Piperlinde1938
β-hemoglobinopathies are the most common genetic disorders worldwide and are caused by mutations affecting the production or the structure of adult hemoglobin. Patients affected by these diseases suffer from anemia, impaired oxygen delivery to tissues, and multi-organ damage. In the absence of a compatible donor for allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, the lifelong therapeutic options are symptomatic care, red blood cell transfusions and pharmacological treatments. The last decades of research established lentiviral-mediated gene therapy as an efficacious therapeutic strategy. However, this approach is highly expensive and associated with a variable outcome depending on the effectiveness of the viral vector and the quality of the cell product. In the last years, genome editing emerged as a valuable tool for the development of curative strategies for β-hemoglobinopathies. Moreover, due to the wide range of its applications, genome editing has been extensively used to study regulatory mechanisms underlying globin gene regulation allowing the identification of novel genetic and pharmacological targets. In this work, we review the current advances and challenges of genome editing approaches to β-hemoglobinopathies. Special focus has been directed towards strategies aimed at correcting the defective β-globin gene or at inducing fetal hemoglobin (HbF), which are in an advanced state of clinical development.Type I interferon signaling contributes to the development of innate and adaptive immune responses to either viruses, fungi, or bacteria. However, amplitude and timing of the interferon response is of utmost importance for preventing an underwhelming outcome, or tissue damage. While several pathogens evolved strategies for disturbing the quality of interferon signaling, there is growing evidence that this pathway can be regulated by several members of the Nod-like receptor (NLR) family, although the precise mechanism for most of these remains elusive. NLRs consist of a family of about 20 proteins in mammals, which are capable of sensing microbial products as well as endogenous signals related to tissue injury. Here we provide an overview of our current understanding of the function of those NLRs in type I interferon responses with a focus on viral infections. We discuss how NLR-mediated type I interferon regulation can influence the development of auto-immunity and the immune response to infection.Epinephelus coioides, or grouper, is a high economic value fish species that plays an important role in the aquaculture industry in Asia. However, both viral and bacterial diseases have threatened grouper for many years, especially nervous necrosis virus, grouper iridovirus and Vibrio harveyi, which have caused a bottleneck in the grouper industry. Currently, intestinal microbiota can provide novel insights into the pathogenesis-related factors involved in pathogen infection. Hence, we investigated the comparison of intestinal microbiota communities in control group and pathogen-infected grouper through high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Our results showed that microbial diversity was decreased, whereas microbial richness was increased during pathogen infection. The individuals in each group were distributed distinctly on the PLSDA diagram, especially the GIV group. Proteobacteria and Firmicutes were the most abundant bacterial phyla in all groups. Interestingly, beneficial genera, Faecalibacterium and Bifidobacterium, predominated in the intestines of the control group. In contrast, the intestines of pathogen-infected grouper had higher levels of harmful genera such as Sphingomonas, Atopostipes, Staphylococcus and Acinetobacter. Additionally, we investigated the expression levels of innate and adaptive immune-related genes after viral and bacterial infection. The results revealed that immunoglobulin T and proinflammatory cytokine levels in the intestine increased after pathogen infection. Through these unique bacterial compositions in diseased and uninfected fish, we could establish a novel therapeutic approach and bacterial marker for preventing and controlling these diseases.The contribution of the apple microbiome to the production chain of apple was so far largely unknown. Here, we describe the apple fruit microbiome and influences on its composition by parameters such as storage season, storage duration, storage technology, apple variety, and plant protection schemes. A combined culturing and metabarcoding approach revealed significant differences in the abundance, composition, and diversity of the apple fruit microbiome. We showed that relatively few genera contribute a large portion of the microbiome on fruit and that the fruit microbiome changes during the storage season depending on the storage conditions. In addition, we show that the plant protection regime has an influence on the diversity of the fruit microbiome and on the dynamics of pathogenic fungal genera during the storage season. For the genus Neofabraea, the quantitative results from the metabarcoding approach were validated with real-time PCR. In conclusion, we identified key parameters determining the composition and temporal changes of the apple fruit microbiome, and the main abiotic driving factors of microbiome diversity on apple fruit were characterized.The objective of this study was to investigate how storage temperatures influence the bacterial community of oat silage during the ensiling process via PacBio single molecule, real-time sequencing technology (SMRT). Forage oat was ensiled at four different temperatures (5 °C, 10 °C, 15 °C, and 25 °C) and ensiling days (7, 14, 30, and 60 days). With the rise in storage temperature, the lactic acid content showed an increased trend. Acetic acid production was observed highest in silage fermented at 5 °C compared with other treatments, and Enterococcus mundtii was also the dominant bacterial species. Lactiplantibacillus pentosus and Loigolactobacillus rennini were exclusively detected in silages at 10 °C, 15 °C, and 25 °C, and dominated the fermentation after 60 days of ensiling at 10 °C and 25 °C, respectively. In addition, L. pentosus, L. rennini, and E. mundtii may be related to changes in the fermentation products due to the differences in ensiling temperature. XAV-939 In conclusion, results of this study improve our understanding of the complicated microbial composition underlying silage fermentation at low temperatures, which might contribute to target-based regulation methods for enhancing silage quality and developing new inoculants.Gallium oxide (Ga2O3) is a promising wide-band-gap semiconductor material for UV optical detectors and high-power transistor applications. The fabrication of p-type Ga2O3 is a key problem that hinders its potential for realistic power applications. In this paper, pure α-Ga2O3 and Ca-doped α-Ga2O3 band structure, the density of states, charge density distribution, and optical properties were determined by a first-principles generalized gradient approximation plane-wave pseudopotential method based on density functional theory. It was found that calcium (Ca) doping decreases the bandgap by introducing deep acceptor energy levels as the intermediate band above the valence band maximum. This intermediate valence band mainly consists of Ca 3p and O 2p orbitals and is adequately high in energy to provide an opportunity for p-type conductivity. Moreover, Ca doping enhances the absorptivity and reflectivity become low in the visible region. Aside, transparency decreases compared to the pure material. The optical properties were studied and clarified by electrons-photons interband transitions along with the complex dielectric function's imaginary function.University students have high rates of health risk behaviors and psychological distress. This study explores patterns of health behaviors among a sample of Australian university students, and determines whether patterns of health behaviors are associated with psychological distress and demographic characteristics. Cross-sectional data from the University of Newcastle Student Healthy Lifestyle Survey 2019 were analyzed. Fruit and vegetable intake, sugar-sweetened beverage intake, physical activity, sitting time, smoking, alcohol intake, drug use, sleep and psychological distress were assessed. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify patterns of health risk behaviors, and latent class regression to explore associations between psychological distress and demographic characteristics with health behavior classes. Analysis included 1965 students (mean age 25.8 ± 8.6 years, 70.7% female). Three patterns of health behaviors were identified healthier (48.6%), moderate (40.2%) and unhealthy (11.2%) lifestyle classes. Students in the moderate and unhealthy lifestyle classes had higher odds of moderate (OR 1.43 and 2.37) and high/very high psychological distress risk (OR 2.71 and 11.69). Students in the unhealthy and moderate lifestyle classes had a higher odds of being male, younger, enrolled in transition to university and English language courses, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent and to report some financial difficulty. Study findings may be used to inform the design of mental health interventions for university students that target key health risk behaviors.This research was designed to investigate the metabolite profiling, phenolics and flavonoids content and the potential antioxidant, antibacterial and nematicidal activities of "yellow-brown resins" from Larrea divaricata Cav (LdRe) and L. nitida Cav (LnRe). Metabolite profiling was obtained using an ultrahigh resolution liquid chromatography orbitrap MS analysis (UHPLC-ESI-OT-MS). The antioxidant properties were screened by four methods 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay (DPPH), trolox equivalent antioxidant activity assay (TEAC), ferric-reducing antioxidant power assay (FRAP) and lipid peroxidation in erythrocytes (LP). The antibacterial activity was evaluated according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. In addition, the potential combinatory effect was analyzed with the fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICI) values using the checkerboard design. The nematicidal activity was carried out according to a standardized protocol. LdRe and LnRe showed a strong capture ovonoids, allow the phenolics-enriched resins of these two Larrea species to be considered as a promising sustainable source of compounds of pharmacological interest.Objectives Recent trials with craniospinal irradiation (CSI) via helical Tomotherapy (HT) demonstrated encouraging medulloblastoma results. In this study, we assess the toxicity profile of different radiation techniques and estimate survival rates. Materials and Methods We reviewed the records of 46 patients who underwent irradiation for medulloblastoma between 1999 and 2019 (27 conventional radiotherapy technique (CRT) and 19 HT). Patient, tumor, and treatment characteristics, as well as treatment outcomes-local control rate (LCR), event-free survival (EFS), and overall survival (OS)-were reviewed. Acute and late adverse events (AEs) were evaluated according to the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (RTOG/EORTC) criteria. Results In total, 43 courses of CSI and three local RT were administered to the 46 patients 30 were male, the median age was 7 years (range 1-56). A median total RT dose of 55 Gy (range 44-68) and a median CSI dose of 35 Gy (range, 23.