Digital Commons Network^™

Endothelial Cell Cd36 Deficiency Prevents Normal Angiogenesis And Vascular Repair, Lara Bou Khzam, Ni-Huiping Son, Adam E Mullick, Nada A Abumrad, Ira J Goldberg

Open Access Publications

Endothelial cells (ECs) maintain vascular integrity and mediate vascular repair and angiogenesis, by which new blood vessels are formed from pre-existing blood vessels. Hyperglycemia has been shown to increase EC angiogenic potential. However, few studies have investigated effects of fatty acids (FAs) on EC angiogenesis. Cluster of differentiation 36 (CD36) is a FA transporter expressed by ECs, but its role in EC proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis is unknown. We sought to determine if circulating FAs regulate angiogenic function in a CD36-dependent manner. CD36-dependent effects of FAs on EC proliferation and migration of mouse heart ECs (MHECs) and lung ECs (MLECs) …

Food Addiction And Psychosocial Adversity: Biological Embedding, Contextual Factors, And Public Health Implications, David A Wiss, Nicole Avena, Mark Gold

Open Access Publications

The role of stress, trauma, and adversity particularly early in life has been identified as a contributing factor in both drug and food addictions. While links between traumatic stress and substance use disorders are well documented, the pathways to food addiction and obesity are less established. This review focuses on psychosocial and neurobiological factors that may increase risk for addiction-like behaviors and ultimately increase BMI over the lifespan. Early childhood and adolescent adversity can induce long-lasting alterations in the glucocorticoid and dopamine systems that lead to increased addiction vulnerability later in life. Allostatic load, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and emerging data …

A Framework For Advancing Our Understanding Of Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts, Erik Sahai, David G. Denardo, Sheila Stewart, Et Al.

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Neutrophil L-Plastin Controls Ocular Paucibacteriality And Susceptibility To Keratitis, Xiaoxiao Lu, Abirami Kugadas, Kirsten Smith-Page, Jeffrey Lamb, Tiffany Lin, Yusha Ru, Sharon Celeste Morley, Raina Fichorova, Sharad K Mittal, Sunil K Chauhan, Sejiro Littleton, Daniel Saban, Mihaela Gadjeva

Open Access Publications

Why ocular mucosa is paucibacterial is unknown. Many different mechanisms have been suggested but the comprehensive experimental studies are sparse. We found that a deficiency in L-plastin (LCP1), an actin bundling protein, resulted in an ocular commensal overgrowth, characterized with increased presence of conjunctival

Immunomodulatory Roles Of Polysaccharide Capsules In The Intestine, Samantha A Hsieh, Paul M Allen

Open Access Publications

The interplay between the immune system and the microbiota in the human intestine dictates states of health vs. disease. Polysaccharide capsules are critical elements of bacteria that protect bacteria against environmental and host factors, including the host immune system. This review summarizes the mechanisms by which polysaccharide capsules from commensal and pathogenic bacteria in the gut microbiota modulate the innate and adaptive immune systems in the intestine. A deeper understanding of the roles of polysaccharide capsules in microbiota-immune interactions will provide a basis to harness their therapeutic potential to advance human health.

Pancreatic Triglyceride Lipase Mediates Lipotoxic Systemic Inflammation, Cristiane De Oliveira, Mark E Lowe, Et Al

Open Access Publications

Visceral adipose tissue plays a critical role in numerous diseases. Although imaging studies often show adipose involvement in abdominal diseases, their outcomes may vary from being a mild self-limited illness to one with systemic inflammation and organ failure. We therefore compared the pattern of visceral adipose injury during acute pancreatitis and acute diverticulitis to determine its role in organ failure. Acute pancreatitis-associated adipose tissue had ongoing lipolysis in the absence of adipocyte triglyceride lipase (ATGL). Pancreatic lipase injected into mouse visceral adipose tissue hydrolyzed adipose triglyceride and generated excess nonesterified fatty acids (NEFAs), which caused organ failure in the absence …

Lipin-1 Contributes To Il-4 Mediated Macrophage Polarization, Sunitha Chandran, Robert M Schilke, Cassidy M R Blackburn, Aila Yurochko, Rusella Mirza, Rona S Scott, Brian N Finck, Matthew D Woolard

Open Access Publications

Macrophage responses contribute to a diverse array of pathologies ranging from infectious disease to sterile inflammation. Polarization of macrophages determines their cellular function within biological processes. Lipin-1 is a phosphatidic acid phosphatase in which its enzymatic activity contributes to macrophage pro-inflammatory responses. Lipin-1 also possesses transcriptional co-regulator activity and whether this activity is required for macrophage polarization is unknown. Using mice that lack only lipin-1 enzymatic activity or both enzymatic and transcriptional coregulator activities from myeloid cells, we investigated the contribution of lipin-1 transcriptional co-regulator function toward macrophage wound healing polarization. Macrophages lacking both lipin-1 activities did not elicit IL-4 …

Gardnerella Vaginalis As A Cause Of Bacterial Vaginosis: Appraisal Of The Evidence From In Vivo Models, Sydney Morrill, Nicole M Gilbert, Amanda L Lewis

Open Access Publications

Koch's postulates dictate the use of experimental models to illustrate features of human disease and provide evidence for a singular organism as the cause. The underlying cause(s) of bacterial vaginosis (BV) has been debated in the literature for over half a century. In 1955, it was first reported that a bacterium now known as

Co-Occurrence Of Campylobacter Species In Children From Eastern Ethiopia, And Their Association With Environmental Enteric Dysfunction, Diarrhea, And Host Microbiome, Yitagele Terefe, Mark J Manary, Maria Isabel Ordiz, Et Al

Open Access Publications

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Multiple Network Disconnection In Anosognosia For Hemiplegia, Elena Monai, Francesca Bernocchi, Marta Bisio, Antonio Luigi Bisogno, Alessandro Salvalaggio, Maurizio Corbetta

Open Access Publications

Anosognosia for hemiplegia (AHP) is a complex syndrome whose neural correlates are still under investigation. One hypothesis, mainly based on lesion mapping studies, is that AHP reflects a breakdown of neural systems of the right hemisphere involved in motor function. However, more recent theories have suggested that AHP may represent a disorder of cognitive systems involved in belief updating, self-referential or body processing. Two recent studies, using a method to estimate the degree of white matter disconnection from lesions, have indeed shown that patients with AHP suffer from damage of several long-range white matter pathways in association cortex. Here, we …

Development Of Volumetric Independent Dose Calculation System For Verification Of The Treatment Plan In Image-Guided Adaptive Brachytherapy, Sang-Won Kang, Jin-Beom Chung, Kyeong-Hyeon Kim, Ji-Yeon Park, Hae-Jin Park, Woong Cho, Sven Olberg, Tae Suk Suh, Justin C Park

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Sequencing-Based Measurable Residual Disease Testing In Acute Myeloid Leukemia, Jennifer M Yoest, Cara Lunn Shirai, Eric J Duncavage

Open Access Publications

Next generation sequencing (NGS) methods have allowed for unprecedented genomic characterization of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) over the last several years. Further advances in NGS-based methods including error correction using unique molecular identifiers (UMIs) have more recently enabled the use of NGS-based measurable residual disease (MRD) detection. This review focuses on the use of NGS-based MRD detection in AML, including basic methodologies and clinical applications.

Dopamine Buffering Capacity Imaging: A Pharmacodynamic Fmri Method For Staging Parkinson Disease, Kevin J Black, Haley K Acevedo, Jonathan M Koller

Open Access Publications

We propose a novel pharmacological fMRI (phMRI) method for objectively quantifying disease severity in Parkinson disease (PD). It is based on the clinical observation that the benefit from a dose of levodopa wears off more quickly as PD progresses. Biologically this has been thought to represent decreased buffering capacity for dopamine as nigrostriatal cells die. Buffering capacity has been modeled based on clinical effects, but clinical measurements are influenced by confounding factors. The new method proposes to measure the effect objectively based on the timing of the known response of several brain regions to exogenous levodopa. Such responses are robust …

Positive Allosteric Modulation Of Cd11b As A Novel Therapeutic Strategy Against Lung Cancer, Terese Geraghty, Anugraha Rajagopalan, Rabail Aslam, Alexander Pohlman, Ishwarya Venkatesh, Andrew Zloza, David Cimbaluk, David G Denardo, Vineet Gupta

Open Access Publications

Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in the United States. A major hurdle for improved therapies is immune suppression mediated by the tumor and its microenvironment. The lung tumor microenvironment (TME) contains large numbers of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), which suppress the adaptive immune response, increase neo-vascularization of the tumor, and provide pro-tumor factors to promote tumor growth. CD11b is highly expressed on myeloid cells, including TAMs, where it forms a heterodimeric integrin receptor with CD18 (known as CD11b/CD18, Mac-1, CR3, and αMβ2), and plays an important role in recruitment and biological functions of these cells, …

Methylation-Directed Glycosylation Of Chromatin Factors Represses Retrotransposon Promoters, Mathieu Boulard, Sofia Rucli, John R. Edwards, Timothy H. Bestor

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Ct-Quantified Body Composition On Longitudinal Health-Related Quality Of Life In Colorectal Cancer Patients: The Colocare Study, Biljana Gigic, Graham A Colditz, Adetunji T Toriola, Et Al

Open Access Publications

BACKGROUND: Obesity, defined by body mass index (BMI), measured at colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis has been associated with postoperative complications and survival outcomes. However, BMI does not allow for a differentiation between fat and muscle mass. Computed tomography (CT)-defined body composition more accurately reflects different types of tissue and their associations with health-related quality of life (HRQoL) during the first year of disease, but this has not been investigated yet. We studied the role of visceral and subcutaneous fat area (VFA and SFA) and skeletal muscle mass (SMM) on longitudinally assessed HRQoL in CRC patients.

METHODS: A total of 138 …

Genomics Of Mpnst (Gem) Consortium: Rationale And Study Design For Multi-Omic Characterization Of Nf1-Associated And Sporadic Mpnsts, David T Miller, Angela C Hirbe, Et Al

Open Access Publications

The Genomics of Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor (GeM) Consortium is an international collaboration focusing on multi-omic analysis of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs), the most aggressive tumor associated with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). Here we present a summary of current knowledge gaps, a description of our consortium and the cohort we have assembled, and an overview of our plans for multi-omic analysis of these tumors. We propose that our analysis will lead to a better understanding of the order and timing of genetic events related to MPNST initiation and progression. Our ten institutions have assembled 96 fresh frozen …

Matriptase Cleaves Epcam And Trop2 In Keratinocytes, Destabilizing Both Proteins And Associated Claudins, Chuan-Jin Wu, Michael Lu, Xu Feng, Gaku Nakato, Mark C Udey

Open Access Publications

The homologs EpCAM and TROP2, which both interact with claudin-1 and claudin-7, are frequently coexpressed in epithelia including skin. Intestine uniquely expresses high levels of EpCAM but not TROP2. We previously identified EpCAM as a substrate of the membrane-anchored protease matriptase and linked HAI-2, matriptase, EpCAM and claudin-7 in a pathway that is pivotal for intestinal epithelial cells (IEC) homeostasis. Herein, we reveal that TROP2 is also a matriptase substrate. Matriptase cleaved TROP2 when purified recombinant proteins were mixed in vitro. TROP2, like EpCAM, was also cleaved after co-transfection of matriptase in 293T cells. Neither EpCAM nor TROP2 cleavage was …

Development And Evaluation Of Machine Learning Models For Voxel Dose Predictions In Online Adaptive Magnetic Resonance Guided Radiation Therapy, M Allan Thomas, Yabo Fu, Deshan Yang

Open Access Publications

PURPOSE: Daily online adaptive plan quality in magnetic resonance imaging guided radiation therapy (MRgRT) is difficult to assess in relation to the fully optimized, high quality plans traditionally established offline. Machine learning prediction models developed in this work are capable of predicting 3D dose distributions, enabling the evaluation of online adaptive plan quality to better inform adaptive decision-making in MRgRT.

METHODS: Artificial neural networks predicted 3D dose distributions from input variables related to patient anatomy, geometry, and target/organ-at-risk relationships in over 300 treatment plans from 53 patients receiving adaptive, linac-based MRgRT for abdominal cancers. The models do not include any …

Focal Dynamic Thermal Imaging For Label‑Free High‑Resolution Characterization Of Materials And Tissue Heterogeneity, Christine M. O'Brien, Hongyu Meng, Leonid Shmuylovich, Julia Carpenter, Praneeth Gogineni, Haini Zhang, Kevin Bishop, Suman B. Mondal, Gail P. Sudlow, Cheryl Bethea, Clyde Bethea, Samuel Achilefu

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Applying Dimensional Psychopathology: Transdiagnostic Associations Among Regional Homogeneity, Leptin And Depressive Symptoms, Yan-Ge Wei, Jia Duan, Fay Y. Womer, Yue Zhu, Zhiyang Yin, Lingling Cui, Chao Li, Zhuang Liu, Shengnan Wei, Xiaowei Jiang, Yanbo Zhang, Xizhe Zhang, Yanqing Tang, Fei Wang

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Neutron Activation Of Gadolinium For Ion Therapy: A Monte Carlo Study Of Charged Particle Beams, Kurt W. Van Delinder, Rao Khan, James L. Gräfe

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Competitive Tight-Binding Inhibition Of Vkorc1 Underlies Warfarin Dosage Variation And Antidotal Efficacy, Shuang Li, Shixuan Liu, Xiaoran Roger Liu, Mengru Mira Zhang, Weikai Li

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Nanotherapy Delivery Of C-Myc Inhibitor Targets Protumor Macrophages And Preserves Antitumor Macrophages In Breast Cancer, Alison K. Esser, Michael H. Ross, Francesca Fontana, Xinming Su, Ariel Gabay, Gregory C. Fox, Yalin Xu, Jingyu Xiang, Anne H. Schmieder, Xiaoxia Yang, Grace Cui, Michael Scott, Samuel Achilefu, Jay Chauhan, Steven Fletcher, Gregory M. Lanza, Katherine N. Weilbaecher

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Maternal Activation Of The Egfr Prevents Translocation Of Gut-Residing Pathogenic Escherichia Coli In A Model Of Late-Onset Neonatal Sepsis, Kathryn A. Knoop, Paige E. Coughlin, Alexandria N. Floyd, I. Malick Ndao, Carla Hall-Moore, Nurmohammad Shaikh, Andrew J. Gasparrini, Brigida Rusconi, Marilyn Escobedo, Misty Good, Barbara B. Warner, Phillip I. Tarr, Rodney D. Newberry

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Tumor Burden, Inflammation, And Product Attributes Determine Outcomes Of Axicabtagene Ciloleucel In Large B-Cell Lymphoma, Frederick L. Locke, Armin Ghobadi, Et Al.

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

The Gut Microbiome Defines Social Group Membership In Honey Bee Colonies, Cassondra L Vernier, Iris M Chin, Boahemaa Adu-Oppong, Joshua J Krupp, Joel Levine, Gautam Dantas, Yehuda Ben-Shahar

Open Access Publications

In the honey bee, genetically related colony members innately develop colony-specific cuticular hydrocarbon profiles, which serve as pheromonal nestmate recognition cues. Yet, despite high intracolony relatedness, the innate development of colony-specific chemical signatures by individual colony members is largely determined by the colony environment, rather than solely relying on genetic variants shared by nestmates. Therefore, it is puzzling how a nongenic factor could drive the innate development of a quantitative trait that is shared by members of the same colony. Here, we provide one solution to this conundrum by showing that nestmate recognition cues in honey bees are defined, at …

Leukocyte Telomere Length Is Unrelated To Cognitive Performance Among Non-Demented And Demented Persons: An Examination Of Long Life Family Study Participants, Adiba Ashrafi, Stephanie Cosentino, Min S Kang, Joseph H Lee, Nicole Schupf, Stacy L Andersen, Kaare Christensen, Michael A Province, Bharat Thyagarajan, Joseph M Zmuda, Lawrence S Honig

Open Access Publications

OBJECTIVE: Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is a widely hypothesized biomarker of biological aging. Persons with shorter LTL may have a greater likelihood of developing dementia. We investigate whether LTL is associated with cognitive function, differently for individuals without cognitive impairment versus individuals with dementia or incipient dementia.

METHOD: Enrolled subjects belong to the Long Life Family Study (LLFS), a multi-generational cohort study, where enrollment was predicated upon exceptional family longevity. Included subjects had valid cognitive and telomere data at baseline. Exclusion criteria were age ≤ 60 years, outlying LTL, and missing sociodemographic/clinical information. Analyses were performed using linear regression with …

Chemical Effects Of Dicect Staining Protocols On Fluid-Preserved Avian Specimens, Catherine M. Early, Ashley C. Morhardt, Timothy P. Cleland, Christopher M. Milensky, Gwénaëlle M. Kavich, Helen F. James

Open Access Publications

Diffusible iodine-based contrast-enhanced computed tomography (diceCT) techniques allow visualization of soft tissues of fluid-preserved specimens in three dimensions without dissection or histology. Two popular diceCT stains, iodine-potassium iodide (I2KI) dissolved in water and elemental iodine (I2) dissolved in 100% ethanol (EtOH), yield striking results. Despite the widespread use of these stains in clinical and biological fields, the molecular mechanisms that result in color change and radiopacity attributed to iodine staining are poorly understood. Requests to apply these stains to anatomical specimens preserved in natural history museums are increasing, yet curators have little information about the potential for degradation of treated …

Rev-Erb Agonism Improves Liver Pathology In A Mouse Model Of Nash, Kristine Griffett, Gonzalo Bedia-Diaz, Bahaa Elgendy, Thomas P. Burris

Open Access Publications

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects a significant number of people worldwide and currently there are no pharmacological treatments. NAFLD often presents with obesity, insulin resistance, and in some cases cardiovascular diseases. There is a clear need for treatment options to alleviate this disease since it often progresses to much more the much more severe non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The REV-ERB nuclear receptor is a transcriptional repressor that regulates physiological processes involved in the development of NAFLD including lipogenesis and inflammation. We hypothesized that pharmacologically activating REV-ERB would suppress the progression of fatty liver in a mouse model of NASH. Using …