(Boston University School of Medicine) A new Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study published in the journal Environmental Research finds detectable levels of DDE (what DDT becomes when metabolized in the body) and other banned organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the blood of over 60 percent of a cohort of black women of reproductive age in the Detroit area, with higher levels in women who smoked cigarettes daily, drank more alcohol, and drank more water.

(American Geriatrics Society) The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented pressure on societies worldwide, given the pandemic's rapid, often deadly spread. In health care, the pandemic has raised the pressing question of how society should allocate scarce resources during a crisis. This is the question experts addressed today in a new position statement published by the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.16537).

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) While an effective vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely many months away, development could be accelerated by conducting controlled human infection (CHI) studies -- which are increasingly being considered by the scientific community due to the urgent need.

(University of Tsukuba) Researchers from the University of Tsukuba discovered that fish schools showed a significant change in behavior with varying school sizes. Using integrated information theory, they showed that a significant change in the interaction between the fish and the overall collective behavior occurred between three- and four-fish schools, including the emergence of leadership within the group. These findings help understand the dynamics of collective behavior.

Richard O. White
Oct 1, 2010; 23:238-243
Articles

Imagine some of your favourite artistes on one song, offering up messages of encouragement and upliftment. Well, that is the concept behind the latest track from Billboard-charting producer NotNice. Dubbed We Are, the song features vocals from...

10 December 2018

Galectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins overexpressed in bladder cancer (BCa) cells. Dendritic galactose moieties have a high affinity for galectin-expressing tumor cells. We radiolabeled a dendritic galactose carbohydrate with fluorine-18 – ¹⁸F-labeled galactodendritic unit 4 – and examined its potential in imaging urothelial malignancies. Methods: The ¹⁸F-labeled 1st generation galactodendritic unit 4 was obtained from its tosylate precursor. We conducted in vivo studies in galectin-expressing UMUC3 orthotopic BCa model to determine the ability of ¹⁸F-labeled galactodendritic unit 4 to image BCa. Results: Intravesical administration of ¹⁸F-labeled galactodendritic unit 4 allowed specific accumulation of the carbohydrate radiotracer in galectin-1 overexpressing UMUC3 orthotopic tumors when imaged with PET. The ¹⁸F-labeled galactodendritic unit 4 was not found to accumulate in non-tumor murine bladders. Conclusion: The ¹⁸F-labeled galactodendritic unit 4 and similar analogs may be clinically relevant and exploitable for PET imaging of galectin-1 overexpressing bladder tumors.

Qiuyi Wang
Apr 1, 2020; 61:570-579
Methods

Timothy D Rohrbach
Apr 27, 2020; 0:jlr.D120000809v1-jlr.D120000809
Methods

We're back this week to bring you all the hot news from E3 and some cooler takes on everything Apple announced at its WWDC developer conference a few weeks back.

To help us do that Macworld UK editor Karen Khan runs through all the iOS and macOS Mojave updates Apple users can look forward to later this year.

Then Tech Advisor staff writer Sean Bradley is on hand for a whistlestop tour of all of the big gaming announcements from E3 in LA so far, including Gears of War, Death Stranding and The Last Of Us 2.

See you next week!

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Mass spectrometry (MS) assisted lipidomic tissue analysis is a valuable tool to assess sphingolipid metabolism dysfunction in disease. These analyses can reveal potential pharmacological targets or direct mechanistic studies to better understand the molecular underpinnings and influence of sphingolipid metabolism alterations on disease etiology. But procuring sufficient human tissues for adequately powered studies can be challenging. Therefore, biorepositories, which hold large collections of cryopreserved human tissues, are an ideal retrospective source of specimens. However, this resource has been vastly underutilized by lipid biologists, as the components of optimal cutting temperature compound (OCT) used in cryopreservation are incompatible with MS analyses. Here, we report results indicating that OCT also interferes with protein quantification assays, and that the presence of OCT impacts the quantification of extracted sphingolipids by LC–ESI–MS/MS. We developed and validated a simple and inexpensive method that removes OCT from OCT-embedded tissues. Our results indicate that removal of OCT from cryopreserved tissues does not significantly affect the accuracy of sphingolipid measurements with LC–ESI–MS/MS. We used the validated method to analyze sphingolipid alterations in tumors compared with normal adjacent uninvolved lung tissues from individuals with lung cancer, and to determine the long-term stability of sphingolipids in OCT-cryopreserved normal lung tissues. We show that lung cancer tumors have significantly altered sphingolipid profiles and that sphingolipids are stable for up to 16 years in OCT-cryopreserved normal lung tissues. This validated sphingolipidomic OCT-removal protocol should be a valuable addition to the lipid biologist’s toolbox.

1 January 2007 , Number 2

For all the cynicism it has evoked, the United States’ Iraq Study Group report might still lead to a regional diplomatic process, which could ease Iran and the US into negotiations. A grand bargain is very unlikely, but with Washington at the table, there might be enough advantage for both sides in a gradual process to halt the current slide towards a deeper confrontation.

Steroids that contain a 3-hydroxyl group (3-OH steroids) are widely distributed in nature. During analysis with ESI-MS, they easily become dehydrated while in the protonated form, resulting in the production of several precursor ions and leading to low sensitivity of detection. To address this analytical challenge, here, we developed a method for the quantitation of 3-OH steroids by LC-MS/MS coupled with post-column addition of lithium (Li) ions to the mobile phase. The Li ion has a high affinity for the keto group of steroids, stabilizing their structures during ionization and permitting detection of analytes exclusively as the lithiated form. This not only improved the intensities of the precursor ions, but also promoted the formation of typical lithiated fragment ions. This improvement made the quantitation by multiple reaction monitoring more sensitive and reliable, as evidenced by 1.53–188 times enhanced detection sensitivity of 13 steroids that contained at least one keto and two hydroxyl groups or one keto and one 5-olefinic double bond, among 16 different 3-OH steroids. We deployed our newly developed method for profiling steroids in mouse brain tissue and identified six steroids in one tissue sample. Among these, 16-hydroxyestrone, tetrahydrocorticosterone, and 17α-hydroxypregnenolone were detected for the first time in the mouse brain. In summary, the method described here enables the detection of lithiated steroids by LC-MS/MS, including three 3-OH steroids not previously reported in the mouse brain. We anticipate that this new method may allow the determination of 3-OH steroids in different brain regions.

A sustained increase in intracellular Ca²⁺ concentration (referred to herein as excitotoxicity), brought on by chronic metabolic stress, may contribute to pancreatic β-cell failure. To determine the additive effects of excitotoxicity and overnutrition on β-cell function and gene expression, we analyzed the impact of a high fat diet (HFD) on Abcc8 knock-out mice. Excitotoxicity caused β-cells to be more susceptible to HFD-induced impairment of glucose homeostasis, and these effects were mitigated by verapamil, a Ca²⁺ channel blocker. Excitotoxicity, overnutrition and the combination of both stresses caused similar but distinct alterations in the β-cell transcriptome, including additive increases in genes associated with mitochondrial energy metabolism, fatty acid β-oxidation and mitochondrial biogenesis, and their key regulator Ppargc1a. Overnutrition worsened excitotoxicity-induced mitochondrial dysfunction, increasing metabolic inflexibility and mitochondrial damage. In addition, excitotoxicity and overnutrition, individually and together, impaired both β-cell function and identity by reducing expression of genes important for insulin secretion, cell polarity, cell junction, cilia, cytoskeleton, vesicular trafficking, and regulation of β-cell epigenetic and transcriptional program. Sex had an impact on all β-cell responses, with male animals exhibiting greater metabolic stress-induced impairments than females. Together, these findings indicate that a sustained increase in intracellular Ca²⁺, by altering mitochondrial function and impairing β-cell identity, augments overnutrition-induced β-cell failure.

George A. Bray
Jul 1, 2016; 65:1797-1799
Commentaries

VOLUME 285 (2010) PAGES 13742–13747In Fig. 1E, passage 10, the splicing of a non-adjacent lane from the same immunoblot was not marked. This error has now been corrected and does not affect the results or conclusions of this work.jbc;295/16/5533/F1F1F1Figure 1E.

VOLUME 295 (2020) PAGES 3285–3300An incorrect graph was used in Fig. 5C. This error has now been corrected. Additionally, some of the statistics reported in the legend and text referring to Fig. 5C were incorrect. The F statistics for Fig. 5C should state Fken(3,16) = 7.454, p < 0.01; FCCCP(1,16) = 102.9, p < 0.0001; Finteraction(3,16) = 7.480, p < 0.01. This correction does not affect the results or conclusions of this work.jbc;295/17/5835/F5F1F5Figure 5C.

VOLUME 294 (2019) PAGES 2555–2568Due to publisher error, “150 l/mm” was changed to “150 liters/mm” in the second paragraph of the “Vibrational spectroscopy of samples” section under “Experimental Procedures.” The correct phrase should be “150 l/mm.”

VOLUME 295 (2020) PAGES 1898–1914Yichen Zhong's name was misspelled. The correct spelling is shown above.

VOLUME 295 (2020) PAGES 4079–4092There was an error in the abstract. “The pyridinium cation hampers uptake of OPs into the central nervous system (CNS)” should read as “The pyridinium cation hampers uptake into the central nervous system (CNS).”

VOLUME 287 (2012) PAGES 44508–44517In Fig. 1A, the wrong image for the control group was presented. The authors inadvertently cropped the control images in Fig. 1, A and E, from the same raw image. Fig. 1A has now been corrected and does not affect the results or conclusions of the work. The authors sincerely apologize for their mistake during figure preparation and for any inconvenience this may have caused readers.jbc;295/19/6781/F1F1F1Figure 1A.

As they continue to await a resolution to the Bryce Harper sweepstakes, the Giants augmented their outfield depth by signing veteran Gerardo Parra to a Minor League deal Tuesday, sources confirmed to MLB.com's Jon Paul Morosi and Mark Feinsand.

The Giants have expressed a desire to add multiple veteran outfielders throughout the offseason, and they made their first notable acquisition earlier this week after signing Gerardo Parra to a Minor League contract.

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Dr Kori Schake, Resident Scholar and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute 
Chair: Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, Director, US and Americas Programme

Webinar Research Event

Event participants

I don’t have friends, I do not think. Friends get married, and Drive bigger cars and, Have more intelligent things to talk about, better Places to go, are Becoming lawyers and doctors and ministers, Big people, and It sort of interrupts things. ♦photos♦ Jacob’s Ladder -short evocative poetry-

Famous American poet and singer Maya Angelou shared this about matters pertaining to the heart: “Love recognises no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” What started out as an...

Astros outfielder Josh Reddick vows to start hitting to the opposite field more this year, which is something he did well in 2017, but not '18. Reddick hit .242 with 17 homers and 47 RBIs last year after hitting .314 with 13 homers and 82 RBIs to help the Astros to the World Series title in '17.

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is an acute viral respiratory tract infection caused by the novel betacoronavirus. Cases have been limited to the Arabian Peninsula and its surrounding countries, and to travellers from the Middle East or their contacts. The clinical spectrum of infection varies from no symptoms or mild respiratory...

It’s been called “the universal panacea” - exercise has a positive effect on almost all health measures, and governments are actively campaigning for us to do more. But at the opposite end of the scale, the realisation that some people may be addicted to exercise is gaining traction. In this podcast we're joined by Heather Hausenblas - professor...

There's a crisis in old age care - not just in the UK, around the world, as population demographics shift, and the proportion of older people increase - there's a worry about who's going to look after them, and how much is it going to cost? However, a new analysis on bmj.com says this picture need not be so gloomy - they say that encouraging...

In many countries (including the UK and Australia) it is still common practice for hospital doctors to write letters to patients’ general practitioners (GPs) following outpatient consultations, and for patients to receive copies of these letters. However, Hugh Rayner, consultant nephrologist, and Peter Rees, former Chair of the Academy of...

Marc Prentki
Mar 1, 1996; 45:273-283
Original Article

Roger H Unger
Aug 1, 1995; 44:863-870
Perspectives in Diabetes

Guenther Boden
Jan 1, 1997; 46:3-10
Perspectives in Diabetes

Ralph A DeFronzo
Jun 1, 1988; 37:667-687
Lilly Lecture 1987

Children at increased genetic risk for type 1 diabetes (T1D) after environmental exposures may develop pancreatic islet autoantibodies (IA) at a very young age. Metabolic profile changes over time may imply responses to exposures and signal development of the first IA. Our present research in The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study aimed to identify metabolome-wide signals preceding the first IA against GAD (GADA-first) or against insulin (IAA-first). We profiled metabolomes by mass spectrometry from children’s plasma at 3-month intervals after birth until appearance of the first IA. A trajectory analysis discovered each first IA preceded by reduced amino acid proline and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), respectively. With independent time point analysis following birth, we discovered dehydroascorbic acid (DHAA) contributing to the risk of each first IA, and -aminobutyric acid (GABAs) associated with the first autoantibody against insulin (IAA-first). Methionine and alanine, compounds produced in BCAA metabolism and fatty acids, also preceded IA at different time points. Unsaturated triglycerides and phosphatidylethanolamines decreased in abundance before appearance of either autoantibody. Our findings suggest that IAA-first and GADA-first are heralded by different patterns of DHAA, GABA, multiple amino acids, and fatty acids, which may be important to primary prevention of T1D.

Upon the passing of his physical on Tuesday, the Reds signed infielder/outfielder Derek Dietrich to a Minor League contract with an invitation to big league camp for Spring Training.

Invitation Only Research Event

In an effort to help develop their players on and off the field, the D-backs have added a mental skills department to their baseball operations staff.

A rise in mortality is a price worth paying to restart the US economy, President Trump has said, as many states flout advice from scientists and reopen beaches, cinemas, or hair salons while new...

FOUR MORE applicants are vying to provide mobile payment services in various formats, including one applicant seeking to use phone credit as a cash equivalent, but successful applicants will fall under a new framework the regulator calls its “...

In its first year, the Trump administration moved to deliver on some of Donald Trump’s campaign promises on immigration, including ramping up enforcement in the U.S. interior and ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The administration also announced the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of some countries. This article explores some of the top policy changes.

OBJECTIVE

This study investigates two-phase growth patterns in early life and their association with development of islet autoimmunity (IA) and type 1 diabetes (T1D).