Integrative multiomics data analysis provides a unique opportunity for the mechanistic understanding of colorectal cancer (CRC) in addition to the identification of potential novel therapeutic ...targets. In this study, we used public omics data sets to investigate potential associations between microbiome, metabolome, bulk transcriptomics and single cell RNA sequencing datasets. We identified multiple potential interactions, for example 5-aminovalerate interacting with
; cholesteryl ester interacting with bacterial genera
,
and
. Using public single cell and bulk RNA sequencing, we identified 17 overlapping genes involved in epithelial cell pathways, with particular significance of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway and the
gene that indirectly regulates the esterification of cholesterol. These findings demonstrate that the integration of multiomics data sets from diverse populations can help us in untangling the colorectal cancer pathogenesis as well as postulate the disease pathology mechanisms and therapeutic targets.
Individuals with cancer, particularly those who are receiving systemic anticancer treatments, have been postulated to be at increased risk of mortality from COVID-19. This conjecture has considerable ...effect on the treatment of patients with cancer and data from large, multicentre studies to support this assumption are scarce because of the contingencies of the pandemic. We aimed to describe the clinical and demographic characteristics and COVID-19 outcomes in patients with cancer.
In this prospective observational study, all patients with active cancer and presenting to our network of cancer centres were eligible for enrolment into the UK Coronavirus Cancer Monitoring Project (UKCCMP). The UKCCMP is the first COVID-19 clinical registry that enables near real-time reports to frontline doctors about the effects of COVID-19 on patients with cancer. Eligible patients tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 on RT-PCR assay from a nose or throat swab. We excluded patients with a radiological or clinical diagnosis of COVID-19, without a positive RT-PCR test. The primary endpoint was all-cause mortality, or discharge from hospital, as assessed by the reporting sites during the patient hospital admission.
From March 18, to April 26, 2020, we analysed 800 patients with a diagnosis of cancer and symptomatic COVID-19. 412 (52%) patients had a mild COVID-19 disease course. 226 (28%) patients died and risk of death was significantly associated with advancing patient age (odds ratio 9·42 95% CI 6·56–10·02; p<0·0001), being male (1·67 1·19–2·34; p=0·003), and the presence of other comorbidities such as hypertension (1·95 1·36–2·80; p<0·001) and cardiovascular disease (2·32 1·47–3·64). 281 (35%) patients had received cytotoxic chemotherapy within 4 weeks before testing positive for COVID-19. After adjusting for age, gender, and comorbidities, chemotherapy in the past 4 weeks had no significant effect on mortality from COVID-19 disease, when compared with patients with cancer who had not received recent chemotherapy (1·18 0·81–1·72; p=0·380). We found no significant effect on mortality for patients with immunotherapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapy, radiotherapy use within the past 4 weeks.
Mortality from COVID-19 in cancer patients appears to be principally driven by age, gender, and comorbidities. We are not able to identify evidence that cancer patients on cytotoxic chemotherapy or other anticancer treatment are at an increased risk of mortality from COVID-19 disease compared with those not on active treatment.
University of Birmingham, University of Oxford.
Microbiome data analysis and its interpretation into meaningful biological insights remain very challenging for numerous reasons, perhaps most prominently, due to the need to account for multiple ...factors, including collinearity, sparsity (excessive zeros) and effect size, that the complex experimental workflow and subsequent downstream data analysis require. Moreover, a meaningful microbiome data analysis necessitates the development of interpretable models that incorporate inferences across available data as well as background biomedical knowledge. We developed a multimodal framework that considers sparsity (excessive zeros), lower effect size, intrinsically microbial correlations, i.e., collinearity, as well as background biomedical knowledge in the form of a cluster-infused enriched network architecture. Finally, our framework also provides a candidate taxa/Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU) that can be targeted for future validation experiments. We have developed a tool, the term NFnetFU (Neuro Fuzzy network Fusion), that encompasses our framework and have made it freely available at https://github.com/VartikaBisht6197/NFnetFu.
Display omitted
•Microbiome data set have many challenges including collinearity, sparsity (excessive zeros) and effect size.•A sequential workflow and downstream data analysis is required to capture knowledge from each step.•We developed a microbiome enrichment based fusion score called “NFnetFu” to facilitate data analysis.
Large cohorts of patients with active cancers and COVID-19 infection are needed to provide evidence of the association of recent cancer treatment and cancer type with COVID-19 mortality.
To evaluate ...whether systemic anticancer treatments (SACTs), tumor subtypes, patient demographic characteristics (age and sex), and comorbidities are associated with COVID-19 mortality.
The UK Coronavirus Cancer Monitoring Project (UKCCMP) is a prospective cohort study conducted at 69 UK cancer hospitals among adult patients (≥18 years) with an active cancer and a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19. Patients registered from March 18 to August 1, 2020, were included in this analysis.
SACT, tumor subtype, patient demographic characteristics (eg, age, sex, body mass index, race and ethnicity, smoking history), and comorbidities were investigated.
The primary end point was all-cause mortality within the primary hospitalization.
Overall, 2515 of 2786 patients registered during the study period were included; 1464 (58%) were men; and the median (IQR) age was 72 (62-80) years. The mortality rate was 38% (966 patients). The data suggest an association between higher mortality in patients with hematological malignant neoplasms irrespective of recent SACT, particularly in those with acute leukemias or myelodysplastic syndrome (OR, 2.16; 95% CI, 1.30-3.60) and myeloma or plasmacytoma (OR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.04-2.26). Lung cancer was also significantly associated with higher COVID-19-related mortality (OR, 1.58; 95% CI, 1.11-2.25). No association between higher mortality and receiving chemotherapy in the 4 weeks before COVID-19 diagnosis was observed after correcting for the crucial confounders of age, sex, and comorbidities. An association between lower mortality and receiving immunotherapy in the 4 weeks before COVID-19 diagnosis was observed (immunotherapy vs no cancer therapy: OR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.31-0.86).
The findings of this study of patients with active cancer suggest that recent SACT is not associated with inferior outcomes from COVID-19 infection. This has relevance for the care of patients with cancer requiring treatment, particularly in countries experiencing an increase in COVID-19 case numbers. Important differences in outcomes among patients with hematological and lung cancers were observed.
Polydiacetylenes have attracted significant interest for their unique chromatic properties and applications in sensing, imaging, and optics. Here, it is demonstrated that ...aminoanthraquinone‐substituted diacetylenes exhibit distinct aggregation‐dependent chromatic properties, affected by the alignment of both the aminoanthraquinone headgroups and diacetylene sidechains. Specifically, it is shown that aminoanthraquinone‐diacetylene monomers adopt different film organizations depending upon the polarity of the solvent employed for predissolution. In particular, a yellow aminoanthraquinone‐diacetylene phase, which undergoes photopolymerization upon ultraviolet irradiation, is produced upon dissolution in polar organic solvents prior to deposition and drying on solid substrates. In contrast, a red phase that can not be polymerized is observed when the monomers are predissolved in apolar solvents. Microscopic and spectroscopic analyses indicate that the optical properties of the films are determined by the degree of overlap between the aminoanthraquinone headgroups as well as the alignment of the diacetylene sidechains; both factors are intimately affected by interactions of the monomers with solvent molecules. It is shown that the aggregation‐dependent diacetylene films exhibit remarkable solvochromic, thermochromic, and mechanochromic properties. The aminoanthraquinone‐substituted diacetylenes may facilitate chromatic tuning of polydiacetylene systems in the solid state, determined by solvent‐ and intermolecular interactions and concomitant self‐assembly of the pendant sidechains and aromatic headgroups.
An aminoanthraquinone‐substituted diacetylene monomer adopts distinct organizations exhibiting different colors depending upon the polarity of the solvent employed for predissolution. Polar solvents give rise to a “Y‐phase” assembly (yellow color) which readily undergoes ultraviolet (UV)‐induced topochemical polymerization, whereas nonpolar solvents yielded an “R‐phase” assembly (red color) which does not polymerize upon UV exposure.
The pollution is increasing in the environment by different kinds of human activities, which results in the accumulation of heavy metals including cadmium in the soil and water and it causes ...different types of problems to living beings. As the plants are utilized by human being as food and medicine, therefore, it is mandatory to see the effect of metals on plants. In this context, efforts have been made to observe the effect of different concentration of Cadmium (Cd) on
Phyllanthus amarus Schum. and Thonn., because Cd is the widespread metal and the plants response to low and high level of exposure is a complex phenomenon.
P. amarus is mostly grown as weed in agricultural and waste lands. It is a reputed plant used in Indian indigenous systems of medicine with hepatoprotective, diuretic, stomachic properties and is recently being used for the treatment of hepatitis B. The study revealed that Cd causes significant decrease in fresh and dry weight, length of root and shoot, protein, chlorophyll, carotenoids and sugar and increase in starch content. It is interesting to note that the therapeutically active compounds—phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin, enhanced at certain levels of Cd due to abiotic stress. Besides, the ultramorpholical changes were also observed in stomatal opening and wax deposition on both the surfaces of leaves.
The study aimed to explicate the role of microbial co-inoculants for the mitigation of arsenic (As) toxicity in rice. Arsenate (AsV) reducer yeast Debaryomyces hansenii NBRI-Sh2.11 (Sh2.11) with ...bacterial strains of different biotransformation potential was attempted to develop microbial co-inoculants. An experiment to test their efficacy (yeast and bacterial strains) on plant growth and As uptake was conducted under a stressed condition of 20 mg kg-1 of arsenite (AsIII). A combination of Sh2.11 with an As(III)-oxidizer, Citrobacter sp. NBRI-B5.12 (B5.12), resulted in ∼90% decrease in grain As content as compared to Sh2.11 alone (∼40%). Reduced As accumulation in rice roots under co-treated condition was validated with SEM-EDS analysis. Enhanced As expulsion in the selected combination under in vitro conditions was found to be correlated with higher As content in the soil during their interaction with plants. Selected co-inoculant mediated enhanced nutrient uptake in association with better production of indole acetic acid (IAA) and gibberellic acid (GA) in shoot, support microbial co-inoculant mediated better biomass under stressful condition. Boosted defense response in association with enhanced glutathione-S-transferase (GST) and glutathione reductase (GR), activities under in vitro and in vivo conditions were observed. These results indicated that the As(III) oxidizer-B5.12 accelerated the As detoxification property of the As(V) reducer-Sh2.11. Henceforth, the results confer that the coupled reduction-oxidation process of the co-inoculant reduces the accumulation of As in rice grain. These co-inoculants can be further developed for field trials to achieve higher biomass with alleviated As toxicity in rice.
Display omitted
•Combination of reducer (yeast) and oxidizer (bacteria) for As detoxification.•Co-inoculation of yeast (Sh2.11) and bacteria (B5.12) reduces ∼90% grain As.•Sh2.11 (D. hansenii) and B5.12 (Citrobacter sp.) co-inoculant increase plant growth.•Allied effect of co-inoculant on defense and nutritional status of plant and soil.
PDF
