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Background: Food insecurity (FI) is a disturbance of eating patterns due to lack of resources, preventing consistent access to healthy foods. FI negatively impacts health outcomes and increases care cost., Objectives: The primary objective was to (a) explore patient willingness to screen with the 2-question Hunger Vital Sign tool and (b) accept education regarding food assistance programs at their community pharmacy. The secondary objective was to gauge pharmacy personnel's comfort with utilizing the screener and providing education., Practice Description: Screenings occurred from February to May 2023 at supermarket-based pharmacies in counties above state average FI prevalence., Practice Innovation: This study evaluated responses to a 9-item FI screening questionnaire that was offered to patients presenting to the pharmacy. Personnel offered patients education about resources and documented responses. Pharmacies provided survey responses to detail their experiences., Evaluation Methods: This mixed-methods observational pilot study received approval from Idaho State University's institutional review board. Objective 1(a) was assessed by recording the number of patients agreeing or declining to participate. Objective 1(b) was evaluated by recording the number of patients who accepted education. The secondary objective was appraised by gathering survey responses from personnel. Results were analyzed with descriptive statistics., Results: Of patients asked to participate, 163 (73.1%) agreed. Forty-one agreed but did not submit responses. Of patients agreeing, 123 (75.5%) accepted education. Of patients submitting responses, 56 (49.5%) screened as at-risk for FI. Regarding comfort engaging in the innovation, 4 pharmacies (50.0%) reported being comfortable, 3 (37.5%) neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, and 1 (12.5%) uncomfortable. Qualitative information collected from personnel highlighted meaningful interactions and how this will change their approach to pharmacy practice., Conclusion: Supermarket-based pharmacists may be able to detect and educate on FI. Patients in the study screened at a higher rate of at-risk for FI than their counties reported. Many patients accepted education regardless of screening results., Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors declare no relevant conflicts of interest or financial relationships., (Copyright © 2024 American Pharmacists Association®. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Lung cancer is often diagnosed at an advanced stage where tumors are usually inoperable and first-line therapies are inefficient and have off-targeted adverse effects, resulting in poor patient survival. Here, we report the development of an inhalable poly lactic-co-glycolic acid polymer-based nanoparticle (PLGA-NP) formulation with a biomimetic Infasurf® lung surfactant (LS) coating, for localized and sustained lung cancer drug delivery. The nanoparticles (188 ± 7 nm) were stable in phosphate buffered saline, serum and Gamble's solution (simulated lung fluid), and demonstrated cytocompatibility up to 1000 μg/mL concentration and dose-dependent uptake by lung cancer cells. The LS coating significantly decreased nanoparticle (NP) uptake by NR8383 alveolar macrophages in vitro compared to uncoated NPs. The coating, however, did not impair NP uptake by A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells. The anti-cancer drug gemcitabine hydrochloride encapsulated in the PLGA core was released in a sustained manner while the paclitaxel loaded in the LS shell demonstrated a rapid or burst release profile over 21 days. The drug-loaded NPs significantly decreased cancer cell survival and colony formation in vitro compared to free drugs and single drug-loaded NPs. In vivo studies confirmed greater retention of LS-coated NPs in the lungs of C57BL/6 WT mice compared to uncoated NPs, at 24 h and 72 h following intranasal administration. The overall results confirm that LS coating is a unique strategy for cloaking polymeric NPs to potentially prevent their rapid lung clearance and facilitate prolonged pulmonary drug delivery., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Voltage-gated calcium channel Ca v 2.1 undergoes Ca 2+ -dependent facilitation and inactivation, which are important in short-term synaptic plasticity. In presynaptic terminals, Ca v 2.1 forms large protein complexes that include synaptotagmins. Synaptotagmin-7 (Syt-7) is essential to mediate short-term synaptic plasticity in many synapses. Here, based on evidence that Ca v 2.1 and Syt-7 are both required for short-term synaptic facilitation, we investigated the direct interaction of Syt-7 with Ca v 2.1 and probed its regulation of Ca v 2.1 function. We found that Syt-7 binds specifically to the α 1A subunit of Ca v 2.1 through interaction with the synaptic-protein interaction (synprint) site. Surprisingly, this interaction enhances facilitation in paired-pulse protocols and accelerates the onset of facilitation. Syt-7α induces a depolarizing shift in the voltage dependence of activation of Ca v 2.1 and slows Ca 2+ -dependent inactivation, whereas Syt-7β and Syt-7γ have smaller effects. Our results identify an unexpected, isoform-specific interaction between Ca v 2.1 and Syt-7 through the synprint site, which enhances Ca v 2.1 facilitation and modulates its inactivation., (Copyright © 2022 Djillani et al.)

In Quebec, nearly 3 persons still take their own lives every day, even though this number has been declining since 2000. Several institutional and community actors are involved in suicide prevention and several initiatives have contributed to the reduction of suicide rates. Despite this hard work, additional efforts are needed to intensify service offers and resource access to better reach people at risk of suicide not reached by actual services. For many years, several countries have been implementing digital technologies to reach them. In Quebec, there were delays in adoption of digital technologies for suicide prevention. In this context, the Health and Social services Ministry mandated Association québécoise de prévention du suicide (AQPS) to develop a Digital Strategy for Suicide Prevention (DSPS). From the beginning, AQPS wanted to anchor DSPS's development in a decision-making process based on scientific, contextual and experiential evidence. A process, derived from implementation science, was therefore put in place to actualize this intent. Implementation science is defined as the science of implementing programs in real-world settings. It is recognized as contributing to the successful implementation of new programs while promoting a rigorous evaluation of their impacts and outcomes. Objectives This article aims to: 1) present the process that was put in place to facilitate DSPS design, implementation, and evaluation; and 2) describe the DSPS action model and the DSPS. Method The Knowledge to Action (KTA) framework is central to the design, implementation, and evaluation of DSPS. This framework proposes a cyclical process in 7 iterative phases, each with its own methodological aspects and data collections Results The results section illustrates the concrete actions taken at each phase of the KTA process and the highlights that emerge from the analysis of the data collected. This section also presents the DSPS. Conclusion Optimal conditions to promote the implementation of DSPS, its use and its sustainability have been put in place. The current implementation and evaluation of this implementation and its impacts will allow to assess the capacity of DSPS to achieve its main objectives: to provide information about suicide, to identify suicidal individuals, to increase the visibility of resources, and to offer help to suicidal individuals who respond less to traditional resources.

The underlying mechanism of transcriptional co-repressor ETO2 during early erythropoiesis and hemoglobin switching is unclear. We find that absence of ETO2 in mice interferes with down-regulation of PU.1 and GATA2 in the fetal liver, impeding a key step required for commitment to erythroid maturation. In human β-globin transgenic Eto2 null mice and in human CD34+ erythroid progenitor cells with reduced ETO2, loss of ETO2 results in ineffective silencing of embryonic/fetal globin gene expression, impeding hemoglobin switching during erythroid differentiation. ETO2 occupancy genome-wide occurs virtually exclusively at LDB1-complex binding sites in enhancers and ETO2 loss leads to increased enhancer activity and expression of target genes. ETO2 recruits the NuRD nucleosome remodeling and deacetylation complex to regulate histone acetylation and nucleosome occupancy in the β-globin locus control region and γ-globin gene. Loss of ETO2 elevates LDB1, MED1 and Pol II in the locus and facilitates fetal γ-globin/LCR looping and γ-globin transcription. Absence of the ETO2 hydrophobic heptad repeat region impairs ETO2-NuRD interaction and function in antagonizing γ-globin/LCR looping. Our results reveal a pivotal role for ETO2 in erythropoiesis and globin gene switching through its repressive role in the LDB1 complex, affecting the transcription factor and epigenetic environment and ultimately restructuring chromatin organization., (Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research 2020.)