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During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) have been included in the "high risk" group of the population. This is due to their impaired immunity resulting from functional hyposplenism, systemic vasculopathy that predisposes them to end organ dysfunction, and a high risk of thrombosis (Ware et al, 2017). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Governments worldwide have responded to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic by officially imposing or unofficially encouraging social distancing measures. These measures have had a positive impact on the spread of the virus, however the "stay at home" formula and the lack of specific scientific information about SARS-CoV-2 has understandably resulted in increased anxiety and fear. One unforeseen consequence has been an enhanced risk of underestimating the symptoms and clinical signs of others pathologies even more severe than the viral infection. In the last 35 days, we have observed 8 patients who delayed coming to our hospital emergency room despite unmistakable clinical symptoms and signs of acute haematological disease, putting themselves at risk of compromising their entire therapeutic plan. The similarities between viral symptoms and initial clinical signs of haematological pathologies and the anxiety of contracting SARS-CoV-2 infection were the main causes of this delay. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.BACKGROUND Because of the increased risk in cancer patients of developing complications caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), physicians have to balance the competing risks of the negative impact of the pandemic and the primary tumor. In this consensus statement, an international group of experts present mitigation strategies and treatment guidance for patients suffering from high grade gliomas (HGG) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. METHOD / RESULTS 16 international experts in the treatment of HGG contributed to this consensus-based practice recommendation including neuro-oncologists, neurosurgeons, radiation -oncologists and a medical physicist. Generally, treatment of neuro-oncological patients cannot be significantly delayed and initiating therapy should not be outweighed by COVID-19. We present detailed interdisciplinary treatment strategies for molecular subgroups in two pandemic scenarios, a scale-up phase and a crisis phase. CONCLUSION This practice recommendation presents a pragmatic framework and consensus-based mitigation strategies for the treatment of HGG patients during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Neuro-Oncology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX)-treated wheat straw pellets and a recombinant fibrolytic enzyme on the rumen microbiome, rumen fermentation parameters, total tract diet digestibility, and performance of lambs. Eight rumen cannulated wethers and 60 lambs (n = 15 per diet, 8 rams and 7 ewes) were used in a replicated 4 × 4 Latin square design digestibility study and a complete randomized growth performance study, respectively. Four treatment diets were arranged in a 2 × 2 factorial structure with AFEX wheat straw (0% or 30% AFEX straw pellets on a dietary DM basis replacing alfalfa hay pellets) and fibrolytic enzyme (with or without XYL10C, a β-1,4-xylanase, from Aspergillus niger) as main factors. Enzyme was applied at 100 mg/kg of diet DM, 22 h before feeding. Rumen bacteria diversity Pielou evenness decreased (P = 0.05) with AFEX compared with the control diet and increased (P 0.10) among diets, but digestibility of CP was reduced (P = 0.001), and digestibility of NDF and ADF increased (P less then 0.05) as AFEX replaced alfalfa. Compared with control, AFEX promoted greater DMI (P = 0.003) and improved ADG up to 42 d on feed (P = 0.03), but not (P = 0.51) over the full ~94-d experiment. Consequently, overall GF was reduced (P = 0.04) for AFEX when compared with control (0.188 vs. 0.199), but days on feed were lower (P = 0.04) for AFEX (97 vs. 91 d). Enzyme improved DMI of AFEX up to day 70 (P = 0.01), but did not affect DMI of the control diet. Enzyme addition improved ADG of lambs fed both diets in the first 28 d (P = 0.02), but not over the entire feeding period (P ≥ 10). As a result, GF was improved with enzyme for the first 28 d (P = 0.04), but not overall (P = 0.45). This study shows that AFEX-treated wheat straw can replace alfalfa hay with no loss in lamb growth performance. Additionally, the enzyme XYL10C altered the rumen microbiome and improved GF in the first month of the feeding. © Crown copyright 2020.MOTIVATION Understanding the underlying biological mechanisms and respective interactions of a disease remains an elusive, time consuming and costly task. Computational methodologies that propose pathway/mechanism communities and reveal respective relationships can be of great value as they can help expedite the process of identifying how perturbations in a single pathway can affect other pathways. IMPLEMENTATION We present a random-walks-based methodology called PathWalks where a walker crosses a pathway-to-pathway network under the guidance of a disease-related map. The latter is a gene network that we construct by integrating multi-source information regarding a specific disease. The most frequent trajectories highlight communities of pathways that are expected to be strongly related to the disease under study. RESULTS We apply the PathWalks methodology on Alzheimer's Disease and Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis and establish that it can highlight pathways that are also identified by other pathway analysis tools as well as are backed through bibliographic references. More importantly, PathWalks produces additional new pathways that are functionally connected with those already established, giving insight for further experimentation. AVAILABILITY https//github.com/vagkaratzas/PathWalks. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press.Modulators of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) have recently emerged as novel players in the field of leukemia biology. The mechanisms by which EMT modulators contribute to leukemia pathogenesis, however, remain to be elucidated. Here we show that overexpression of SNAI1, a key modulator of EMT, is a pathologically relevant event in human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that contributes to impaired differentiation, enhanced self-renewal and proliferation of immature myeloid cells. We demonstrate that ectopic expression of Snai1 in hematopoietic cells predisposes mice to AML development. This effect is mediated by interaction with the histone demethylase KDM1A/LSD1. Our data shed new light on the role of SNAI1 in leukemia development and identify a novel mechanism of LSD1 corruption in cancer. This is particularly pertinent given the current interest surrounding the use of LSD1 inhibitors in the treatment of multiple different malignancies, including AML. Copyright © 2020 American Society of Hematology.MOTIVATION Enzymatic digestion of proteins before mass spectrometry analysis is a key process in metaproteomic workflows. Canonical metaproteomic data processing pipelines typically involve matching spectra produced by the mass spectrometer to a theoretical spectra database, followed by matching the identified peptides back to parent proteins. However, the nature of enzymatic digestion produces peptides that can be found in multiple proteins due to conservation or chance, presenting difficulties with protein and functional assignment. RESULTS To combat this challenge, we developed pepFunk, a peptide-centric metaproteomic workflow focused on the analysis of human gut microbiome samples. Our workflow includes a curated peptide database annotated with KEGG terms and a gene set variation analysis-inspired pathway enrichment adapted for peptide level data. Analysis using our peptide-centric workflow is fast and highly correlated to a protein-centric analysis, and can identify more enriched KEGG pathways than analysis using protein-level data. Our workflow is open source and available as a web application or source code to be run locally. SNS-032 clinical trial AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION pepFunk is available online as a web application at https//shiny.imetalab.ca/pepFunk/ with open source code available from https//github.com/northomics/pepFunk. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary figures follow the manuscript and the peptide to KEGG database is submitted as a supplementary file. © The Author(s) (2020). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com.Responses to environmental cues synchronize reproduction of higher plants to the changing seasons. The genetic basis of these responses has been intensively studied in the Brassicaceae. The MADS-domain transcription factor FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) plays a central role in the regulatory network that controls flowering of Arabidopsis thaliana in response to seasonal cues. FLC blocks flowering until its transcription is stably repressed by extended exposure to low temperatures in autumn or winter, and therefore, FLC activity is assumed to limit flowering to spring. Recent reviews describe the complex epigenetic mechanisms responsible for FLC repression in cold. We focus on the gene regulatory networks controlled by FLC and how they influence floral transition. Genome-wide approaches determined the in vivo target genes of FLC and identified those whose transcription changes during vernalization or in flc mutants. We describe how studying FLC targets such as FLOWERING LOCUS T, SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE 15 and TARGET OF FLC AND SVP 1 can explain different flowering behaviors in response to vernalization and other environmental cues, and help define mechanisms by which FLC represses gene transcription. Elucidating the gene regulatory networks controlled by FLC provides entry to the developmental and physiological mechanisms that regulate floral transition. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology.Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by recurrent partial to complete upper airway obstructions during sleep, leading to repetitive arousals and oxygen desaturations. Although many OSA biomarkers have been reported individually, only a small subset have been validated through both cross-sectional and intervention studies. Here, we used a highly multiplexed aptamer array (SomaScan) for proteomic analysis of serum samples from 713 individuals in the Stanford Sleep Cohort, a patient-based registry. Outcome measures derived from overnight polysomnography included Obstructive Apnea Hypopnea Index (OAHI), Central Apnea Index (CAI), 2% Oxygen Desaturation index, mean and minimum oxygen saturation indices during sleep. Additionally, a separate intervention-based cohort of 16 individuals was used to assess proteomic profiles pre- and post-intervention with positive airway pressure. After statistical adjustment for age, age of sample, gender and body mass index, OAHI was associated with 65 proteins, predominantly pathways of complement, coagulation, cytokine signaling, and hemostasis which were upregulated.