To develop and validate a short questionnaire to estimate physical activity (PA) practice and sedentary behavior for the adult population.
The short questionnaire was developed using data from a ...cross-sectional population-based survey (n = 6352) that included the Minnesota leisure-time PA questionnaire. Activities that explained a significant proportion of the variability of population PA practice were identified. Validation of the short questionnaire included a cross-sectional component to assess validity with respect to the data collected by accelerometers and a longitudinal component to assess reliability and sensitivity to detect changes (n = 114, aged 35 to 74 years).
Six types of activities that accounted for 87% of population variability in PA estimated with the Minnesota questionnaire were selected. The short questionnaire estimates energy expenditure in total PA and by intensity (light, moderate, vigorous), and includes 2 questions about sedentary behavior and a question about occupational PA. The short questionnaire showed high reliability, with intraclass correlation coefficients ranging between 0.79 to 0.95. The Spearman correlation coefficients between estimated energy expenditure obtained with the questionnaire and the number of steps detected by the accelerometer were as follows: 0.36 for total PA, 0.40 for moderate intensity, and 0.26 for vigorous intensity. The questionnaire was sensitive to detect changes in moderate and vigorous PA (correlation coefficients ranging from 0.26 to 0.34).
The REGICOR short questionnaire is reliable, valid, and sensitive to detect changes in moderate and vigorous PA. This questionnaire could be used in daily clinical practice and epidemiological studies.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This essay knits a dialogue between feminist political theory and feminist economy aiming at how to address the multiple challenges of platform economy nowadays. The essay's purpose is to articulate ...perspectives and tools from feminist economic policy in order to generate a gender equal and intersectional platform economy. The essay first presents an overview of feminist political analysis and a theoretical evolution on feminist economics drawing on the notion of work, the working conditions, and the collective representation in the platform economy. Then it explores the aims and limits of feminist policy-making and economic feminist approaches-merged and transcended-focusing on governmental measures and feminist vindications. Third, the essay provides gender tools in the field of economic policy and outlines suggestions to favour a feminist path in the platform economy in the context of today's complex environments.
Cellular transformation and cancer progression is accompanied by changes in the metabolic landscape. Master co-regulators of metabolism orchestrate the modulation of multiple metabolic pathways ...through transcriptional programs, and hence constitute a probabilistically parsimonious mechanism for general metabolic rewiring. Here we show that the transcriptional co-activator peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma co-activator 1α (PGC1α) suppresses prostate cancer progression and metastasis. A metabolic co-regulator data mining analysis unveiled that PGC1α is downregulated in prostate cancer and associated with disease progression. Using genetically engineered mouse models and xenografts, we demonstrated that PGC1α opposes prostate cancer progression and metastasis. Mechanistically, the use of integrative metabolomics and transcriptomics revealed that PGC1α activates an oestrogen-related receptor alpha (ERRα)-dependent transcriptional program to elicit a catabolic state and metastasis suppression. Importantly, a signature based on the PGC1α-ERRα pathway exhibited prognostic potential in prostate cancer, thus uncovering the relevance of monitoring and manipulating this pathway for prostate cancer stratification and treatment.
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IJS, NUK, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Dysregulation of RNA splicing contributes to both rare and complex diseases. RNA-sequencing data from human tissues has shown that this process can be inaccurate, resulting in the presence of novel ...introns detected at low frequency across samples and within an individual. To enable the full spectrum of intron use to be explored, we have developed IntroVerse, which offers an extensive catalogue on the splicing of 332,571 annotated introns and a linked set of 4,679,474 novel junctions covering 32,669 different genes. This dataset has been generated through the analysis of 17,510 human control RNA samples from 54 tissues provided by the Genotype-Tissue Expression Consortium. IntroVerse has two unique features: (i) it provides a complete catalogue of novel junctions and (ii) each novel junction has been assigned to a specific annotated intron. This unique, hierarchical structure offers multiple uses, including the identification of novel transcripts from known genes and their tissue-specific usage, and the assessment of background splicing noise for introns thought to be mis-spliced in disease states. IntroVerse provides a user-friendly web interface and is freely available at https://rytenlab.com/browser/app/introverse.
Genetic variants conferring risks for Parkinson's disease have been highlighted through genome-wide association studies, yet exploration of their specific disease mechanisms is lacking. Two ...Parkinson's disease candidate genes, KAT8 and KANSL1, identified through genome-wide studies and a PINK1-mitophagy screen, encode part of the histone acetylating non-specific lethal complex. This complex localizes to the nucleus, where it plays a role in transcriptional activation, and to mitochondria, where it has been suggested to have a role in mitochondrial transcription. In this study, we sought to identify whether the non-specific lethal complex has potential regulatory relationships with other genes associated with Parkinson's disease in human brain. Correlation in the expression of non-specific lethal genes and Parkinson's disease-associated genes was investigated in primary gene co-expression networks using publicly-available transcriptomic data from multiple brain regions (provided by the Genotype-Tissue Expression Consortium and UK Brain Expression Consortium), whilst secondary networks were used to examine cell type specificity. Reverse engineering of gene regulatory networks generated regulons of the complex, which were tested for heritability using stratified linkage disequilibrium score regression. Prioritized gene targets were then validated in vitro using a QuantiGene multiplex assay and publicly-available chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing data. Significant clustering of non-specific lethal genes was revealed alongside Parkinson's disease-associated genes in frontal cortex primary co-expression modules, amongst other brain regions. Both primary and secondary co-expression modules containing these genes were enriched for mainly neuronal cell types. Regulons of the complex contained Parkinson's disease-associated genes and were enriched for biological pathways genetically linked to disease. When examined in a neuroblastoma cell line, 41% of prioritized gene targets showed significant changes in mRNA expression following KANSL1 or KAT8 perturbation. KANSL1 and H4K8 chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing data demonstrated non-specific lethal complex activity at many of these genes. In conclusion, genes encoding the non-specific lethal complex are highly correlated with and regulate genes associated with Parkinson's disease. Overall, these findings reveal a potentially wider role for this protein complex in regulating genes and pathways implicated in Parkinson's disease.
Gene co-expression networks are a powerful type of analysis to construct gene groupings based on transcriptomic profiling. Co-expression networks make it possible to discover modules of genes whose ...mRNA levels are highly correlated across samples. Subsequent annotation of modules often reveals biological functions and/or evidence of cellular specificity for cell types implicated in the tissue being studied. There are multiple ways to perform such analyses with weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) amongst one of the most widely used R packages. While managing a few network models can be done manually, it is often more advantageous to study a wider set of models derived from multiple independently generated transcriptomic data sets (e.g., multiple networks built from many transcriptomic sources). However, there is no software tool available that allows this to be easily achieved. Furthermore, the visual nature of co-expression networks in combination with the coding skills required to explore networks, makes the construction of a web-based platform for their management highly desirable. Here, we present the CoExp Web application, a user-friendly online tool that allows the exploitation of the full collection of 109 co-expression networks provided by the CoExpNets suite of R packages. We describe the usage of CoExp, including its contents and the functionality available through the family of CoExpNets packages. All the tools presented, including the web front- and back-ends are available for the research community so any research group can build its own suite of networks and make them accessible through their own CoExp Web application. Therefore, this paper is of interest to both researchers wishing to annotate their genes of interest across different brain network models and specialists interested in the creation of GCNs looking for a tool to appropriately manage, use, publish, and share their networks in a consistent and productive manner.
This study aimed at comparing weight loss methods (WLM) performed near competition by elite judo athletes from different age and gender groups and relating WLM with the prevalence of eating ...disorders.
144 athletes (66 females and 78 males) from the Spanish judo teams participated in this observational descriptive study grouped into cadets, juniors, and seniors. Data were collected during previous training meetings to international tournaments. The used tools are a basic data questionnaire, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T), Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait (FCQ-T), Restraint Scale (RS), and Eating Attitude Test (EAT- 40). Two-way ANOVAs and chi-square tests were used to compare groups.
Seniors presented higher use of WLM, especially one week before competition compared with juniors. Judoists were more involved in their diets and reduced more weight as they were older. Females were more concerned about their diets, presented higher anxiety, scored higher in the emotion scale, and more eating disorders symptoms, although weight loss was lower. Anxiety and eating disorders symptoms differences were more common in juniors and cadets, respectively, with higher scores in females.
Seniors seem to develop more effective strategies to cope with weight loss. Cadet and junior females are more likely to suffer from the psychological-related states associated to weight loss.
(1) Educational programs might help competitors and coaches to adopt and promote healthier weight loss processes, (2) special attention should be paid to female young judoists to detect eating disorders in its early stages, and (3) judo organizations should consider implementing new rules to sanction harmful weight loss practices.
Although eccentrically braced frames (EBFs) can be used with different configurations according to architectural requirements, it has not yet been indicated which configuration has a better seismic ...performance; therefore, this paper presents an analytical study focused on evaluating the seismic behavior of various steel buildings with EBF systems, factoring in different configurations. Furthermore, the objective is to compare the performances of EBF systems with one another, to learn more about their structural efficiency. The results obtained indicate that seismic response, in terms of peak interstory drifts, depends on the structural period and hysteretic behavior of the links, because high levels of plastic rotation increase lateral displacement. In addition, it was observed that maximum drift demands are concentrated in the lower floors where the links exhibit inelastic behavior, while the level of interstory drift decreases as height increases.
The nuclear receptor PPAR-β/δ (PPARD) has essential roles in fatty acid catabolism and energy homeostasis as well as cell differentiation, inflammation, and metabolism. However, its contributions to ...tumorigenesis are uncertain and have been disputed. Here, we provide evidence of tumor suppressive activity of PPARD in prostate cancer through a noncanonical and ligand-independent pathway. PPARD was downregulated in prostate cancer specimens. In murine prostate epithelium, PPARD gene deletion resulted in increased cellularity. Genetic modulation of PPARD in human prostate cancer cell lines validated the tumor suppressive activity of this gene
and
Mechanistically, PPARD exerted its activity in a DNA binding-dependent and ligand-independent manner. We identified a novel set of genes repressed by PPARD that failed to respond to ligand-mediated activation. Among these genes, we observed robust regulation of the secretory trefoil factor family (TFF) members, including a causal and correlative association of TFF1 with prostate cancer biology
and in patient specimens. Overall, our results illuminate the oncosuppressive function of PPARD and understanding of the pathogenic molecular pathways elicited by this nuclear receptor.
These findings challenge the presumption that the function of the nuclear receptor PPARβ/δ in cancer is dictated by ligand-mediated activation.
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