We describe a new species of parrotlet, Nannopsittaca dachilleae, known from several localities in southeastern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. Its characters place it in the genus Nannopsittaca, ...which was formerly considered to be monotypic and restricted to the Pantepui region of northern South America. The two species probably form a superspecies.
Recent studies highlight the role of metabolites in immune diseases, but it remains unknown how much of this effect is driven by genetic and non-genetic host factors.
We systematically investigate ...circulating metabolites in a cohort of 500 healthy subjects (500FG) in whom immune function and activity are deeply measured and whose genetics are profiled. Our data reveal that several major metabolic pathways, including the alanine/glutamate pathway and the arachidonic acid pathway, have a strong impact on cytokine production in response to ex vivo stimulation. We also examine the genetic regulation of metabolites associated with immune phenotypes through genome-wide association analysis and identify 29 significant loci, including eight novel independent loci. Of these, one locus (rs174584-FADS2) associated with arachidonic acid metabolism is causally associated with Crohn's disease, suggesting it is a potential therapeutic target.
This study provides a comprehensive map of the integration between the blood metabolome and immune phenotypes, reveals novel genetic factors that regulate blood metabolite concentrations, and proposes an integrative approach for identifying new disease treatment targets.
Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) studies are used to interpret the function of disease-associated genetic risk factors. To date, most eQTL analyses have been conducted in bulk tissues, such ...as whole blood and tissue biopsies, which are likely to mask the cell type-context of the eQTL regulatory effects. Although this context can be investigated by generating transcriptional profiles from purified cell subpopulations, current methods to do this are labor-intensive and expensive. We introduce a new method, Decon2, as a framework for estimating cell proportions using expression profiles from bulk blood samples (Decon-cell) followed by deconvolution of cell type eQTLs (Decon-eQTL).
The estimated cell proportions from Decon-cell agree with experimental measurements across cohorts (R ≥ 0.77). Using Decon-cell, we could predict the proportions of 34 circulating cell types for 3194 samples from a population-based cohort. Next, we identified 16,362 whole-blood eQTLs and deconvoluted cell type interaction (CTi) eQTLs using the predicted cell proportions from Decon-cell. CTi eQTLs show excellent allelic directional concordance with eQTL (≥ 96-100%) and chromatin mark QTL (≥87-92%) studies that used either purified cell subpopulations or single-cell RNA-seq, outperforming the conventional interaction effect.
Decon2 provides a method to detect cell type interaction effects from bulk blood eQTLs that is useful for pinpointing the most relevant cell type for a given complex disease. Decon2 is available as an R package and Java application (https://github.com/molgenis/systemsgenetics/tree/master/Decon2) and as a web tool (www.molgenis.org/deconvolution).
Varifocal micromirrors are alternative and miniaturized mirror systems that are used for imaging procedures in biomedical diagnostics, mirror‐based tunable lenses, or the correction of spherical ...aberration. In this study, we demonstrate a new concept for focal length variation by electrostatic mirror deformation of a compact and integrated electroactive polymer actuator based on metallized poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) gel thin films. The varifocal micromirrors have a lateral size of 70 × 70 μm2 and are capable of deforming in either convex or concave direction, depending on a defined surface treatment by O2‐plasma or UV/ozone of the PDMS prior to metallization by physical vapor deposition (PVD). Surface and interface analysis by wetting experiments, sputter depth‐profiling X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) combined with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) on cross‐sections processed with focused ion beam (FIB) as well as polymer and metal surfaces are used to understand and to improve the metal film growth and quality with respect to high reflectivity and conductivity. In addition to the high quality of the metallic mirror layer, the mirror displacement is important and inevitably depends on the gel stiffness of the actuator. Therefore, we investigate the gel mechanics and the performance of the actuator with rheology, confocal microscopy, and image formation on the electrically deformed mirrors. Our concept of varifocal micromirrors offers a wide range of applications for tunable mirror‐based optics due to their simple and compact design.
After an acute infection, older persons may benefit from geriatric rehabilitation (GR).
This study describes the recovery trajectories of post-COVID-19 patients undergoing GR and explores whether ...frailty is associated with recovery.
Multicentre prospective cohort study.
59 GR facilities in 10 European countries.
Post-COVID-19 patients admitted to GR between October 2020 and October 2021.
Patients' characteristics, daily functioning (Barthel index; BI), quality of life (QoL; EQ-5D-5L) and frailty (Clinical Frailty Scale; CFS) were collected at admission, discharge, 6 weeks and 6 months after discharge. We used linear mixed models to examine the trajectories of daily functioning and QoL.
723 participants were included with a mean age of 75 (SD: 9.91) years. Most participants were pre-frail to frail (median interquartile range CFS 6.0 5.0-7.0) at admission. After admission, the BI first steeply increased from 11.31 with 2.51 (SE 0.15, P < 0.001) points per month and stabilised around 17.0 (quadratic slope: -0.26, SE 0.02, P < 0.001). Similarly, EQ-5D-5L first steeply increased from 0.569 with 0.126 points per month (SE 0.008, P < 0.001) and stabilised around 0.8 (quadratic slope: -0.014, SE 0.001, P < 0.001). Functional recovery rates were independent of frailty level at admission. QoL was lower at admission for frailer participants, but increased faster, stabilising at almost equal QoL values for frail, pre-frail and fit patients.
Post-COVID-19 patients admitted to GR showed substantial recovery in daily functioning and QoL. Frailty at GR admission was not associated with recovery and should not be a reason to exclude patients from GR.
The immune response to pathogens varies substantially among people. Whereas both genetic and nongenetic factors contribute to interperson variation, their relative contributions and potential ...predictive power have remained largely unknown. By systematically correlating host factors in 534 healthy volunteers, including baseline immunological parameters and molecular profiles (genome, metabolome and gut microbiome), with cytokine production after stimulation with 20 pathogens, we identified distinct patterns of co-regulation. Among the 91 different cytokine-stimulus pairs, 11 categories of host factors together explained up to 67% of interindividual variation in cytokine production induced by stimulation. A computational model based on genetic data predicted the genetic component of stimulus-induced cytokine production (correlation 0.28-0.89), and nongenetic factors influenced cytokine production as well.
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