Monday, April 15, 2024

Tuberculosis can have a lasting impact on the lung health of individuals who have been successfully treated for the disease

Smaller lungs, narrower airways and slower airflow could have a profound effect on long-term health

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Finding strongly indicates that post-TB lung disease is an under-recognised global challenge, UK researchers say

New research being presented at this year’s ESCMID Global Congress (formerly ECCMID) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 April) has found compelling evidence that tuberculosis (TB) can have a lasting impact on the lungs of individuals who have been successfully treated for the disease.

TB survivors have smaller lungs with narrower airways and slower air flow, the analysis of data on tens of thousands of individuals from around the world found.

“This damage could have a profound effect on long-term health, reduce quality of life and affect ability to work and carry out day-to-day tasks,” says lead researcher Dr Sharenja Ratnakumar, of St George’s, University of London, London, UK. “And, with growing numbers of people being successfully treated for TB, the finding strongly indicates that post-TB lung disease is an under-recognised global challenge.”

TB can be cured with antibiotics and, worldwide, an estimated 155 million people are alive today as a result of successful diagnosis and treatment of the bacterial infection.

However, although significant progress has been made in combating TB in recent decades, the number of new diagnoses has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Some 7.5 million were diagnosed globally in 2022 – the highest number since monitoring began in 1995 and above the pre-Covid baseline of 7.1 million in 2019, according to WHO’s 2023 Global Tuberculosis Report.1

The burden is highest in sub-Saharan Africa and south east Asia but even low incidence countries such as the UK are seeing diagnoses increase. According to provisional data from the UK Health Security Agency, there were 4,850 new diagnoses in England in 2023. This is above pre-Covid levels and represents a rise of more than 10% on 2022, when there were 4,380 diagnoses.2

Previous research has found that between 18% and >80% of survivors will be left with lung damage3 that reduces their quality of life and life expectancy4 but data on the size and type of respiratory impairment is scarce. To find out more, Dr Ratnakumar and colleagues carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing research on the topic.

The Medline, Embase and CINAHL databases were searched from 1/01/00 to 31/01/23 for studies that compared the lung function of individuals with a history of TB with that of healthy controls.

The meta-analysis included data on 75,631 individuals from 15 studies conducted in 17 countries with varying TB incidence and income levels.

The 7,377 TB survivors had an average age range of 11-65 years. Many of the studies were skewed towards a younger population (<50years) from mainly low- and middle-income countries.

Four measures of lung function were included in the analysis: forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1, the volume of air can be forcefully exhaled in one second); forced vital capacity (FVC, the volume of air that can be forcefully exhaled in a single breath); FEV1/FVC ratio; FVC as a percentage of the predicted value (compares the volume to the average of a healthy person of the same age, sex and height).

The study, which was supported by the charity Breathing Matters, found that, compared to the healthy controls, the participants with prior TB had significantly lower results on all four measures of lung function, with FEV1 more affected than FVC.

Dr Ratnakumar says: “FEV1 was 230 millilitres lower compared to healthy controls and FVC was 140 millilitres lower. A decrease in FEV1 of 100 millilitres is considered clinically significant and is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disease.”5

The results as a whole point to the TB survivors having smaller lungs (restrictive disease) and narrower airways with slower air flow (obstructive disease). This means that the breaths they take are smaller and take longer; breathing is less efficient and less able to respond to increased ventilatory demands such as during exercise.

Analysis of data from five of the studies showed the TB survivors to have 65% higher odds of airflow obstruction (AFO) than the healthy controls.

The results suggest TB can leave a lasting and widespread impact on the lungs, especially in terms of how the airways are structured. This valuable insight can help guide rehabilitation strategies and, in the longer term, aid in the development of new therapies, say the researchers.

Dr Ratnakumar explains: “Our results strongly indicate that post-tuberculosis lung disease is an under-recognised global challenge – and one that has significant implications for clinical practice and policy.

“The focus, until now, has been on the treatment of acute TB, but even when treatment is successful, individuals can be left with significant lung damage.

“This can cause breathlessness that can affect their ability to work and go about their day-to-day lives and reduces their quality of life.

“This legacy of TB has been overlooked for too long and it is vital it is recognised.

“With an estimated 74 million lives saved through tuberculosis treatment between 2000 and 2020 and a rising life expectancy, there is an urgent need for evidence-based recommendations on the diagnosis, treatment and management of post-tuberculosis lung disease.

“Our study also provides compelling evidence that the long-term care of individuals with post-tuberculosis lung disease should be an explicit component of the WHO’s End TB strategy.”

References:

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Apr-2024

Researchers shed light on the molecular causes of different functions of opioid receptors

Potent active substances

UNIVERSITÄT LEIPZIG

Drugs that target opioid receptors sometimes have severe side effects. Thousands of people around the world die every day from overdoses involving opioids such as fentanyl. An international team of researchers has taken a closer look at the molecular mechanisms of these active substances. The research, carried out by Dr Matthias Elgeti, a biophysicist at Leipzig University, in collaboration with research groups from the US and China, has now been published in the journal Nature.

Opioid receptors are of great pharmacological interest because opioid substances regulate the perception of pain. “Our findings provide insights into how an opioid receptor can perform different functions. It is able to reduce pain, but also to regulate digestion or breathing,” explains Dr Elgeti, co-first author of the study from the Institute for Drug Discovery at the Faculty of Medicine.

In the current study, the biophysicist collaborated with international scientists, including the research group of Nobel laureate Brian Kobilka from Stanford University. They discovered that superagonists, such as fentanyl, stabilise a state of the receptor that causes particularly effective and long-lasting signal transmission. This means that superagonists are particularly potent and therefore dangerous. In the current study, the researchers used electron spin resonance and single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy to determine different states of the opioid receptor and the structural effects of different binding partners.

Opioid receptors are members of the large family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which control many signalling processes in the body, such as taste and smell, while others bind neurotransmitters and hormones or are activated by light. Understanding the molecular interactions of these receptors with drugs and other signalling proteins is very important for drug development. As all GPCRs are structurally very similar, the researchers hope that their findings on the opioid receptor can be applied to other receptors.

“This study involved isolating the opioid receptors. They are normally found in the body’s cells, interacting with many other proteins and molecules. Further research into the molecular interactions is therefore needed to gain a full understanding of the regulatory mechanisms,” says Dr Elgeti. The new study is an important building block in basic research, with further studies needed to ultimately develop better and safer medicines.

JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-07295-2

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Ligand efficacy modulates conformational dynamics of the µ-opioid receptor

Allowing consumers who purchased goods online to return them to retail stores can be a win-win

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

Many consumers who shop online prefer to return items to brick-and-mortar stores rather than mail them back. In a new study, researchers assessed a new practice called return partnership, in which online retailers partner with retailers with physical stores to offer offline returns. They conclude that this arrangement can benefit both online and store retailers, though businesses should be careful to choose the right partners.

The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington (UW), has been submitted for publication.

“Retailers are increasingly adopting a variety of ways to return products to cater to customers’ preferences,” explains Soo-Haeng Cho, IBM Professor of Operations Management and Strategy at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon, who co-authored the study. “These new approaches can be a win-win for online sellers and stores.”

To reduce problems for consumers who want to return goods without having to package and mail them, online retailers (e.g., Amazon) have begun to partner with firms that own a network of physical stores (e.g., Kohl’s) so customers can drop off returns of their online purchases. The partnerships usually do not involve direct monetary payment to the store retailers. The store retailers benefit from purchases made during customers’ visits to stores and online retailers save on shipping costs (the retailer collects and ships multiple returned items from a physical store, which is less costly than individual mail-in returns).

In this study, researchers examined the incentives of online retailers and store retailers in this unique partnership. Cho and his team constructed a model with an online retailer and a store retailer in which customers had several options for buying and returning goods. The study compared the expected profit of the retailers before and after a return partnership was formed and identified when both retailers benefitted from the partnership.

Among the study’s findings:

Online retailers benefitted from shifting returns to a cost-effective channel, and store retailers benefitted from having more people in their stores.
Return partnerships can occur with no direct financial transaction between the online and store retailers; the partnership can work when the incentive for the two retailers is based only on how it affects consumer behavior.
Such partnerships can feature store partners that operate few stores but offer products similar to those of online retailers, or those that have a large store network but offer differentiated products.
Online retailers that offer convenient online shopping and lenient returns are best poised to benefit from return partnerships. Online retailers with strict return policies (e.g., high restocking fees) should carefully examine the return rate increasing effects of entering a partnership.
Firms should choose their partners to ensure the offline return service benefits their overall business. For example, an online retailer and a store retailer with comparable products have incentives to partner only if the number of stores is not too large because consumers may be swayed to return to stores by the possibility of finding replacements for whatever product they are returning. This would lead to more consumers opting to return their online purchases, which hurts the online retailer’s profit.

“By modeling consumers’ purchase and return decisions and their impact on retailers’ sales, our work provides insights into the types of online retailers that should form partnerships,” says Leela Nageswaran, Assistant Professor of Operations Management at UW’s Foster School of Business, who co-authored the study.

“Attempts to forge return partnerships with store retailers must emphasize the sales boost from returning customers,” adds Elina Hwang, Associate Professor of Information Systems at UW’s Foster School of Business, who co-authored the study.

JOURNAL

Management Science

DOI

10.1287/mnsc.2023.01291

ARTICLE TITLE

Offline Returns for Online Retailers via Partnership

Food scientists are finding ways to preserve food quality and ensure food safety

Food scientists develop framework to preserve food quality and still kill pathogens

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE

Arshpreet Khattra — IMAGE:
ARSHPREET KHATTRA WAS THE LEAD AUTHOR OF A STUDY THAT DEVELOPED A FRAMEWORK FOR FOOD PROCESSORS TO PRESERVE QUALITY AND MAINTAIN FOOD SAFETY.
view more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Sometimes the processing that makes food safe can compromise flavor and nutrients, but food scientist Jennifer Acuff is looking for a way to make food safe and minimize loss of quality.

Food processors often use heat for pasteurization or sterilization to make food products safe by killing pathogens like salmonella and listeria, but high temperatures can degrade food quality. To ensure food safety, the industry sometimes relies on overly stringent standards that unnecessarily reduce food quality, said Jennifer Acuff, assistant professor of food microbiology and safety for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

Focusing on low-moisture food products like powdered milk, Acuff and her team performed a study seeking a method that guarantees food safety while retaining the most vitamins, minerals and flavor depending on the food.

“This collaborative approach encompassed microbiology, engineering, and statistics to provide the food industry with what we believe will be a tool to improve safety without compromising quality of their dried food products,” Acuff said.

The process is not limited to low-moisture foods and may extend to other foods and processes, Acuff added.

Using data from a study on a harmless “surrogate” microorganism and a statistical technique called “bootstrapping,” the researchers developed a framework to provide food processors options within U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines.

“We have proposed a methodology to pick a value between the most liberal and most conservative food processing approaches based on risk tolerances,” said Jeyam Subbiah, head of the food science department. “The industry can use this methodology to pick a value and petition the FDA for approval.”

While there is no specific FDA rule, the government currently asks the food processing industry to make a petition for a case-by-case review.

The study, “Bootstrapping for Estimating the Conservative Kill Ratio of the Surrogate to the Pathogen for Use in Thermal Process Validation at the Industrial Scale,” was published online by the Journal of Food Production in March. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Mars Wrigley Inc. supported the study.

“Surrogates are like dummies used in crash testing to validate car safety,” Subbiah said. “They are non-pathogenic microorganisms, which should have similar or higher heat resistance than the actual pathogen. Often, they are a lot more resistant.”

Scientists use a “log cycle reduction,” or LCR for short, to calculate how effectively a process kills harmful microorganisms. “Log” refers to the logarithm scale, and 1-log represents a 10-fold reduction equivalent to a 90 percent reduction in bacteria. A 2-log reduction would be a 99 percent reduction, 3-log 99.9 percent, and so on. A 6-log reduction is a 99.9999 percent reduction.

When surrogate microorganisms are used for food safety challenge studies for sterilization of canned foods, the Institute of Food Thermal Processing Specialists recommends a “simple mean,” or average, kill ratio to validate food safety at an industrial scale. For example, Subbiah said if sterilization called for a “12-log” reduction of the pathogen and the surrogate was twice as resistant, a processor could show a “6-log” kill of the surrogate, and the FDA would accept it as equivalent.

However, the drawback of that method is that it does not consider the variability of microorganisms, both the pathogen and the surrogate, Subbiah noted.

Although less prone to foodborne pathogens than fresh meats and dairy, low-moisture foods are not immune. Various types of salmonella have been implicated in 15 deaths, thousands of illnesses, and hundreds of hospitalizations over the past 20 years due to infected low-moisture foods like dried fruits and vegetables, nuts, herbs, flour and spices.

After those food safety outbreaks, the food industry “swung to the conservative mode” in food safety challenge studies, Subbiah said, by requiring the same level of log reduction of the surrogate. For example, if sterilization of spices calls for a 12-log reduction of salmonella, the industry would show a 12-log reduction of the surrogate even though it can be twice as resistant as the pathogen. While this assures a high level of food safety, nutrients may be degraded due to severe thermal processing, Subbiah explained.

Calculating the risk

As a food science graduate student in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, Arshpreet Khattra used previously published data from Subbiah’s lab involving the surrogate Enterococcus faecium to develop a solution for preserving quality in thermal processing. She applied the bootstrapping technique to estimate the distribution of kill ratio in milk powders rather than calculate the “simple mean,” or average, kill ratio.

With bootstrapping, scientists can deal with uncertainty in experimental data by generating many samples instead of assuming a specific distribution. The technique calls for randomly picked data points from the original data to give researchers a good idea of how much the results may vary due to chance. It has been used in various studies to improve food processing methods and assess the food safety risks of different microbes in various foods.

From the estimate of kill ratio distribution, the final kill ratio can be calculated on a sliding scale of risk, Subbiah noted. In a hypothetical example, to have a 1 percent risk level, a processor may want a 9-log reduction of the surrogate, which is a 99.9999999 percent reduction. A 5 percent risk level would call for an 8-log reduction, and a 10 percent risk would call for a 6.5-log decrease of the surrogate to be equivalent to a 12-log reduction of the pathogen. A 12-log reduction is typically called sterilization and a 4- to 5-log reduction qualifies as pasteurization.

This method strikes a balance between killing harmful bacteria and preserving quality, Subbiah said.

Khattra is now a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University. Co-authors of the study included Subbiah, Acuff, Kevin Thompson and Andy Mauromoustakos with the Division of Agriculture’s Center for Agricultural Data Analytics, and Surabhi Wason, Ph.D., now with Kerry Ingredients & Flavours in Wisconsin.

Khattra examined data collected in a 2021 study evaluating Enterococcus faecium as a surrogate for salmonella in milk powders at different storage times and temperatures. Subbiah was a co-author of the study led by Xinyao Wei when they were at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A wide range of foods incorporate powdered milk, including candy bars and baby formula.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

DOI

10.1016/j.jfp.2024.100264

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Bootstrapping for Estimating the Conservative Kill Ratio of the Surrogate to the Pathogen for Use in Thermal Process Validation at the Industrial Scale

Bonobos are more aggressive than previously thought

CELL PRESS

Chimpanzees and bonobos are often thought to reflect two different sides of human nature—the conflict-ready chimpanzee versus the peaceful bonobo—but a new study publishing April 12 in the journal Current Biology shows that, within their own communities, male bonobos are more frequently aggressive than male chimpanzees. For both species, more aggressive males had more mating opportunities.

“Chimpanzees and bonobos use aggression in different ways for specific reasons,” says anthropologist and lead author Maud Mouginot of Boston University. “The idea is not to invalidate the image of bonobos being peaceful—the idea is that there is a lot more complexity in both species.”

Though previous studies have investigated aggression in bonobos and chimpanzees, this is the first study to directly compare the species’ behavior using the same field methods. The researchers focused on male aggression, which is often tied to reproduction, but they note that female bonobos and chimpanzees are not passive, and their aggression warrants its own future research.

To compare bonobo and chimpanzee aggression, the team scrutinized rates of male aggression in three bonobo communities at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve (Democratic Republic of Congo) and two chimpanzee communities at Gombe National Park (Tanzania). Overall, they examined the behavior of 12 bonobos and 14 chimpanzees by conducting “focal follows,” which involved tracking one individual’s behavior for an entire day and taking note of how often they engaged in aggressive interactions, who these interactions were with, and whether they were physical or not (e.g., whether the aggressor engaged in pushing and biting or simply chased their adversary).

“You go to their nests and wait for them to wake up and then you just follow them the entire day— from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep at night—and record everything they do,” says Mouginot.

To their surprise, the researchers found that male bonobos were more frequently aggressive than chimpanzees. Overall, bonobos engaged in 2.8 times more aggressive interactions and 3 times as many physical aggressions.

While male bonobos were almost exclusively aggressive toward other males, chimpanzees were more likely to act aggressively toward females. Chimpanzee aggression was also more likely to involve “coalitions” of males (13.2% vs. 1% of bonobo aggressions). The researchers think that these coalitions might be one reason why aggression is less frequent among chimpanzees. Altercations involving groups of males have the potential to cause more injuries, and within-community fighting could also weaken the group’s ability to fight off other groups of chimpanzees. Bonobos don’t have this issue because most of their disputes are one on one, they have never been observed to kill one another, and they are not thought to be territorial, which leaves their communities free to bicker among themselves.

For both chimpanzees and bonobos, more aggressive males had greater mating success. The researchers were surprised to find this in bonobos, which have a co-dominant social dynamic in which females often outrank males, compared to chimpanzees, which have male-dominated hierarchies in which male coalitions coerce females into mating.

“Male bonobos that are more aggressive obtain more copulations with females, which is something that we would not expect,” said Mouginot. “It means that females do not necessarily go for nicer males.”

These findings partially contradict a prevailing hypothesis in primate and anthropological behavior—the self-domesticating hypothesis—which posits that aggression has been selected against in bonobos and humans but not chimpanzees.

The researchers were not able to assess the severity of aggressive interactions in terms of whether they resulted in wounds or injuries, but this is data that they hope to collect in future. They also want to compare aggressive behavior in other groups of chimpanzees and bonobos as it’s possible that behavior varies between communities and subspecies.

“I'd love to have the study complemented with comparable data from other field sites so we can get a broader understanding of variation within and between species,” says Mouginot.

###

This research was supported by Harvard University, Duke University, Franklin and Marshall College, George Washington University, the University of Minnesota, the Max Planck Society, the Institute for Advanced Study Toulouse, the Leakey Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Arcus Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, the Leo S. Guthman Foundation, Margo Marsh, Mazuri, the Morris Animal Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Harris Steel Group, the Waitt Foundation, the William T. Grant Q12 Foundation, the Windibrow Foundation, and the Jane Goodall Institute.

Current Biology, Mouginot et al., “Differences in expression of male aggression between wild bonobos and chimpanzees” https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00253-7

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.071

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Differences in expression of male aggression between wild bonobos and chimpanzees

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2024

How seaweed became multicellular

CELL PRESS

A deep dive into macroalgae genetics has uncovered the genetic underpinnings that enabled macroalgae, or “seaweed,” to evolve multicellularity. Three lineages of macroalgae developed multicellularity independently and during very different time periods by acquiring genes that enable cell adhesion, extracellular matrix formation, and cell differentiation, researchers report April 12 in the journal Molecular Plant. Surprisingly, many of these multicellular-enabling genes had viral origins. The study, which increased the total number of sequenced macroalgal genomes from 14 to 124, is the first to investigate macroalgal evolution through the lens of genomics.

“This is a big genomic resource that will open the door for many more studies,” says co-first author and algal biologist Alexandra Mystikou of New York University Abu Dhabi and the Technology Innovation Institute, United Arab Emirates. “Macroalgae play an important role in global climate regulation and ecosystems, and they have numerous commercial and ecoengineering applications, but until now, there wasn't a lot of information about their genomes.”

Macroalgae live in both fresh and seawater and are complex multicellular organisms with distinct organs and tissues, in contrast to microalgae, which are microscopic and unicellular. There are three main groups of macroalgae—red (Rhodophyta), green (Chlorophyta), and brown (Ochrophyta)—that independently evolved multicellularity at very different times and in very different environmental conditions. Rhodophytes and Chlorophytes both evolved multicellularity over a billion years ago, while Ochrophytes only became multicellular in the past 200,000 years.

To investigate the evolution of macroalgal multicellularity, the researchers sequenced 110 new macroalgal genomes from 105 different species originating from fresh and saltwater habitats in diverse geographies and climates.

The researchers identified several metabolic pathways that distinguish macroalgae from microalgae, some of which may be responsible for the success of invasive macroalgal species. Many of these metabolic genes appear to have been donated by algae-infecting viruses, and genes with a viral origin were especially prevalent in the more recently evolved brown algae.

They found that macroalgae acquired many new genes that are not present in microalgae on their road to multicellularity. For all three lineages, key acquisitions included genes involved in cell adhesion (which enables cells to stick together), cell differentiation (which allows different cells to develop specialized functions), cell communication, and inter-cellular transport.

“Many brown algal genes associated with multicellular functions had signature motifs that were only otherwise present in the viruses that infect them,” says co-first author and bioinformatician David Nelson of New York University Abu Dhabi. “It's kind of a wild theory that’s only been hinted at in the past, but from our data it looks like these horizontally transferred genes were critical factors for evolving multicellularity in the brown algae.”

The team also identified other features that were distinct between the macroalgal lineages. They observed much more diversity between different species of Rhodophyte, which evolved multicellularity first and have thus had longer to diverge. They also found that Chlorophytes share many genomic features with land plants, suggesting that these genes may have already been present in the last common ancestor of Chlorophytes and plants.

“By no means have we exhaustively explored all that there is in these genomes,” says senior author and systems biologist Kourosh Salehi-Ashtiani of New York University Abu Dhabi. “There is a ton of information that we have not touched in the present paper that can be mined by whoever who is interested.”

The researchers are already digging into the dataset to investigate environmental and habitat adaptations amongst macroalgae. In future, they hope to sequence and analyze even more macroalgal genomes.

“We want to explore some of these features in more detail, meaning more genomes if we can get our hands on them,” says Salehi-Ashtiani.

###

This research was supported by the NYUAD Faculty Research Funds and Tamkeen.

Molecular Plant, Nelson and Mystikou et al., “Macroalgal deep genomics illuminate multiple paths to aquatic, photosynthetic multicellularity” https://www.cell.com/molecular-plant/fulltext/S1674-2052(24)00084-4

Molecular Plant, published by Cell Press for the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences (Shanghai), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Chinese Society of Plant Biology, is a monthly journal that focuses broadly on plant science, including cellular biology, physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, development, plant-microbe interaction, genomics, bioinformatics, and molecular evolution. All contents are freely available starting 12 months after publication. Visit http://www.cell.com/molecular-plant. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

JOURNAL

Molecular Plant

DOI

10.1016/j.molp.2024.03.011

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Macroalgal deep genomics illuminate multiple paths to aquatic, photosynthetic multicellularity

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2024

Africa’s iconic flamingos threatened by rising lake levels, study shows

KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

It is one of the world’s most spectacular sights – huge flocks or “flamboyances” of flamingos around East Africa’s lakes – as seen in the film Out of Africa or David Attenborough’s A Perfect Planet.

But new research led by King’s College London has revealed how the lesser flamingo is at danger of being flushed out of its historic feeding grounds, with serious consequences for the future of the species.

For the first time satellite earth observation data has been used to study all the key flamingo feeding lakes in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania over two decades and it identified how rising water levels are reducing the birds’ main food source.

The authors warn the birds are likely to be pushed into new unprotected areas in the search for food, especially given predicted higher levels of rainfall linked to climate change.

They are now calling for coordinated conservation action across international borders, improved monitoring and more sustainable management of land surrounding important flamingo lakes.

Lead author Aidan Byrne, a PhD student jointly supervised by King’s College London and the Natural History Museum, said the region was home to more than three quarters of the global population of lesser flamingos, but their numbers are declining.

“Lesser flamingos in East Africa are increasingly vulnerable, particularly with increased rainfall predicted for the region under climate change. Without improved lake monitoring and catchment management practices, the highly specialised species found in soda lake ecosystems – including lesser flamingos - could be lost,” he said.

The study, published in the journal Current Biology, is the first in which satellite earth observation data has been used to study all 22 key flamingo feeding soda lakes in East Africa. This analysis was combined with climate records and bird observation data over more than two decades.

By studying on this large scale, for the first time researchers were able to see changing food availability across the whole network of lakes, including significant declines in recent years, and how bird numbers decreased as lake surface area increased. They also identified the lakes the birds might move to in the future.

Co-author, Dr Emma Tebbs, from King’s College London said whilst flamingos naturally travel in search of food, the degradation of their historic feeding and breeding sites was a serious concern.

“East African populations could potentially move north or south away from the equator in search of food resources. And whilst six study lakes increased in habitat suitability from 2010 to 2022, only three of those have some level of conservation protection.

“Increases in water levels could lead to lesser flamingos becoming more reliant on lakes that are unprotected, outside of current nature reserves and protected sites, which has implications for conservation and ecotourism revenues.”

Soda lakes are some of the harshest environments on Earth, being both highly saline and very alkaline. Despite this, many species have evolved to thrive in these conditions, including the flamingo and its phytoplankton prey, which they filter from the water using their sieve-like beaks.

The research found rising water levels across the region’s soda lakes were diluting their normally salty and alkaline nature, leading to a decline in populations of phytoplankton, which was measured by the amount of a photosynthetic pigment called chlorophyll-a present in the lakes.

The team found that phytoplankton levels have been declining over the 23 years of study and linked this to increases in the surface areas of the lakes over the same period.

The largest losses in phytoplankton biomass occurred in the equatorial Kenyan lakes, notably at the important tourist lakes Bogoria, Nakuru and Elmenteita, and in the northern Tanzanian lakes that saw the largest increases in surface area.

Nakuru is one of the most important flamingo feeding lakes in East Africa, historically supporting over one million birds at a time. The lake increased in surface area by 91% from 2009 to 2022 whilst its mean chlorophyll-a concentrations halved.

Natron in Tanzania is the only regular breeding site for lesser flamingos in East Africa and it has experienced declining productivity alongside rising water levels in recent years. If phytoplankton biomass continues to decline there and at other nearby feeding lakes, it will no longer be a suitable breeding site.

In addition to scientists from the Department of Geography, King’s College London and the Natural History Museum, the team also included researchers from National Museums of Kenya, the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, the Zoological Society of London, the University of Leicester, and the Freshwater Biological Association.

ENDS

Notes to editors

The paper will be available online at Current Biology once the embargo lifts
If you have any queries, want a copy of the paper under embargo or wish to interview Aidan Byrne, please contact julie.wheldon@kcl.ac.uk.

JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2024.03.006

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Productivity declines threaten East African soda lakes and the iconic Lesser Flamingo

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2024

First national study of Dobbs ruling’s effect on permanent contraception among young adults

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

The first study to evaluate the effect of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling on permanent contraception procedures among young adults nationwide was published today in a JAMA Health Forum research letter.

The study, authored by policy researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and Boston University, underscores how the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling changed preferences for permanent contraception among people ages 18 to 30, who are more likely to have abortions and are also more likely to experience sterilization regret compared to people over 30.

The study is also the first to assess how the Dobbs ruling changed permanent contraception procedures among females relative to males.

Following the Dobbs decision, the authors found, permanent sterilization procedures among young adults abruptly increased nationwide. The magnitude of this increase was twice as high for tubal sterilizations relative to vasectomies. Over time, tubal sterilizations continued to increase; for vasectomies, however, the initial jump was not sustained.

Compared to vasectomy, tubal ligation procedures are far more complex and are anywhere from two to six times more expensive, said lead author Jacqueline Ellison, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Pitt School of Public Health. Tubal ligation reversal requires major surgery, whereas vasectomy reversal is much less invasive, she added.

“The major difference in patterns of these two procedures likely reflects the fact that young women are overwhelmingly responsible for preventing pregnancy and disproportionately experience the health, social and economic consequences of abortion bans,” she said.

The other authors on the study are Brittany Brown-Podgorski, Ph.D., of Pitt and Jake Morgan, Ph.D., of Boston University.

JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum

DOI

10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.0424

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Changes in Permanent Contraception Procedures Among Young Adults Following the Dobbs Decision

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2024

Changes in permanent contraception procedures among young adults following the Dobbs decision

JAMA Health Forum

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: Researchers observed an abrupt increase in permanent contraception procedures among adults ages 18 to 30 following Dobbs. The increase in procedures for female patients was double that for male patients. These patterns offer insights into the gendered dynamics of permanent contraceptive use and may reflect the disproportionate health, social, and economic consequences of compulsory pregnancy on women and people with the capacity to become pregnant.

Authors: Jacqueline E. Ellison, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.0424)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

# # #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.0424?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=041224

About JAMA Health Forum: JAMA Health Forum is an international, peer-reviewed, online, open access journal that addresses health policy and strategies affecting medicine, health and health care. The journal publishes original research, evidence-based reports and opinion about national and global health policy; innovative approaches to health care delivery; and health care economics, access, quality, safety, equity and reform. Its distribution will be solely digital and all content will be freely available for anyone to read.

JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum