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Supplementary Figure Legend from VEGFR-1 Expressed by Malignant Melanoma-Initiating Cells Is Required for Tumor Growth

Supplementary Methods and Materials from Modulation of T-Cell Activation by Malignant Melanoma Initiating Cells

BackgroundThe composition of the infant microbiome can have a variety of short- and long-term implications for health. It is unclear if maternal probiotic supplementation in pregnancy can impact infant gut microbiome.ObjectiveThe aim of our study was to investigate if maternal supplementation of a formulation of Bifidobacterium breve 702258 from early pregnancy until three months postpartum could transfer to the infant gut.Study designThis was a double-blinded placebo controlled randomised-controlled trial of B. breve 702258 (minimum 1×109colony forming units) or placebo taken orally from 16-weeks’ gestation until three-months postpartum in healthy pregnant women. The primary outcome was presence of the supplemented strain in infant stool up to 3 months of life, detected by at a least two of three methods, i.e., strain specific PCR, shotgun metagenomic sequencing, or genome sequencing of cultured B. breve. 120 individual infants’ stool samples were required for 80% power to detect a difference in strain transfer between groups. Rates of detection were compared using Fishers exact test.Results160 pregnant women with average age 33.6 (3.9) years, mean BMI of 24.3 (22.5, 26.5) kg/m2and 43% with nulliparity (n=58) were recruited from September 2016 to July 2019. Neonatal stool samples were obtained from 135 infants (65 in intervention and 70 in control). The presence of the supplemented strain was detected through at least two methods (PCR and culture) in two infants in the intervention group (n=2/65, 3.1%) and none in the control group (n=0, 0%),p= 0.230.ConclusionDirect strain transfer from mothers to infants of B. breve 772058 occurred, albeit infrequently. This study highlights potential for maternal supplementation to introduce microbial strains into the infant microbiome.Trial registration numberISRCTN53023014

Summary: Background and Aims: Oesophagectomy is the primary curative treatment for oesophageal cancer but is associated with considerable postoperative morbidity and mortality. To better understand the aetiology of impaired health-related quality of life (HRQL) in oesophageal cancer survivors (OCS), this study sought to determine the longitudinal changes in nutritional status, nutrition-impact symptoms (NIS), and HRQL in this cohort, and to determine which variables have the greatest impact on postoperative HRQL decline. Methods: Data, derived from St. James' Hospital, Dublin, included patients who underwent oesophagectomy from October 2017 to May 2019 and attended clinic preoperatively and 6 months postoperatively. A subset attended a further 12-month appointment. HRQL and symptom data were collected using validated questionnaires and anthropometric measures were completed by clinicians. Data were analysed using SPSS. Results: A total of 66 patients were studied preoperatively and 6 months postoperatively, of whom 37 were studied at 12 months postoperatively. Malnutrition remained prevalent at each time-point, although rates did not significantly change longitudinally. Conversely, the prevalence of malabsorption (7.6%–14.3%, P

Patients with early-onset scoliosis (EOS) and spasticity may receive treatment with an intrathecal baclofen pump. We assessed how baclofen pumps are associated with the odds of complications and secondary interventions after growth-friendly (GF) spine surgery for EOS and analyzed infectious complications within the pump cohort.Using a prospectively maintained, international multicenter database, we studied patients with neuromuscular EOS with baclofen pumps who underwent GF spine surgery from 2002 through 2019 (n=25). Baclofen pumps were implanted before GF instrumentation in 18 patients, during in 2 patients, and after in 5 patients. Patients with existing pumps at initial GF spine surgery were matched 1:3 with 54 patients (control group) without pumps according to treatment center, year of surgery, diagnosis, surgery type, and preoperative curve magnitude. Univariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression were performed to compare complications and secondary interventions between the 2 cohorts.Patients with baclofen pumps had 4.8 times the odds [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.5-16] of experiencing any complication within 1 year after initial GF spine surgery compared with controls. During mean follow-up of 6.9±4.3 years, they had 4.7 times the odds (95% CI: 1.3-16) of deep surgical site infection and 5.6 times the odds (95% CI: 1.2-26) of spinal rod removal after any complication. Differences in rates of mechanical complication, such as rod migration and breakage, were nonsignificant between the 2 groups. For the 9 patients (50%) with pumps who experienced infections, the most common microorganisms were Staphylococcus aureus (4 patients) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (2). The pump/catheter was revised or removed, in addition to antibiotic therapy or surgical irrigation and debridement, in 2 patients.Among patients with neuromuscular EOS, those with baclofen pumps are much more likely to experience complications within 1 year after GF spine surgery. They are also more likely to have deep surgical site infections, with S. aureus and P. aeruginosa being the most common causative organisms, and to require spinal rod removal.Level III-retrospective comparative study.

Situated within the context of ‘Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ and the associated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this article explores some current understandings about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and related ethical and sustainable business policies and practices within UK-based global businesses. It also considers the potential lessons for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) based on the approaches of global companies. The research engaged senior CSR managers from UK global brand businesses to discuss their CSR perceptions and practices. To the surprise of researchers, the participants described how they were moving past ‘CSR’ to instead use the SDGs as their framework. The findings suggest that global companies are reframing CSR within the broader concept of sustainability, influenced by the SDGs, and are willing to offer advice to SMEs as part of a broader supply chain collaboration process. While there is emerging literature focusing on the practical implications of the SDGs for global business, there appears to have been less attention to the potential for knowledge sharing between global companies and SMEs linked to the SDGs. Our research asked participants about recommendations for SMEs and these are also discussed in this paper. Our intention is to make a particular contribution to the latter area of inquiry and demonstrate the relevance of the SDGs to business, regardless of size.

MotivationMultiplexed protein imaging methods provide valuable information on complex tissue structure and cellular heterogeneity. However, costs increase and image quality decreases with the number of biomarkers imaged, and the number of markers that can be measured in the same tissue sample is limited.ResultsIn this work, we propose an efficient algorithm to choose a minimal predictive subset of markers that for the first time allows the prediction of full images for a much larger set of markers. We demonstrate that our approach also outperforms previous methods for predicting cell-level marker composition. We also demonstrate that an effective minimal subset can be selected even if the desired full set is too large to be imaged on the same samples.AvailabilityAll code and intermediate results are available in a Reproducible Research Archive athttps://github.com/murphygroup/CODEXPanelOptimization.

Europe has experienced a substantial increase in non-indigenous crayfish species (NICS) since the mid-20th century due to their extensive use in fisheries, aquaculture and, more recently, pet trade. Despite relatively long invasion histories of some NICS and negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, large spatio-temporal analyses of their occurrences are lacking. Here, we used a large freshwater macroinvertebrate database to evaluate what information on NICS can be obtained from widely applied biomonitoring approaches and how usable such data is for descriptions of trends in identified NICS species. We found 160 time-series containing NICS between 1983 and 2019, to infer temporal patterns and environmental drivers of species and region-specific trends. Using a combination of meta-regression and generalized linear models, we found no significant temporal trend for the abundance of any species (Procambarus clarkii, Pacifastacus leniusculus or Faxonius limosus) at the European scale, but identified species-specific predictors of abundances. While analysis of the spatial range expansion of NICS was positive (i.e. increasing spread) in England and negative (significant retreat) in northern Spain, no trend was detected in Hungary and the Dutch-German-Luxembourg region. The average invasion velocity varied among countries, ranging from 30 km/year in England to 90 km/year in Hungary. The average invasion velocity gradually decreased over time in the long term, with declines being fastest in the Dutch-German-Luxembourg region, and much slower in England. Considering that NICS pose a substantial threat to aquatic biodiversity across Europe, our study highlights the utility and importance of collecting high resolution (i.e. annual) biomonitoring data using a sampling protocol that is able to estimate crayfish abundance, enabling a more profound understanding of NICS impacts on biodiversity.