Digital Commons Network^™

Dual Tasking Impairments Are Associated With Striatal Pathology In Huntington’S Disease, Johnny Lo, Alvaro Reyes, Timothy S. Pulverenti, Timothy J. Rankin, Danielle M. Bartlett, Pauline Zaenker, Grant Rowe, Kirk Feindel, Govinda Poudel, Nellie Georgiou-Karistianis, Mel R. Ziman, Travis M. Cruickshank

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Recent findings suggest that individuals with Huntington’s disease (HD) have an impaired capacity to execute cognitive and motor tasks simultaneously, or dual task, which gradually worsens as the disease advances. The onset and neuropathological changes mediating impairments in dual tasking in individuals with HD are unclear. The reliability of dual tasking assessments for individuals with HD is also unclear. Objectives: To evaluate differences in dual tasking performance between individuals with HD (presymptomatic and prodromal) and matched controls, to investigate associations between striatal volume and dual tasking performance, and to determine the reliability of dual tasking assessments. Methods: Twenty individuals …

A Rapid Absorbance-Based Growth Assay To Screen The Toxicity Of Oligomer Aβ42 And Protect Against Cell Death In Yeast, Prashant Bharadwaj, Ralph Martins

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Multiple lines of evidence show that soluble oligomer forms of amyloid β protein (Aβ42) are the most neurotoxic species in the brain and correlates with the degree of neuronal loss and cognitive deficit in Alzheimer's disease. Although many studies have used mammalian cells to investigate oligomer Aβ42 toxicity, the use of more simple eukaryotic cellular systems offers advantages for large-scale screening studies. We have previously established and validated budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae to be a simple and a robust model to study the toxicity of Aβ. Using colony counting based methods, oligomeric Aβ42 was shown to induce dose-dependent cell death …

Green Human Resource Management: A Two-Study Investigation Of Antecedents And Outcomes, Azadeh Shafaei, Mehran Nejati, Yusmani Mohd Yusoff

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose

The study aimed to provide insights on antecedent and outcome of green HRM at the organisational level and the outcome of green HRM at the individual level. It also sought to examine the mechanism through which green HRM would lead to employees’ positive outcome.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative study design using a two-study approach was employed to collect and analyse the data. For study 1, 206 hotels from Malaysia were included in analysis at the organisational level, while in study 2 at the individual level, 508 employees from different sectors provided insights through an online questionnaire. For both studies, partial …

Rational Catalyst Design For N2 Reduction Under Ambient Conditions: Strategies Towards Enhanced Conversion Efficiency, Lei Shi, Yu Yin, Shaobin Wang, Hongqi Sun

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Ammonia (NH₃), one of the basic chemicals in most fertilizers and a promising carbon-free energy storage carrier, is typically synthesized via the Haber–Bosch process with high energy consumption and massive emission of greenhouse gases. The photo/electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) under ambient conditions has attracted increasing interests recently, providing alternative routes to realize green NH₃ synthesis. Despite rapid advances achieved in this most attractive research field, the unsatisfactory conversion efficiency including a low NH₃ yield rate, and limited Faradaic efficiency or apparent quantum efficiency still remains as a great challenge. The NRR performance is intrinsically related …

Summary Of Tobacco Use Among Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Australian Indigenous Healthinfonet

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The Summary of tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is a plain language publication that provides summarised and updated information from the Review of tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples(2020). It provides key information about tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in a style that is easy to engage with and is particularly useful for health workers and those studying in the field as a quick source of general information about:

• the context of tobacco use and how common tobacco use is
• how smoking affects health
• the burden of disease …

Putting The Entrepreneur Back Into Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Andrei Alexander Lux, Flavio Romero Macau, Kerry Brown

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose

This paper extends entrepreneurial ecosystems theory by testing how aspects of the local business environment affect individual entrepreneurs' ability to translate their personal resources into firm performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 223 business owners across Australia. Moderation hypotheses were tested using multiple hierarchical regression and confirmed with the Preacher and Hayes (2004) bootstrapping method.

Findings

The results show that business owners' psychological capital, social capital and entrepreneurial education directly affect their individual firm performance. These positive relations are moderated by specific aspects of the business environment, such that they are stronger when the environment is more favorable.

Originality/value …

Serum Hepcidin Levels In Cognitively Normal Older Adults With High Neocortical Amyloid-Beta Load, Pratishtha Chatterjee, Maryam Mohammadi, Kathryn Goozee, Tejal Shah, Hamid R. Sohrabi, Cintia B. Dias, Kaikai Shen, Prita R. Asih, Preeti Dave, Steve Pedrini, Nicholas J. Ashton, Abdul Hye, Kevin Taddei, David B. Lovejoy, Henrik Zetterberg, Kaj Blennow, Ralph Martins

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background/Objective:

Hepcidin, an iron-regulating hormone, suppresses the release of iron by binding to the iron exporter protein, ferroportin, resulting in intracellular iron accumulation. Given that iron dyshomeostasis has been observed in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) together with elevated serum hepcidin levels, the current study examined whether elevated serum hepcidin levels are an early event in AD pathogenesis by measuring the hormone in cognitively normal older adults at risk of AD, based on high neocortical amyloid-β load (NAL).

Methods:

Serum hepcidin levels in cognitively normal participants (n = 100) aged between 65–90 years were measured using ELISA. To evaluate NAL, all …

Relationships Between Plasma Lipids Species, Gender, Risk Factors And Alzheimer’S Disease, Wei Ling Florence Lim, Kevin Huynh, Pratishtha Chatterjee, Ian Martins, Kaushala S. Jayawardana, Corey Giles, Natalie A. Mellett, Simon M. Laws, Ashley I. Bush, Christopher C. Rowe, Victor L. Villemagne, David Ames, Brian G. Drew, Colin L. Masters, Peter J. Meikle, Ralph Martins, Australian Imaging, Biomarker & Lifestyle Research Group

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

Lipid metabolism is altered in Alzheimer’s disease (AD); however, the relationship between AD risk factors (age, APOE ɛ4, and gender) and lipid metabolism is not well defined.

Objective:

We investigated whether altered lipid metabolism associated with increased age, gender, and APOE status may contribute to the development of AD by examining these risk factors in healthy controls and also clinically diagnosed AD individuals.

Methods:

We performed plasma lipidomic profiling (582 lipid species) of the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and Lifestyle flagship study of aging cohort (AIBL) using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Linear regression and interaction analysis were used to explore …

Cross-Sectional Survey Of Sleep Practices Of Australian University Students, Rachel Batten, Katrina Liddiard, Annette J. Raynor, Cary A. Brown, Mandy Stanley

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background and Aim: Sleep insufficiency is often associated with the life of a university student, yet it is well known that inadequate sleep can have a negative impact on physical and mental health and be detrimental to cognitive skills for learning. The aim of this study was to replicate a Canadian study to survey university student sleep practices, the way in which students address any sleep issues, and the students’ preferred method to receive targeted sleep information. Methods: An anonymous on-line survey was promoted to all enrolled students at one Australian University in August 2017. Results: In total, 601 students …

Performances Of The Lbp Based Algorithm Over Cnn Models For Detecting Crops And Weeds With Similar Morphologies, Vi Nguyen Thanh Le, Selam Ahderom, Kamal Alameh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Weed invasions pose a threat to agricultural productivity. Weed recognition and detection play an important role in controlling weeds. The challenging problem of weed detection is how to discriminate between crops and weeds with a similar morphology under natural field conditions such as occlusion, varying lighting conditions, and different growth stages. In this paper, we evaluate a novel algorithm, filtered Local Binary Patterns with contour masks and coefficient k (k-FLBPCM), for discriminating between morphologically similar crops and weeds, which shows significant advantages, in both model size and accuracy, over state-of-the-art deep convolutional neural network (CNN) models such as VGG-16, VGG-19, …

Pollen Adaptation To Ant Pollination – A Case Study From The Proteaceae, Nicola Delnevo, Eddie Van Etten, Nicola Clemente, Luna Fogu, Evelina Pavarani, Margaret Byrne, William Stock

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background and aims:

Ant-plant associations are widely diverse and distributed throughout the world, leading to antagonistic and/or mutualistic interactions. Ant pollination is a rare mutualistic association and reports of ants as effective pollinators are limited to a few studies. Conospermum (Proteaceae) is an insect-pollinated genus well represented in the south-western Australia biodiversity hotspot, and here we aimed to evaluate the role of ants as pollinators of C. undulatum.

Methods:

Pollen germination after contact with several species of ants and bees was tested for C. undulatum and five co-flowering species for comparison. We then sampled the pollen load of floral …

Rehabilitation Strategies Following Oesophagogastric And Hepatopancreaticobiliary Cancer (Restore Ii): A Protocol For A Randomized Controlled Trial, Linda O'Neill, Emer Guinan, Suzanne Doyle, Deirdre Connolly, Jacintha O'Sullivan, Annemarie Bennett, Grainne Sheill, Ricardo Segurado, Peter Knapp, Ciaran Fairman, Charles Normand, Justin Geoghegan, Kevin Conlon, John V. Reynolds, Juliette Hussey

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Curative treatment for upper gastrointestinal (UGI) and hepatopancreaticobiliary (HPB) cancers, involves complex surgical resection often in combination with neoadjuvant/adjuvant chemo/chemoradiotherapy. With advancing survival rates, there is an emergent cohort of UGI and HPB cancer survivors with physical and nutritional deficits, resultant from both the cancer and its treatments. Therefore, rehabilitation to counteract these impairments is required to maximise health related quality of life (HRQOL) in survivorship. The initial feasibility of a multidisciplinary rehabilitation programme for UGI survivors was established in the Rehabilitation Strategies following Oesophago-gastric Cancer (ReStOre) feasibility study and pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT). ReStOre II will now …

Does Fibre-Fix Provided To People With Irritable Bowel Syndrome Who Are Consuming A Low Fodmap Diet Improve Their Gut Health, Gut Microbiome, Sleep And Mental Health? A Double-Blinded, Randomised Controlled Trial, Ran Yan, Mandy Murphy, Angela Genoni, Evania Marlow, Ian Dunican, Johnny Lo, Lesley Andrew, Amanda Devine, Claus T. Christophersen

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Introduction:

A diet low in fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAP) is an effective way to reduce gut symptoms in people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). This diet reduces the intake of fermentable fibres, leading to changes of the gut microbiota and insufficient fermentation in the large bowel, resulting in reduced production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), such as butyrate, which has unfavourable implications for gut health, sleep and mental health. This study will examine the effect of Fibre-fix, a supplement containing a mix of dietary fibres, on the human gut microbiome composition, fermentative capacity, sleep, quality of life …

Evolution And Adaptation Of The Avian H7n9 Virus Into The Human Host, Andrew T. Bisset, Gerard F. Hoyne

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Influenza viruses arise from animal reservoirs, and have the potential to cause pandemics. In 2013, low pathogenic novel avian influenza A(H7N9) viruses emerged in China, resulting from the reassortment of avian-origin viruses. Following evolutionary changes, highly pathogenic strains of avian influenza A(H7N9) viruses emerged in late 2016. Changes in pathogenicity and virulence of H7N9 viruses have been linked to potential mutations in the viral glycoproteins hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA), as well as the viral polymerase basic protein 2 (PB2). Recognizing that effective viral transmission of the influenza A virus (IAV) between humans requires efficient attachment to the upper respiratory …

A Review Of Biohydrogen Productions From Lignocellulosic Precursor Via Dark Fermentation: Perspective On Hydrolysate Composition And Electron‐Equivalent Balance, Yiyang Liu, Jingluo Min, Xingyu Feng, Yue He, Jinze Liu, Yixiao Wang, Jun He, Hainam Do, Valerie Sage, Gang Yang, Yong Sun

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper reviews the current technological development of bio-hydrogen (BioH₂) generation, focusing on using lignocellulosic feedstock via dark fermentation (DF). Using the collected reference reports as the training data set, supervised machine learning via the constructed artificial neuron networks (ANNs) imbedded with feed backward propagation and one cross-out validation approach was deployed to establish correlations between the carbon sources (glucose and xylose) together with the inhibitors (acetate and other inhibitors, such as furfural and aromatic compounds), hydrogen yield (HY), and hydrogen evolution rate (HER) from reported works. Through the statistical analysis, the concentrations variations of glucose (F-value = …

Global Variability Of The Human Igg Glycome, Jerko Stambuk, Natali Nakic, Frano Vuckovic, Maja Pucic-Bakovic, Genadij Razdorov, Irena Trbojevic-Akmacic, Mislav Novokmet, Toma Keser, Marija Vilaj, Tamara Stambuk, Ivan Gudelj, Mirna Simurina, Manshu Song, Hao Wang, Marijana Pericic Salihovic, Harry Campbell, Igor Rudan, Ivana Kolcic, Leigh Anne Eller, Paul Mckeigue, Merlin L. Robb, Jonas Halfvarson, Metin Kurtoglu, Vito Annese, Tatjana Skaric-Juric, Mariam Molokhia, Ozren Polasek, Caroline Hayward, Hannah Kibuuka, Kujtim Thaqi, Dragan Primorac, Christian Geieger, Sorachai Nitayaphan, Tim Spector, Youxin Wang, Therese Tillin, Nish Chaturvedi, James F. Wilson, Moses Schanfield, Maxim Filipenko, Wei Wang, Gordan Lauc

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Immunoglobulin G (IgG) is the most abundant serum antibody which structural characteristics and effector functions are modulated through the attachment of various sugar moieties called glycans. Composition of the IgG N-glycome changes with age of an individual and in different diseases. Variability of IgG glycosylation within a population is well studied and is known to be affected by both genetic and environmental factors. However, global inter-population differences in IgG glycosylation have never been properly addressed. Here we present population-specific N-glycosylation patterns of IgG, analyzed in 5 different populations totaling 10,482 IgG glycomes, and of IgG’s fragment crystallizable region (Fc), analyzed …

Marked Increase In Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Infections, Western Australia, 2004-2018, Lauren E. Bloomfield, G. W. Coombs, S. Tempone, P. K. Armstrong

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 World Scientific Publishing Company. This study presents enhanced surveillance data from 2004 – 2018 for all community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) specimens collected in Western Australia (WA), and describes the changing epidemiology over this period. A total of 57,557 cases were reviewed. Annual incidence rates increased from 86.2 cases per 100,000 population to 245.6 per 100,000 population (IRR = 2.9, CI95 2.7 – 3.0). The proportion of isolates carrying Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL)-associated genes increased from 3.4% to 59.8% (χ2 test for trend 7021.9, p0.001). The emergence of PVL-positive, “Queensland CA-MRSA” (ST93- IV) and “WA 121” (ST5-IV) accounted for …

Characterizing The Composition Of The Pediatric Gut Microbiome: A Systematic Review, Kane E. Deering, Amanda Devine, Therese A. O’Sullivan, Johnny Lo, Mary C. Boyce, Claus T. Christophersen

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The consortium of trillions of microorganisms that live inside the human gut are integral to health. Little has been done to collate and characterize the microbiome of children. A systematic review was undertaken to address this gap (PROSPERO ID: CRD42018109599). MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched using the keywords: “healthy preadolescent children” and “gut microbiome” to 31 August 2018. Of the 815 journal articles, 42 met the inclusion criteria. The primary outcome was the relative abundance of bacteria at the phylum, family, and genus taxonomic ranks. α-diversity, short chain fatty acid concentrations, diet, 16S rRNA sequencing region, and geographical location were …

Associations Between Dietary Flavonoids And Retinal Microvasculature In Older Adults, Bamini Gopinath, Gerald Liew, Joshua Lewis, Nicola P. Bondonno, Catherine P. Bondonno, George Burlutsky, Jonathan M. Hodgson, Paul Mitchell

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Purpose: In this study, we assessed whether there are independent associations between dietary total flavonoid intake and major flavonoid classes with retinal arteriolar and venular calibre.

Methods: Blue Mountains Eye Study participants aged 49+ years who had complete data on diet and retinal vessel measures were analysed (n = 2821). Dietary intake was assessed using a semi-quantitative Food-Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). Flavonoid content of foods in the FFQ was estimated using the US Department of Agriculture Flavonoid, Isoflavone and Proanthocyanidin databases. Fundus photographs were taken and retinal vascular calibre was measured using validated computer-assisted techniques. The associations of intake of …

Association Of Suboptimal Health Status With Intestinal Microbiota In Chinese Youths, Qi Sun, Xizhu Xu, Jie Zhang, Ming Sun, Qiuyue Tian, Qihuan Li, Weijie Cao, Xiaoyu Zhang, Hao Wang, Jiaonan Liu, Jinxia Zhang, Xiaoni Meng, Lijuan Wu, Manshu Song, Hongqi Liu, Wei Wang, Youxin Wang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Suboptimal health status (SHS), a physical state between health and disease, is a subclinical and reversible stage of chronic disease. Previous studies have shown alterations in the intestinal microbiota in patients with some chronic diseases. This study aimed to investigate the association between SHS and intestinal microbiota in a case-control study with 50 SHS individuals and 50 matched healthy controls. Intestinal microbiota was analysed by MiSeq 250PE. Alpha diversity of intestinal microbiota in SHS individuals was higher compared with that of healthy controls (Simpson index, W = 2238, P = .048). Beta diversity was different between SHS and healthy controls …

Migrating From Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis To Artificial Neural Networks: A Comparison Of Functionally Equivalent Visualisation And Feature Contribution Tools Using Jupyter Notebooks, Kevin M. Mendez, David I. Broadhurst, Stacey N. Reinke

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Introduction:

Metabolomics data is commonly modelled multivariately using partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). Its success is primarily due to ease of interpretation, through projection to latent structures, and transparent assessment of feature importance using regression coefficients and Variable Importance in Projection scores. In recent years several non-linear machine learning (ML) methods have grown in popularity but with limited uptake essentially due to convoluted optimisation and interpretation. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a non-linear projection-based ML method that share a structural equivalence with PLS, and as such should be amenable to equivalent optimisation and interpretation methods.

Objectives:

We hypothesise that …

Exercise Twice-A-Day Potentiates Markers Of Mitochondrial Biogenesis In Men, Victor Amorim Andrade-Souza, Thaysa Ghiarone, Andre Sansonio, Kleiton Augusto Santos Silva, Fabiano Tomazini, Lucyana Arcoverde, Jackson Fyfe, Enrico Perri, Nicholas Saner, Jujiao Kuang, Romulo Bertuzzi, Carol Gois Leandro, David John Bishop, Adriano Eduardo Lima‐Silva

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Endurance exercise begun with reduced muscle glycogen stores seems to potentiate skeletal muscle protein abundance and gene expression. However, it is unknown whether this greater signaling responses is due to performing two exercise sessions in close proximity-as a first exercise session is necessary to reduce the muscle glycogen stores. In the present study, we manipulated the recovery duration between a first muscle glycogen-depleting exercise and a second exercise session, such that the second exercise session started with reduced muscle glycogen in both approaches but was performed either 2 or 15 hours after the first exercise session (so-called "twice-a-day" and "once-daily" …

Elecsys Csf Biomarker Immunoassays Demonstrate Concordance With Amyloid-Pet Imaging, James A. Doecke, Larry Ward, Samantha C. Burnham, Victor L. Villemagne, Qiao-Xin Li, Steven Collins, Christopher J. Fowler, Ekaterina Manuilova, Monika Widmann, Stephanie R. Rainey-Smith, Ralph N. Martins, Colin L. Masters, Aibl Research Group

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: β-amyloid (Aβ) positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is currently the only Food and Drug Administration-approved method to support clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, numerous research studies support the use of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers, as a cost-efficient, quick and equally valid method to define AD pathology. Methods: Using automated Elecsys® assays (Roche Diagnostics) for Aβ (1-42) (Aβ42), Aβ (1-40) (Aβ40), total tau (tTau) and phosphorylated tau (181P) (pTau), we examined CSF samples from 202 participants of the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and Lifestyle (AIBL) study of ageing cohort, to demonstrate the concordance with pathological AD via PET imaging. …

Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries In Australian Football: Should Women And Girls Be Playing? You're Asking The Wrong Question, Aaron Fox, Jason Bonacci, Samantha Hoffmann, Sophia Nimphius, Natalie Saunders

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries have been a rising concern in the early years of the women's Australian Football League (AFLW), eliciting headlines of a â € knee crisis' surrounding the league. There has been a focus on female biology as the primary factor driving the high rate of ACL injuries in the AFLW. Emphasising Australian football (AF) as being dangerous predominantly due to female biology may be misrepresenting a root cause of the ACL injury problem, perpetuating gender stereotypes that can restrict physical development and participation of women and girls in the sport. We propose that an approach addressing …

Development Of An Infrared Pollution Index To Identify Ground-Level Compositional, Particle Size, And Humidity Changes Using Himawari-8, M. Sowden, D. Blake, D. Cohen, A. Atanacio, Ute Mueller

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Speciated air quality data informs health studies and quantitates impacts. However, monitoring is concentrated around populated regions whilst, large remote and rural regions remain unmonitored despite risks of dust-storms or wild-fires. Sub-hourly, infrared, geostationary data, such as the 10-min data from Himawari 8, could potentially be used to quantify regional air quality continually. Monitoring of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) is restricted to visible spectra (i.e. daytime only), while newer quantification methods using geostationary infrared (IR) data have focused on detecting the presence, or absence, of an event. Limited attention has been given to the determination of particle size and aerosol …

First Age- And Gender-Matched Case-Control Study In Australia Examining The Possible Association Between Toxoplasma Gondii Infection And Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: The Busselton Health Study, Aus Molan, Kazunori Nosaka, Michael Hunter, Jinxia Zhang, Xiaoni Meng, Manshu Song, Wei Wang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

An emerging field of research is starting to examine the association of infectious pathogens with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). An understudied parasite of interest is Toxoplasma gondii. Globally, very few studies have been conducted to investigate this association. Additionally, very little data exists on the prevalence of T. gondii in the general Australian population. Our group sought to determine the prevalence, association, and risk factors between T. gondii infection and T2DM from a representative Australian human population. Through a cross-sectional, age-A nd gender-matched case-control study, 150 subjects with T2DM together with 150 control subjects from the Busselton Health Study …

“Notame”: Workflow For Non-Targeted Lc-Ms Metabolic Profiling, Anton Klåvus, Marietta Kokla, Stefania Noerman, Ville M. Koistinen, Marjo Tuomainen, Iman Zarei, Topi Meuronen, Merja R. Häkkinen, Soile Rummukainen, Ambrin Farizah Babu, Taisa Sallinen, Olli Karkkainen, Jussi Paananen, David Broadhurst, Carl Brunius, Kati Hanhineva, Hanhineva

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Metabolomics analysis generates vast arrays of data, necessitating comprehensive workflows involving expertise in analytics, biochemistry and bioinformatics in order to provide coherent and high-quality data that enable discovery of robust and biologically significant metabolic findings. In this protocol article, we introduce notame, an analytical workflow for non-targeted metabolic profiling approaches, utilizing liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis. We provide an overview of lab protocols and statistical methods that we commonly practice for the analysis of nutritional metabolomics data. The paper is divided into three main sections: the first and second sections introducing the background and the study designs available for metabolomics research …

Quantifying Dietary Vitamin K And Its Link To Cardiovascular Health: A Narrative Review, Claire R. Palmer, Lauren C. Blekkenhorst, Joshua R. Lewis, Natalie C. Ward, Carl J. Schultz, Jonathan M. Hodgson, Kevin D. Croft, Marc Sim

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Recent work suggests a link between vitamin K insufficiency and deficiency with vascular calcification, a marker of advanced atherosclerosis. Vitamin K refers to a group of fat-soluble vitamins important for blood coagulation, reducing inflammation, regulating blood calcium metabolism, as well as bone metabolism, all of which may play a role in promoting cardiovascular health. Presently, there is a lack of a comprehensive vitamin K database on individual foods, which are required to accurately calculate vitamin K1 and K2 intake for examination in epidemiological studies. This has likely contributed to …

The Relationship Between Physical Activity, Apolipoprotein E Ε4 Carriage, And Brain Health, Jaisalmer De Frutos-Lucas, Pablo Cuesta, David López-Sanz, Africa Peral-Suárez, Esther Cuadrado-Soto, Federico Ramírez-Toraño, Belinda M. Brown, Juan M. Serrano, Simon M. Laws, Inmaculada C. Rodríguez-Rojo, Juan Verdejo-Román, Ricardo Bruña, Maria L. Delgado-Losada, Ana Barabash, Ana M. López-Sobaler, Ramon López-Higes, Alberto Marcos, Fernando Maestú

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

BACKGROUND: Neuronal hyperexcitability and hypersynchrony have been described as key features of neurophysiological dysfunctions in the Alzheimer's disease (AD) continuum. Conversely, physical activity (PA) has been associated with improved brain health and reduced AD risk. However, there is controversy regarding whether AD genetic risk (in terms of APOE ε4 carriage) modulates these relationships. The utilization of multiple outcome measures within one sample may strengthen our understanding of this complex phenomenon. METHOD: The relationship between PA and functional connectivity (FC) was examined in a sample of 107 healthy older adults using magnetoencephalography. Additionally, we explored whether ε4 carriage modulates this association. …

Disentangling The Mechanisms Shaping The Surface Ocean Microbiota, Ramiro Logares, Ina M. Deutschmann, Pedro C. Junger, Caterina R. Giner, Anders K. Krabberød, S. B. Schmidt, Laura Rubinat-Ripoll, Mireia Mestre, Guillem Salazar, Clara Ruiz-González, Marta Sebastián, Colomban De Vargas, Silvia G. Acinas, Carlos M. Duarte, Josep M. Gasol, Ramon Massana

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

BACKGROUND: The ocean microbiota modulates global biogeochemical cycles and changes in its configuration may have large-scale consequences. Yet, the underlying ecological mechanisms structuring it are unclear. Here, we investigate how fundamental ecological mechanisms (selection, dispersal and ecological drift) shape the smallest members of the tropical and subtropical surface-ocean microbiota: prokaryotes and minute eukaryotes (picoeukaryotes). Furthermore, we investigate the agents exerting abiotic selection on this assemblage as well as the spatial patterns emerging from the action of ecological mechanisms. To explore this, we analysed the composition of surface-ocean prokaryotic and picoeukaryotic communities using DNA-sequence data (16S- and 18S-rRNA genes) collected during …