Biomedical Informatics Commons^™

Persistent Gram-Negative Bloodstream Infection Increases The Risk Of Recurrent Bloodstream Infection With The Same Species, Paa Kwesi Ankrah, Andrew Bock, Felicia Ruffin, Blake M Hanson, Cesar A Arias, Stacey A Maskarinec, Joshua Parsons, Vance G Fowler, Joshua T Thaden

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The association between persistent gram-negative bloodstream infection (GN-BSI), or ongoing positive cultures, and recurrent GN-BSI has not been investigated. Among 992 adults, persistent GN-BSI was associated with increased recurrent GN-BSI with the same bacterial species and strain (6% vs 2%; P = .04). Persistent GN-BSI may be a marker of complicated infection.

Immunotherapy In Locally Advanced Cervical Cancer: Integrating Keynote-A18 Into Management Strategies, Jeffrey A How, Amir A Jazaeri

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC), the benefit of PD-1 blockade was unknown. In KEYNOTE-A18, Lorusso et al.1 compared the efficacy and safety of adding pembrolizumab to chemoradiation in LACC and demonstrated favorable outcomes. Given multiple approved indications of pembrolizumab in cervical cancer, strategies for optimal integration into management will be needed to maximize overall survival.

Assessing The Impact Of Storage Conditions On Rna From Human Saliva And Its Application To The Identification Of Mrna Biomarkers For Asthma, Poorna Manasa Bhamidimarri, David Fuentes, Laila Salameh, Bassam Mahboub, Rifat Hamoudi

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Introduction: Human saliva was used to develop non-invasive liquid biopsy biomarkers to establish saliva as an alternate to blood and plasma in translational research. The present study focused on understanding the impact of sample storage conditions on the extraction of RNA from saliva and the RNA yield, to be applied in clinical diagnosis. In this study, genes related to asthma were used to test the method developed.

Methods: Salivary RNA was extracted from three subjects using the Qiazol® based method and quantified by both spectrophotometric (NanoDrop) and fluorometric (Qubit®) methods. RNA integrity was measured using a bioanalyzer. Quantitative PCR was …

Supporting Ontario Public Health Units To Address Adverse Childhood Experiences In Pandemic Recovery Planning: A Priority-Setting Exercise, Kimberly B Harding, Erica Di Ruggiero, Erick Gonzalez, Amanda Hicks, Daniel W Harrington, Sarah Carsley

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic exposures experienced during childhood, for example, neglect. There is growing evidence that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and related socioeconomic conditions contributed to an increased risk of ACEs. As public health programs/services are re-evaluated and restored following the state of emergency, it is important to plan using an ACEs-informed lens. The aim of this study was to identify and prioritize initiatives or activities that Public Health Ontario (PHO) could undertake to support Ontario public health units' work towards ACEs-informed pandemic recovery plans.

METHODS: The Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative method …

Identifying Mage-A4-Positive Tumors For Tcr T Cell Therapies In Hla-A∗02-Eligible Patients, Tianjiao Wang, Jean-Marc Navenot, Stavros Rafail, Cynthia Kurtis, Mark Carroll, Marian Van Kerckhoven, Sofie Van Rossom, Kelly Schats, Konstantinos Avraam, Robyn Broad, Karen Howe, Ashley Liddle, Amber Clayton, Ruoxi Wang, Laura Quinn, Joseph P Sanderson, Cheryl Mcalpine, Carly Carozza, Eric Pimpinella, Susan Hsu, Francine Brophy, Erica Elefant, Paige Bayer, Dennis Williams, Marcus O Butler, Jeffrey M Clarke, Justin F Gainor, Ramaswamy Govindan, Victor Moreno, Melissa Johnson, Janet Tu, David S Hong, George R Blumenschein

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

T cell receptor (TCR) T cell therapies target tumor antigens in a human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-restricted manner. Biomarker-defined therapies require validation of assays suitable for determination of patient eligibility. For clinical trials evaluating TCR T cell therapies targeting melanoma-associated antigen A4 (MAGE-A4), screening in studies NCT02636855 and NCT04044768 assesses patient eligibility based on: (1) high-resolution HLA typing and (2) tumor MAGE-A4 testing via an immunohistochemical assay in HLA-eligible patients. The HLA/MAGE-A4 assays validation, biomarker data, and their relationship to covariates (demographics, cancer type, histopathology, tissue location) are reported here. HLA-A∗02 eligibility was 44.8% (2,959/6,606) in patients from 43 sites across …

Ikzf1 And Ubr4 Gene Variants Drive Autoimmunity And Th2 Polarization In Igg4-Related Disease, Qingxiang Liu, Yanyan Zheng, Ines Sturmlechner, Abhinav Jain, Maryam Own, Qiankun Yang, Huimin Zhang, Filippo Pinto E Vairo, Karen Cerosaletti, Jane H Buckner, Kenneth J Warrington, Matthew J Koster, Cornelia M Weyand, Jörg J Goronzy

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is a systemic immune-mediated fibroinflammatory disease whose pathomechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we identified gene variants in familial IgG4-RD and determined their functional consequences. All 3 affected members of the family shared variants of the transcription factor IKAROS, encoded by IKZF1, and the E3 ubiquitin ligase UBR4. The IKAROS variant increased binding to the FYN promoter, resulting in higher transcription of FYN in T cells. The UBR4 variant prevented the lysosomal degradation of the phosphatase CD45. In the presence of elevated FYN, CD45 functioned as a positive regulatory loop, lowering the threshold for T cell activation. Consequently, …

Durable Objective Response To Lurbinectedin In Small Cell Bladder Cancer With Tp53 Mutation: A Molecular-Directed Strategy, Mohammad Jad Moussa, Jaanki Khandelwal, Nathaniel R Wilson, Sagar A Naik, Vivek Subbiah, Matthew T Campbell, Pavlos Msaouel, Parminder Singh, Omar Alhalabi

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Small cell bladder cancer (SCBC) is a rare and aggressive disease, often treated with platinum/etoposide-based chemotherapy. Key molecular drivers include the inactivation of onco-suppressor genes (TP53, RB1) and amplifications in proto-oncogenes (MYC). We report a patient with SCBC who achieved an objective and prolonged response to lurbinectedin, which has been approved for metastatic small cell lung cancer, after developing disease progression on cisplatin/etoposide and nivolumab/ipilimumab. A genomic analysis of a metastatic biopsy prior to lurbinectedin initiation revealed a TP53 mutation and amplification of the cell cycle regulators E2F3 and MYCL. A repeat biopsy following …

Rest-Dependent Downregulation Of Von Hippel-Lindau Tumor Suppressor Promotes Autophagy In Shh-Medulloblastoma, Ashutosh Singh, Donghang Cheng, Jyothishmathi Swaminathan, Yanwen Yang, Yan Zheng, Nancy Gordon, Vidya Gopalakrishnan

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The RE1 silencing transcription factor (REST) is a driver of sonic hedgehog (SHH) medulloblastoma genesis. Our previous studies showed that REST enhances cell proliferation, metastasis and vascular growth and blocks neuronal differentiation to drive progression of SHH medulloblastoma tumors. Here, we demonstrate that REST promotes autophagy, a pathway that is found to be significantly enriched in human medulloblastoma tumors relative to normal cerebella. In SHH medulloblastoma tumor xenografts, REST elevation is strongly correlated with increased expression of the hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF1α)-a positive regulator of autophagy, and with reduced expression of the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor protein - a …

Germ Cell Tumor Of The Testis: Lethal Subtypes Of A Curable Cancer, Jamaal C Jackson, Darren Sanchez, Andrew C Johns, Matthew T Campbell, Ahmet M Aydin, Neriman Gokden, Sanjay Maraboyina, Jason L Muesse, John F Ward, Louis L Pisters, Niki M Zacharias, Charles C Guo, Shi-Ming Tu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Germ cell tumor of the testis (GCT) is a curable cancer even when it is widely metastatic; however, outcomes can differ based on tumor histology. Chemo-resistance in certain phenotypes, such as teratoma and yolk sac tumor, contributes to poor clinical outcomes in some patients with GCT. Despite this resistance to S-YSTemic therapy, many of these tumor subtypes remain amenable to surgical resection and possible cure. In this study, we report on a series of seven patients highlighting two chemo-resistant subtypes of nonseminomatous germ cell tumor (NSGCT), sarcomatoid yolk sac tumor (S-YST), and epithelioid trophoblastic tumor (ETT) for which early resection …

Small Rna Signatures Of Acute Ischemic Stroke In L1cam Positive Extracellular Vesicles, Bharti Manwani, Nivetha Brathaban, Abiya Baqai, Yashee Munshi, Hilda W Ahnstedt, Mengqi Zhang, Kajsa Arkelius, Ted Llera, Edilberto Amorim, Fanny M Elahi, Neel S Singhal

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

L1CAM-positive extracellular vesicles (L1EV) are an emerging biomarker that may better reflect ongoing neuronal damage than other blood-based biomarkers. The physiological roles and regulation of L1EVs and their small RNA cargoes following stroke is unknown. We sought to characterize L1EV small RNAs following stroke and assess L1EV RNA signatures for diagnosing stroke using weighted gene co-expression network analysis and random forest (RF) machine learning algorithms. Interestingly, small RNA sequencing of plasma L1EVs from patients with stroke and control patients (n = 28) identified micro(mi)RNAs known to be enriched in the brain. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) revealed small RNA …

Structural Analysis Of The Female Reptile Reproductive System By Micro-Computed Tomography And Optical Coherence Tomography†, Bonnie K Kircher, Michaela A Mccown, Deirdre M Scully, Richard R Behringer, Irina V Larina

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Volumetric data provide unprecedented structural insight to the reproductive tract and add vital anatomical context to the relationships between organs. The morphology of the female reproductive tract in non-avian reptiles varies between species, corresponding to a broad range of reproductive modes and providing valuable insight to comparative investigations of reproductive anatomy. However, reproductive studies in reptilian models, such as the brown anole studied here, have historically relied on histological methods to understand the anatomy. While these methods are highly effective for characterizing the cell types present in each organ, histological methods lose the 3D relationships between images and leave the …

Machine Learning In Time-Lapse Imaging To Differentiate Embryos From Young Vs Old Mice†, Liubin Yang, Carolina Leynes, Ashley Pawelka, Isabel Lorenzo, Andrew Chou, Brendan Lee, Jason D Heaney

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Time-lapse microscopy for embryos is a non-invasive technology used to characterize early embryo development. This study employs time-lapse microscopy and machine learning to elucidate changes in embryonic growth kinetics with maternal aging. We analyzed morphokinetic parameters of embryos from young and aged C57BL6/NJ mice via continuous imaging. Our findings show that aged embryos accelerated through cleavage stages (from 5-cells) to morula compared to younger counterparts, with no significant differences observed in later stages of blastulation. Unsupervised machine learning identified two distinct clusters comprising of embryos from aged or young donors. Moreover, in supervised learning, the extreme gradient boosting algorithm successfully …

Slow Proliferation Of Bap1-Deficient Uveal Melanoma Cells Is Associated With Reduced S6 Signaling And Resistance To Nutrient Stress, Vivian Chua, Melisa Lopez-Anton, Mizue Terai, Ryota Tanaka, Usman Baqai, Timothy J Purwin, Jelan I Haj, Francis J Waltrich, Isabella Trachtenberg, Kristine Luo, Rohith Tudi, Angela Jeon, Anna Han, Inna Chervoneva, Michael A Davies, Julio A Aguirre-Ghiso, Takami Sato, Andrew E Aplin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the deadliest form of eye cancer in adults. Inactivating mutations and/or loss of expression of the gene encoding BRCA1-associated protein 1 (BAP1) in UM tumors are associated with an increased risk of metastasis. To investigate the mechanisms underlying this risk, we explored the functional consequences of BAP1 deficiency. UM cell lines expressing mutant BAP1 grew more slowly than those expressing wild-type BAP1 in culture and in vivo. The ability of BAP1 reconstitution to restore cell proliferation in BAP1-deficient cells required its deubiquitylase activity. Proteomic analysis showed that BAP1-deficient cells had decreased phosphorylation of ribosomal S6 and …

Role Of Ethanolamine Utilization And Bacterial Microcompartment Formation In Listeria Monocytogenes Intracellular Infection, Ayan Chatterjee, Karan Gautam Kaval, Danielle A Garsin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Ethanolamine (EA) affects the colonization and pathogenicity of certain human bacterial pathogens in the gastrointestinal tract. However, EA can also affect the intracellular survival and replication of host cell invasive bacteria such as Listeria monocytogenes (LMO) and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium). The EA utilization (eut) genes can be categorized as regulatory, enzymatic, or structural, and previous work in LMO showed that loss of genes encoding functions for the enzymatic breakdown of EA inhibited LMO intracellular replication. In this work, we sought to further characterize the role of EA utilization during LMO infection of host …

Therapy-Related Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia Does Not Have The High-Risk Features Of A Therapy-Related Neoplasm, Alex Bataller, Georgina Gener-Ricos, Emmanuel Almanza-Huante, Kelly S Chien, Samuel Urrutia, Alexandre Bazinet, Juan Jose Rodriguez-Sevilla, Danielle Hammond, Koji Sasaki, Koichi Takahashi, Courtney D Dinardo, Farhad Ravandi, Gautam Borthakur, Tapan M Kadia, Rashmi Kanagal-Shamanna, Hagop M Kantarjian, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, Guillermo Montalban-Bravo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Therapy-related myeloid neoplasms (t-MNs) arise after exposure to cytotoxic therapies and are associated with high-risk genetic features and poor outcomes. We analyzed a cohort of patients with therapy-related chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (tCMML; n = 71) and compared its features to that of de novo CMML (dnCMML; n = 461). Median time from cytotoxic therapy to tCMML diagnosis was 6.5 years. Compared with dnCMML, chromosome-7 abnormalities (4% vs 13%; P = .005) but not complex karyotype (3% vs 7%; P = .15), were more frequent in tCMML. tCMML was characterized by higher TP53 mutation frequency (4% vs 12%; P = .04) …

Collaborative Modeling To Compare Different Breast Cancer Screening Strategies: A Decision Analysis For The Us Preventive Services Task Force, Amy Trentham-Dietz, Christina Hunter Chapman, Jinani Jayasekera, Kathryn P Lowry, Brandy M Heckman-Stoddard, John M Hampton, Jennifer L Caswell-Jin, Ronald E Gangnon, Ying Lu, Hui Huang, Sarah Stein, Liyang Sun, Eugenio J Gil Quessep, Yuanliang Yang, Yifan Lu, Juhee Song, Diego F Muñoz, Yisheng Li, Allison W Kurian, Karla Kerlikowske, Ellen S O'Meara, Brian L Sprague, Anna N A Tosteson, Eric J Feuer, Donald Berry, Sylvia K Plevritis, Xuelin Huang, Harry J De Koning, Nicolien T Van Ravesteyn, Sandra J Lee, Oguzhan Alagoz, Clyde B Schechter, Natasha K Stout, Diana L Miglioretti, Jeanne S Mandelblatt

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

IMPORTANCE: The effects of breast cancer incidence changes and advances in screening and treatment on outcomes of different screening strategies are not well known.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate outcomes of various mammography screening strategies.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND POPULATION: Comparison of outcomes using 6 Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) models and national data on breast cancer incidence, mammography performance, treatment effects, and other-cause mortality in US women without previous cancer diagnoses.

EXPOSURES: Thirty-six screening strategies with varying start ages (40, 45, 50 years) and stop ages (74, 79 years) with digital mammography or digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) annually, biennially, or …

Author Correction: Long Noncoding Rna Malat1 Protects Against Osteoporosis And Bone Metastasis, Yang Zhao, Jingyuan Ning, Hongqi Teng, Yalan Deng, Marisela Sheldon, Lei Shi, Consuelo Martinez, Jie Zhang, Annie Tian, Yutong Sun, Shinichi Nakagawa, Fan Yao, Hai Wang, Li Ma

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

This corrects the article "Long noncoding RNA Malat1 protects against osteoporosis and bone metastasis", 2384.

Determining The Optimal Dosage Of Dexmedetomidine For Smooth Emergence In Older Patients Undergoing Spinal Surgery: A Study Of 44 Cases, Hyoeun Ahn, Yun Jeong Chae, Gyu Bin Choi, Min Gyu Lee, Ji Young Yoo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND Emergence agitation, or delirium, occurs during early recovery from general anesthesia and involves disorientation, excitation, and uncontrolled physical movements. Dexmedetomidine is an alpha agonist that has sedative, anxiolytic, analgesic, and sympatholytic activities and is used as a continuous infusion to prevent emergence agitation. This study aimed to evaluate patients aged 65 years and older undergoing general anesthesia to determine the 90% effective dose (ED90) of dexmedetomidine continuous intraoperative infusion to prevent emergence agitation. MATERIAL AND METHODS We enrolled 44 patients aged 65 years and older undergoing spinal surgery under general anesthesia. Dexmedetomidine administration commenced 30 minutes before surgery completion, …

Application Of Simultaneous Uncertainty Quantification And Segmentation For Oropharyngeal Cancer Use-Case With Bayesian Deep Learning, Jaakko Sahlsten, Joel Jaskari, Kareem A Wahid, Sara Ahmed, Enrico Glerean, Renjie He, Benjamin H Kann, Antti Mäkitie, Clifton D Fuller, Mohamed A Naser, Kimmo Kaski

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Radiotherapy is a core treatment modality for oropharyngeal cancer (OPC), where the primary gross tumor volume (GTVp) is manually segmented with high interobserver variability. This calls for reliable and trustworthy automated tools in clinician workflow. Therefore, accurate uncertainty quantification and its downstream utilization is critical.

METHODS: Here we propose uncertainty-aware deep learning for OPC GTVp segmentation, and illustrate the utility of uncertainty in multiple applications. We examine two Bayesian deep learning (BDL) models and eight uncertainty measures, and utilize a large multi-institute dataset of 292 PET/CT scans to systematically analyze our approach.

RESULTS: We show that our uncertainty-based approach …

Vertebral Hu Value And The Pectoral Muscle Index Based On Chest Ct Can Be Used To Opportunistically Screen For Osteoporosis, Xiong-Yi Wang, Sheng Pan, Wei-Feng Liu, Yi-Ke Wang, Si-Min Yun, You-Jia Xu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Existing studies have shown that computed tomography (CT) attenuation and skeletal muscle tissue are strongly associated with osteoporosis; however, few studies have examined whether vertebral HU values and the pectoral muscle index (PMI) measured at the level of the 4th thoracic vertebra (T4) are strongly associated with bone mineral density (BMD). In this study, we demonstrate that vertebral HU values and the PMI based on chest CT can be used to opportunistically screen for osteoporosis and reduce fracture risk through prompt treatment.

METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated 1000 patients who underwent chest CT and DXA scans from August 2020-2022. The …

Impact Of Risk-Based Therapy On Late Morbidity And Mortality In Neuroblastoma Survivors: A Report From The Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, Danielle Novetsky Friedman, Pamela J Goodman, Wendy M Leisenring, Lisa R Diller, Susan L Cohn, Rebecca M Howell, Susan A Smith, Emily S Tonorezos, Suzanne L Wolden, Joseph P Neglia, Kirsten K Ness, Todd M Gibson, Paul C Nathan, Lucie M Turcotte, Brent R Weil, Leslie L Robison, Kevin C Oeffinger, Gregory T Armstrong, Charles A Sklar, Tara O Henderson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Early efforts at risk-adapted therapy for neuroblastoma are predicted to result in differential late effects; the magnitude of these differences has not been well described.

Methods: Late mortality, subsequent malignant neoplasms (SMNs), and severe/life-threatening chronic health conditions (CHCs), graded according to CTCAE v4.03, were assessed among 5-year Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS) survivors of neuroblastoma diagnosed 1987-1999. Using age, stage at diagnosis, and treatment, survivors were classified into risk groups (low [n = 425]; intermediate [n = 252]; high [n = 245]). Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) and standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) of SMNs were compared with matched population controls. …

Association Of Differential Censoring With Survival And Suboptimal Control Arms Among Oncology Clinical Trials, Eric J Hsu, Timothy A Lin, Dor R Dabush, Zachary Mccaw, Alex Koong, Christine Lin, Joseph Abi Jaoude, Roshal Patel, Ramez Kouzy, Molly B El Alam, Sonal Noticewala, Yumeng Yang, Alexander D Sherry, Clifton D Fuller, Charles R Thomas, Chad Tang, Pavlos Msaouel, Prajnan Das, Bo Huang, Lu Tian, Ryan Sun, J Jack Lee, Tomer Meirson, Ethan B Ludmir

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Differential censoring, which refers to censoring imbalance between treatment arms, may bias the interpretation of survival outcomes in clinical trials. In 146 phase III oncology trials with statistically significant time-to-event surrogate primary endpoints, we evaluated the association between differential censoring in the surrogate primary endpoints, control arm adequacy, and the subsequent statistical significance of overall survival results. Twenty-four (16%) trials exhibited differential censoring that favored the control arm, whereas 15 (10%) exhibited differential censoring that favored the experimental arm. Positive overall survival was more common in control arm differential censoring trials (63%) than in trials without differential censoring (37%) or …

Defining The Kras- And Erk-Dependent Transcriptome In Kras-Mutant Cancers, Jeffrey A Klomp, Jennifer E Klomp, Clint A Stalnecker, Kirsten L Bryant, A Cole Edwards, Kristina Drizyte-Miller, Priya S Hibshman, J Nathaniel Diehl, Ye S Lee, Alexis J Morales, Khalilah E Taylor, Sen Peng, Nhan L Tran, Laura E Herring, Alex W Prevatte, Natalie K Barker, Laura D Hover, Jill Hallin, Alexey Sorokin, Preeti Marie Kanikarla, Saikat Chowdhury, Oluwadara Coker, Hey Min Lee, Craig M Goodwin, Prson Gautam, Peter Olson, James G Christensen, John P Shen, Scott Kopetz, Lee M Graves, Kian-Huat Lim, Andrea Wang-Gillam, Krister Wennerberg, Adrienne D Cox, Channing J Der

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

How the KRAS oncogene drives cancer growth remains poorly understood. Therefore, we established a systemwide portrait of KRAS- and ERK-dependent gene transcription in KRAS-mutant cancer to delineate the molecular mechanisms of growth and of inhibitor resistance. Unexpectedly, our KRAS-dependent gene signature diverges significantly from the frequently cited Hallmark KRAS signaling gene signature, is driven predominantly through the ERK mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade, and accurately reflects KRAS- and ERK-regulated gene transcription in KRAS-mutant cancer patients. Integration with our ERK-regulated phospho- and total proteome highlights ERK deregulation of the anaphase promoting complex/cyclosome and other components of the cell cycle machinery as …

Placental Co-Transcriptional Activator Vestigial-Like 1 (Vgll1) Drives Tumorigenesis Via Increasing Transcription Of Proliferation And Invasion Genes, Heather M Sonnemann, Barbara Pazdrak, Barbara Nassif, Yimo Sun, Lama Elzohary, Amjad H Talukder, Arjun S Katailiha, Krishna Bhat, Gregory Lizée

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: Vestigial-like 1 (VGLL1) is a co-transcriptional activator that binds to TEA domain-containing transcription factors (TEADs). Its expression is upregulated in a variety of aggressive cancer types, including pancreatic and basal-like breast cancer, and increased transcription of VGLL1 is strongly correlated with poor prognosis and decreased overall patient survival. In normal tissues, VGLL1 is most highly expressed within placental trophoblast cells, which share the common attributes of rapid cellular proliferation and invasion with tumor cells. The impact of VGLL1 in cancer has not been fully elucidated and no VGLL1-targeted therapy currently exists.

METHODS: The aim of this study was to …

Improved Liver Disease Prediction From Clinical Data Through An Evaluation Of Ensemble Learning Approaches, Shahid Mohammad Ganie, Pijush Kanti Dutta Pramanik, Zhongming Zhao

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: Liver disease causes two million deaths annually, accounting for 4% of all deaths globally. Prediction or early detection of the disease via machine learning algorithms on large clinical data have become promising and potentially powerful, but such methods often have some limitations due to the complexity of the data. In this regard, ensemble learning has shown promising results. There is an urgent need to evaluate different algorithms and then suggest a robust ensemble algorithm in liver disease prediction.

METHOD: Three ensemble approaches with nine algorithms are evaluated on a large dataset of liver patients comprising 30,691 samples with 11 …

How Context Links To Best Practice Use In Long-Term Care Homes: A Mixed Methods Study, Yinfei Duan, Jing Wang, Holly J Lanham, Whitney Berta, Stephanie A Chamberlain, Matthias Hoben, Katharina Choroschun, Alba Iaconi, Yuting Song, Janelle Santos Perez, Shovana Shrestha, Anna Beeber, Ruth A Anderson, Leslie Hayduk, Greta G Cummings, Peter G Norton, Carole A Estabrooks

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Context (work environment) plays a crucial role in implementing evidence-based best practices within health care settings. Context is multi-faceted and its complex relationship with best practice use by care aides in long-term care (LTC) homes are understudied. This study used an innovative approach to investigate how context elements interrelate and influence best practice use by LTC care aides.

Methods: In this secondary analysis study, we combined coincidence analysis (a configurational comparative method) and qualitative analysis to examine data collected through the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program. Coincidence analysis of clinical microsystem (care unit)-level data aggregated from a …

Phase 1, Randomized, Rater And Participant Blinded Placebo-Controlled Study Of The Safety, Reactogenicity, Tolerability And Immunogenicity Of H1n1 Influenza Vaccine Delivered By Vx-103 (A Mimix Microneedle Patch [Map] System) In Healthy Adult, Naveen Garg, Guy Tellier, Noah Vale, Jon Kluge, Jonathan L Portman, Anna Markowska, Lynda Tussey

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: The MIMIX platform is a novel microneedle array patch (MAP) characterized by slowly dissolving microneedle tips that deploy into the dermis following patch application. We describe safety, reactogenicity, tolerability and immunogenicity for MIMIX MAP vaccination against influenza.

METHODOLOGY: The trial was a Phase 1, exploratory, first-in-human, parallel randomized, rater, participant, study analyst-blinded, placebo-controlled study in Canada. Forty-five healthy participants (18 to 39 years of age, inclusive) were randomized in a 1:1:1 ratio to receive either 15 μg or 7.5 μg of an H1N1 influenza vaccine, or placebo delivered via MIMIX MAP to the volar forearm. A statistician used a …

Integrative Multi-Omics Analyses To Identify The Genetic And Functional Mechanisms Underlying Ovarian Cancer Risk Regions, Eileen O Dareng, Simon G Coetzee, Jonathan P Tyrer, Pei-Chen Peng, Will Rosenow, Stephanie Chen, Brian D Davis, Felipe Segato Dezem, Ji-Heui Seo, Robbin Nameki, Alberto L Reyes, Katja K H Aben, Hoda Anton-Culver, Natalia N Antonenkova, Gerasimos Aravantinos, Elisa V Bandera, Laura E Beane Freeman, Matthias W Beckmann, Alicia Beeghly-Fadiel, Javier Benitez, Marcus Q Bernardini, Line Bjorge, Amanda Black, Natalia V Bogdanova, Kelly L Bolton, James D Brenton, Agnieszka Budzilowska, Ralf Butzow, Hui Cai, Ian Campbell, Rikki Cannioto, Jenny Chang-Claude, Stephen J Chanock, Kexin Chen, Georgia Chenevix-Trench, Aocs Group, Yoke-Eng Chiew, Linda S Cook, Anna Defazio, Joe Dennis, Jennifer A Doherty, Thilo Dörk, Andreas Du Bois, Matthias Dürst, Diana M Eccles, Gabrielle Ene, Peter A Fasching, James M Flanagan, Renée T Fortner, Florentia Fostira, Aleksandra Gentry-Maharaj, Graham G Giles, Marc T Goodman, Jacek Gronwald, Christopher A Haiman, Niclas Håkansson, Florian Heitz, Michelle A T Hildebrandt, Estrid Høgdall, Claus K Høgdall, Ruea-Yea Huang, Allan Jensen, Michael E Jones, Daehee Kang, Beth Y Karlan, Anthony N Karnezis, Linda E Kelemen, Catherine J Kennedy, Elza K Khusnutdinova, Lambertus A Kiemeney, Susanne K Kjaer, Jolanta Kupryjanczyk, Marilyne Labrie, Diether Lambrechts, Melissa C Larson, Nhu D Le, Jenny Lester, Lian Li, Jan Lubiński, Michael Lush, Jeffrey R Marks, Keitaro Matsuo, Taymaa May, John R Mclaughlin, Iain A Mcneish, Usha Menon, Stacey Missmer, Francesmary Modugno, Melissa Moffitt, Alvaro N Monteiro, Kirsten B Moysich, Steven A Narod, Tu Nguyen-Dumont, Kunle Odunsi, Håkan Olsson, N Charlotte Onland-Moret, Sue K Park, Tanja Pejovic, Jennifer B Permuth, Anna Piskorz, Darya Prokofyeva, Marjorie J Riggan, Harvey A Risch, Cristina Rodríguez-Antona, Mary Anne Rossing, Dale P Sandler, V Wendy Setiawan, Kang Shan, Honglin Song, Melissa C Southey, Helen Steed, Rebecca Sutphen, Anthony J Swerdlow, Soo Hwang Teo, Kathryn L Terry, Pamela J Thompson, Liv Cecilie Vestrheim Thomsen, Linda Titus, Britton Trabert, Ruth Travis, Shelley S Tworoger, Ellen Valen, Els Van Nieuwenhuysen, Digna Velez Edwards, Robert A Vierkant, Penelope M Webb, Opal Study Group, Clarice R Weinberg, Rayna Matsuno Weise, Nicolas Wentzensen, Emily White, Stacey J Winham, Alicja Wolk, Yin-Ling Woo, Anna H Wu, Li Yan, Drakoulis Yannoukakos, Nur Zeinomar, Wei Zheng, Argyrios Ziogas, Andrew Berchuck, Ellen L Goode, David G Huntsman, Celeste L Pearce, Susan J Ramus, Thomas A Sellers, Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (Ocac), Matthew L Freedman, Kate Lawrenson, Joellen M Schildkraut, Dennis Hazelett, Jasmine T Plummer, Siddhartha Kar, Michelle R Jones, Paul D P Pharoah, Simon A Gayther

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

To identify credible causal risk variants (CCVs) associated with different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), we performed genome-wide association analysis for 470,825 genotyped and 10,163,797 imputed SNPs in 25,981 EOC cases and 105,724 controls of European origin. We identified five histotype-specific EOC risk regions (p value < 5 × 10-8) and confirmed previously reported associations for 27 risk regions. Conditional analyses identified an additional 11 signals independent of the primary signal at six risk regions (p value < 10-5). Fine mapping identified 4,008 CCVs in these regions, of which 1,452 CCVs were located in ovarian cancer-related chromatin marks with significant enrichment in active enhancers, active promoters, and active regions for CCVs from each EOC histotype. Transcriptome-wide association and colocalization analyses across histotypes using tissue-specific and cross-tissue datasets identified 86 candidate susceptibility genes in known EOC risk regions and 32 genes in 23 additional genomic regions that may represent novel EOC risk loci (false discovery rate < 0.05). Finally, by integrating genome-wide HiChIP interactome analysis with transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS), variant effect predictor, transcription factor ChIP-seq, and motifbreakR data, we identified candidate gene-CCV interactions at each locus. This included risk loci where TWAS identified one or more candidate susceptibility genes (e.g., HOXD-AS2, HOXD8, and HOXD3 at 2q31) and other loci where no candidate gene was identified (e.g., MYC and PVT1 at 8q24) by TWAS. In summary, this study describes a functional framework and provides a greater understanding of the biological significance of risk alleles and candidate gene targets at EOC susceptibility loci identified by a genome-wide association study.

Effects Of Protein-Enriched Nutritional Support On Skeletal Muscle Mass And Rehabilitative Outcomes In Brain Tumor Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Kye Hee Cho, Eun Young Han, Min Kyu Jung, Chang Moo Kang, Ji Cheol Shin, Sang Hee Im

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Patients with brain tumors require extensive and prolonged rehabilitation efforts as they suffer from lesion-induced motor weakness as well as treatment-related side effects, often leading to a significant decline in function. Protein supplements have shown positive effects on promoting muscle strength and physical performance in various tumor etiologies. However, reports on their effects specifically in brain tumor patients remain scarce. This study aims to investigate the feasibility and efficacy of protein supplements in enhancing rehabilitative outcomes via muscle strengthening and functional gain in brain tumor patients with neurological demise. Sixty brain tumor patients were randomly assigned to either a protein …

Clinical Practice Guidelines For The Care Of Girls And Women With Turner Syndrome, Claus H Gravholt, Niels H Andersen, Sophie Christin-Maitre, Shanlee M Davis, Anthonie Duijnhouwer, Aneta Gawlik, Andrea T Maciel-Guerra, Iris Gutmark-Little, Kathrin Fleischer, David Hong, Karen O Klein, Siddharth K Prakash, Roopa Kanakatti Shankar, David E Sandberg, Theo C J Sas, Anne Skakkebæk, Kirstine Stochholm, Janielle A Van Der Velden, International Turner Syndrome Consensus Group, Philippe F Backeljauw

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Turner syndrome (TS) affects 50 per 100 000 females. TS affects multiple organs through all stages of life, necessitating multidisciplinary care. This guideline extends previous ones and includes important new advances, within diagnostics and genetics, estrogen treatment, fertility, co-morbidities, and neurocognition and neuropsychology. Exploratory meetings were held in 2021 in Europe and United States culminating with a consensus meeting in Aarhus, Denmark in June 2023. Prior to this, eight groups addressed important areas in TS care: (1) diagnosis and genetics, (2) growth, (3) puberty and estrogen treatment, (4) cardiovascular health, (5) transition, (6) fertility assessment, monitoring, and counselling, (7) health …