Published: June 2018

AbstractBackgroundRespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is one of the major causes of hospitalization of children during the winter months in Nagano, Japan. This investigation was conducted to understand the details of hospitalized patients infected with RSV in Nagano.MethodsThe study used a questionnaire to survey hospitals who treated children for RSV infection in the pediatric wards of 11 major hospitals in Nagano.ResultsBetween April 2016 and March 2017, 438 patients were hospitalized with RSV infection in the 11 participating hospitals. The mean gestational age at birth was 38 weeks 2 days. Average birthweight was 2,834 g. The ratio of hospitalized patients with RSV infection to the total number of hospitalized patients was, on average, 7.0% in the second‐level hospitals. Despite the use of prophylactic palivizumab, six patients were hospitalized.ConclusionsThe rate of hospitalization for RSV was similar across each of the second‐level hospitals in Nagano. Patients hospitalized after prophylactic palivizumab had received palivizumab only a few times during the season when infection rates were highest. Palivizumab is therefore advised prior to the outbreak initiation season.
Do White Law Enforcement Officers Target Minority Suspects?
Authors: Menifield Charles E. , Shin Geiguen , Strother Logan 
Published: June 2018

AbstractThe debate over possible bias in the use of deadly force has recently been exacerbated by highly publicized killings of African American males around the country. While much research has been conducted examining police behavior, little has been done to investigate the impact of race on police behavior. This article aims to answer this question: are white police officers more likely to use lethal force on minority suspects or people of a specific race? To answer this question, the authors construct a data set of all confirmed uses of lethal force by police officers in the United States in 2014 and 2015. They find that although minority suspects are disproportionately killed by police, white officers appear to be no more likely to use lethal force against minorities than nonwhite officers.
The revised EEMCO guidance for the in vivo measurement of water in the skin
Authors: Berardesca Enzo , Loden Marie , Serup Jorgen , Masson Philippe , Rodrigues Luis Monteiro 
Published: June 2018

AbstractBackgroundNoninvasive quantification of stratum corneum water content is widely used in skin research and topical product development.MethodsThe original EEMCO guidelines on measurements of skin hydration by electrical methods and transepidermal water loss (TEWL) by evaporimeter published in 1997 and 2001 have been revisited and updated with the incorporation of recently available technologies.ResultsElectrical methods and open‐chamber evaporimeters for measurement of TEWL are still the preferred techniques to measure the water balance in the stratum corneum. The background technology and biophysics of these instruments remain relevant and valid. However, new methods that can image surface hydration and measure depth profiles of dermal water content now available. Open‐chamber measurement of TEWL has been supplemented with semiopen and closed chamber probes, which are more robust to environmental influence and therefore convenient to use and more applicable to field studies. However, closed chamber methods interfere with the evaporation of water, and the methods cannot be used for continuous monitoring. Validation of methods with respect to intra‐ and inter‐instrument variation remains challenging. No validation standard or test phantom is available.Results and ConclusionsThe established methods for measurement of epidermal water content and TEWL have been supplemented with important new technologies including methods that allow imaging of epidermal water distribution and water depth profiles. A much more complete and sophisticated characterization of the various aspects of the dermal water barrier has been accomplished by means of today's noninvasive techniques; however, instrument standardization and validation remain a challenge.
Tamoxifen and meglumine antimoniate combined therapy in cutaneous leishmaniasis patients: a randomised trial
Authors: Machado Paulo R. L. , Ribeiro Camila S. , França‐Costa Jaqueline , Dourado Mayra E.F. , Trinconi Cristiana T. , Yokoyama‐Yasunaka Jenicer K. U. , Malta‐Santos Hayna , Borges Valéria M. , Carvalho Edgar M. , Uliana Silvia R. B. 
Published: June 2018

AbstractObjectivesThere is a clear need for new strategies of leishmaniasis treatment. This work was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the co‐administration of tamoxifen and meglumine antimoniate (SbV) in a phase II pilot clinical trial in localised cutaneous leishmaniasis patients.MethodsA randomised controlled pilot clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of oral (40 mg/day for 20 days) or topical tamoxifen (0.1% tamoxifen citrate for 20 days) combined with meglumine antimoniate (20 mg SbV/kg/day for 20 days) vs. a standard SbV protocol (20 mg/kg/day for 20 days) for the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis. Primary outcome was complete epithelisation of the lesion 6 months after the end of treatment. Secondary outcomes were lesion healing 2 months after the end of treatment and frequency and severity of adverse events.ResultsA total of 38 subjects were included in the trial, 15 were treated with standard SbV and 23 with the combination of tamoxifen and SbV. Of the patients treated with the co‐administration scheme, 12 received tamoxifen orally and 11 were treated with topical tamoxifen. Tamoxifen administered by the oral or topical routes was well tolerated. Cure rates 6 months after the end of treatment per intention to treat were 40% in the group treated with the standard SbV scheme, and 36.4% and 58%, respectively, for groups treated with SbV plus topical or oral tamoxifen.ConclusionsIn the doses and schemes used in this study, co‐administration of oral tamoxifen and SbV resulted in higher cure rates in comparison with the standard scheme of treatment, although not to statistically significant levels.