Mothers’ stress rollercoaster while pregnant linked to negative emotions in babies

Fluctuations in prenatal stress linked to three-month-olds’ tendency to experience, express negative emotions

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

• Prenatal stress was unrelated to the timing of the pandemic, study found
• First study to measure stress intensively in pregnancy during the pandemic, better capturing its ‘ebbs and flows’
• ‘There may be something about moving between extremes that shapes the child’s disposition toward negative emotions’
• Stress management could be folded into prenatal visits as a prevention measure 

CHICAGO --- Pregnant people who had bigger fluctuations in stress from one moment to the next—also called lability—had infants with more fear, sadness and distress at three months old than mothers with less stress variability, reports a new Northwestern University study that examined how a child’s developmental trajectory begins even before birth. 

Prior research has found that mothers’ distress during pregnancy has been related to infant temperament and behavior, but this is one of the first studies to measure mothers’ experience of stress in real time on many occasions, which enables a closer look at whether changes in mothers’ stress across pregnancy matter for infant development.

The study will be published Sept. 7 in the journal Infancy. 

“Research often examines stress as a static, unchanging construct—one that is either high or low, present or absent—but most of us have a lot of ebbs and flows in our stress depending on what is going on around us,” said lead study author Leigha MacNeill, research assistant professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a member of the Northwestern Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences (DevSci). 

“That variability is inherent in our daily lives, so this lability is capturing an important aspect of stress and offers insight into how to measure stress going forward. This is of particular importance as we work to closely capture the maternal-fetal environment as it relates to how babies develop over time.”

For instance, one mother who has consistent levels of stress over pregnancy and another mother who moves between very low and very high levels of stress over pregnancy may in the end have a similar average level of stress across that time, but that average may not best capture meaningful differences in what the fetus is exposed to, MacNeill explained. 

“There may be something about that gestational experience, when a mother moves between extremes, that shapes the child’s disposition toward negative emotions,” MacNeill said. “That kind of stress pattern could reflect instability in daily life experiences, unpredictable external stressors or instability in how a mother perceives her lived experiences, which may have important implications for children’s emotional development.”

Having a better understanding of the nature of stress during pregnancy may inform prevention efforts, such as helping individuals reach a consistent level of calm before or at the onset of pregnancy, especially in the context of uncontrollable life events, MacNeill said. Since most expecting parents receive some form of prenatal care, she said stress measures, and ideally management, could be folded into those visits. 

‘Stress was unrelated to the timing of the pandemic’

The scientists didn’t set out to conduct a study on prenatal stress during a pandemic. They encountered this “natural experiment” because some participants completed their assessments before the pandemic began; some before and during the pandemic; and some completely during the pandemic, MacNeill said. 

“We asked about general stress—not pandemic-related stress,” MacNeill said. “But we took advantage of the occurrence of the pandemic during the course of the study to see if we could detect its impact on mothers’ experiences.

“We found that mothers’ stress patterns were unrelated to the timing of the pandemic. Mothers reported similar levels of stress regardless of whether their stress measurements occurred before or during the pandemic.”

How they measured prenatal stress, infant temperament

The study authors measured pregnant individuals’ stress up to four different times per day for 14 weeks using questions sent to participants’ phones. They identified three types of stress: stress at the first assessment (baseline), average or typical levels of stress across the 14-week period, and the amount a person changed in their stress from one time to the next across the 14-week period (lability).  

The authors measured infants’ negative emotions via a temperament questionnaire given to mothers when their infants were three months old. Mothers answered questions about their child’s sadness, distress to limitations and fearfulness (e.g., how much they clung to their parent when introduced to an unfamiliar adult). This formed an overall negative affect average score. 

Studying fluctuations in stress during pregnancy in relation to infant development is a relatively new idea, and the study authors said there is not yet a clear understanding of how stress and the gestational environment impact the developing fetus. More research in larger, more diverse samples is needed to find out if these patterns hold true for families from different contexts and with different types of supports, MacNeill said.

“This is a really early index (three months), so we’d want to see how consistent their negative affect levels are in the first year of life,” MacNeill said. “Parents are the ones who can soothe their infants and be really responsive to their needs, and as infants grow, there are things parents can do to help the child navigate situations and learn to regulate and cope with their negative emotions.”

“This study illustrates that links between parent and child are based on genes as well as experiences, even before birth,” said Dr. Matthew Davis, chair of the department of pediatrics at Feinberg and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, who was not directly involved with the study. “One of the most important approaches to having a less distressed child is to support expectant parents and minimize their stress during pregnancy. That can be accomplished through clinical care, social supports and policies that are family- and pregnancy-friendly."

Funding for this study was provided to DevSci by Lurie Children’s and its Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute as part of its Perinatal of Origins of Disease Strategic Initiative.

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JOURNAL

Infancy

ARTICLE TITLE

Lability of prenatal stress during the COVID-19 pandemic links to negative affect in infancy

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Sep-2022

Artificial Intelligence tool could reduce common drug side effects

Artificial intelligence could help clinicians assess which patients are likely to encounter the harmful side effects of some commonly used antidepressants, antihistamines and bladder medicines.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research led by the University of Exeter and Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, published in Age and Ageing, assessed a new tool designed to calculate which medicines are more likely to experience adverse anticholinergic effects on the body and brain. These complications can occur from many -prescription and over-the-counter drugs which affects the brain by blocking a key neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. Many medicines, including some bladder medications, anti-depressants, medications for stomach and Parkinson’s disease have some degree of anticholinergic effect. They are commonly taken by older people.

Anticholinergic side effects include confusion, blurred vision, dizziness, falls and a decline in brain function. Anticholinergic effects may also increase risks of falls and may be associated with an increase in mortality. They have also been linked to a higher risk of dementia when used long term.

Now, researchers have developed a tool to calculate harmful effects of medicines  using artificial intelligence. The team created a new online tool, International Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden Tool (IACT), is uses natural language processing which is an artificial intelligence methdolody and chemical structure analysis to identify medications that have anticholinergic effect.

The tool is the first to incorporate a machine learning technique, to develop an automatically updated tool available on a website portal. The anticholinergic burden is assessed by assigning a score based on reported adverse events and aligning closely with the chemical structure of the drug being considered for prescription, resulting in a more accurate and up-to-date scoring system than any previous system. Ultimately, after further research and modelling with real world patient data the tool developed could help to support prescribing reducing risks form common medicines.

Professor Chris Fox, at the University of Exeter, is one of the study authors. He said:: “Use of medicines with anticholinergic effects can have significant harmful effects for example falls and confusion which are avoidable,  we urgently need to reduce the harmful side effects as this can leads to hospitalisation and death. This new tool provides a promising avenue towards a more tailored personalised medicine approach, of ensuring the right person gets a safe and effective treatment whilst avoiding unwanted  anticholinergic effects.”

The team surveyed 110 health professionals, including pharmacists and prescribing nurses.  Of this group, 85 per cent said they would use a tool to assess risk of anticholinergic side effects, if available. The team also gathered usability feedback to help improve the tool further.

Dr Saber Sami,  at the University of East Anglia, said: “Our tool is the first to use innovative artificial intelligence technology in measures of anticholinergic burden – ultimately, once further research has been conducted the tool should support pharmacists and prescribing health professionals in finding the best treatment for patients.”

Professor Ian Maidment, from Aston University, said: “I have been working in this area for over 20 years. Anti-cholinergic side-effects can be very debilitating for patients. We need better ways to assess these side-effects.”

The research team includes collaboration with AKFA University Medical School, Uzbekistan, and the Universities of East Anglia, Aston, Kent and Aberdeen. They aim to continue development of the tool with the aim that it can be deployed in day-to-day practice which this study supports.

The paper is entitled ‘A novel Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based tool to assess cholinergic burden: a survey’.

ENDS

 

 

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JOURNAL

Age and Ageing

DOI

10.1093/ageing/afac196 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

A novel Artificial Intelligence-based tool to assess anticholinergic burden: a survey

Rare-earth based materials: An effective toolbox for brain technology

Peer-Reviewed Publication

LIGHT PUBLISHING CENTER, CHANGCHUN INSTITUTE OF OPTICS, FINE MECHANICS AND PHYSICS, CAS

 

IMAGE: ILLUSTRATION OF FOUR APPLICATIONS OF RARE-EARTH BASED MATERIALS, INCLUDING BRAIN IMAGING, BRAIN DISEASES THERAPY, BRAIN DISEASE DIAGNOSIS AND MONITORING, AND BRAIN MODULATION THROUGH OPTOGENETICS. view more 

CREDIT: BY ZHENG WEI, YAWEI LIU, BO LI, JINGJING LI, SHUANG LU, XIWEN XING, KAI LIU, FAN WANG, AND HONGJIE ZHANG

Brain diseases, including tumors and neurodegenerative disorders, are among the most serious health problems. Non-invasively high-resolution imaging techniques are required to gain anatomical and functional information of the brain. In addition, efficient diagnosis technology is also needed to treat brain disease. Rare-earth based materials possess unique optical properties, superior magnetism, and high X-ray absorption abilities, enabling high-resolution imaging of the brain through magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography imaging, and fluorescence imaging technologies. In addition, rare-earth based materials can be used for the detection, treatment, and regulation of brain diseases through fine modulation of their structures and functions. Importantly, rare-earth based materials coupled with biomolecules such as antibodies, peptides, and drugs are able to overcome the blood-brain barrier and can be used for targeted therapy.

In a new review published in Light Science & Applications, a team of scientists, led by Associate Professor Fan Wang from State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, and co-workers have summarized the recent research and development of rare-earth based materials for brain imaging, therapy, monitoring, and neuromodulation.

• brain imaging

1. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): MRI has emerged as a safe, painless, non-invasive, and powerful diagnostic tool, which is widely used in brain imaging. Rare-earth based composites with superior optical and magnetic properties attract great attention due to their unique 4f external electronic structure. In particular, Gd3+ ions can provide a high electron magnetic moment and effectively shorten the electron relaxation time owing to its seven unpaired 4f electrons (8S7/2) and symmetrical ground state. Gd-based complexes can significantly improve the imaging quality by increasing the imaging contrast between diseased tissue and normal tissue. This section summarizes the modification of traditional Gd-based small molecule contrast agents, for example, grafting them onto polymers to increase their relaxation rate and prolong their circulation time in vivo. In addition, surface modifications are also applied to improve their biocompatibility and enable them to pass through the blood-brain barrier (BBB).
2. Fluorescence imaging: Fluorescence imaging mainly focused on the visible region (400-700 nm) and NIR-I window (700-900 nm). However, photon scattering or photon absorption always occur when light enters tissue or bone, resulting in inevitable thermal damage, low signal-to-noise ratio and limited penetration depth. In addition, craniotomy, bone window opening and cranial grinding processes are usually required for traditional fluorescence imaging, further leading to damage to brain tissue and cerebral vessels. NIR-II fluorescence (1000-1700 nm) imaging technology is proved to have a higher spatial resolution, less thermal damage, deeper penetration depth and lower tissue auto-fluorescence. Rare earth-based materials have superior photostability, long fluorescence lifetimes, and narrow emission bandwidths. Particularly, their rich energy level transitions allow for the tunable NIR-II emission by changing the doped ion species. Thus, they are the ideal materials to realize NIR-II fluorescence imaging of the brain. Researchers have developed a series of Ce-doped Er-based rare earth nanoparticles with outstanding NIR-II emission at 1525 nm, which could support non-invasive cerebrovascular visualization. Besides, organic dyes and quantum dots (QDs) with large extinction coefficients are also employed as antennas to absorb and transfer energy effectively.
3. Multi-modal imaging: Due to the complex spatial structure and vascular information of the brain, single-mode imaging is difficult to meet the needs of multi-target detection and collaborative imaging. To address these shortcomings, multi-modal imaging was developed to provide more accurate imaging information of brain for further clinical applications. Ln3+ ions possess superior optical, magnetic properties, and high X-ray absorption coefficients, enabling simultaneous MRI, fluorescence imaging and CT imaging on a single material. The Multi-modal imaging realized real-time dynamic imaging and accurate diagnosis of brain tumor.

 

• brain diseases therapy

1. Radiotherapy: Gd-based therapeutic agents with a high X-ray attenuation coefficient are attractive agents for radiotherapy, which can increase the deposition of local radiation dose at the tumor site and significantly enhance the therapeutic effect.
2. Photodynamic therapy (PDT): PDT eliminates tumor cells by generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) through reacting photosensitizers with oxygen under the irradiation. However, most photosensitizer molecules are excited by the UV or visible light that hardly penetrates the deep tissues and brain skeleton. The rare earth-based nanoparticles (RENPs) could emit tunable luminescence to sensitize the photosensitizers under NIR excitation, which greatly improve the penetration depth of PDT.
3. Photothermal therapy (PTT): Photothermal therapy is another phototherapy that uses photothermal agents to convert light into heat energy to treat disease, which is also limited by the photothermal agents that need to be excited by UV or visible light. Rare earth-based upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) with anti-Stokes emissions under NIR light excitation can effectively activate the photothermal energy conversion of photothermal agents to  eliminate tumor cells.
4. Other therapies: Other new strategies have also been applied to synergistically treat brain disease with rare-earth based materials. For example, a NIR-light triggered nanophotosynthetic (NPT) biosystem consisting of core-shell Nd3+-doped UCNPs and photoautotroph cyanobacterium (S. elongatus) was developed to treat ischemic stroke.

 

• brain disease diagnosis and monitoring

RENPs are promising candidates for monitoring brain neuronal activity and diagnosing brain diseases due to their superior luminescent properties. UCNPs-mediated visualization of dynein-driven retrograde axonal transport provided insights into the mechanism of dynein movement, neurological disease pathology and the role of various neural circuits in the brain. Besides, by utilizing the Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) strategy between hexanitrodiphenylamine (DPA) and UCNPs, NIR-excited optical voltage sensors were designed to real-time monitor the neuronal activity

 

• brain modulation through optogenetics

Optogenetics is an optical technique that exploits visible light to activate channel proteins expressed in specific cells for remote stimulation of specific neurons deep in the brain. However, the visible light is strongly scattered in the tissues and cannot penetrate deep into brain. In addition, optical fibers are always required and invaded into brain for the optogenetics. UCNP-mediated wireless optogenetics technology provides a minimally invasive technique that gets rid of the dependence on optical fibers, avoiding the damage to brain tissue caused by optical fibers. UCNP-mediated optogenetics realizes the activation / inhibition of neuronal cells, and further regulates the motor state and neural behavior of animals.

 

In the end, perspectives and potential challenges toward clinical application with rare-earth based materials are presented:

1. The development of highly robust synthetic methods and efficient structural modulation strategies is required to enhance the optical performance of RENPs.
2. The development of RENPs with excitation wavelengths located in the NIR-II region is required to achieve deeper tissue penetration depths and higher spatial resolution.
3. The development of longer wavelength fluorescent probes and imaging instruments is urgently required, which will promote the further expansion of multi-modal imaging technology based on the NIR-II region.
4. Other BBB-crossing methods including cell penetrating peptide/cells mediated brain delivery and receptor-mediated BBB opening need to be further explored
5. It is necessary to develop effective synthesis and assembly strategies to improve the stability, biocompatibility and in vivo clearance of rare-earth based materials.
6. Seeking new approaches to deliver UCNPs across BBB and anchor them onto specific neurons via exceptionally precise molecular recognition processes is urgently needed.

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JOURNAL

Light Science & Applications

DOI

10.1038/s41377-022-00864-y 

Replacing social media use by physical activity

Psychology

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUHR-UNIVERSITY BOCHUM

 

IMAGE: JULIA BRAILOSVSKAIA RESEARCHES CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND WELL-BEING. view more 

CREDIT: LAUKÖTTER, CAIS

If you spend 30 minutes less on social media every day and engage in physical activity instead, you do a lot to improve your mental health. This is shown in a study conducted by a team from the Mental Health Research and Treatment Center at Ruhr-Universität Bochum headed by assistant professor Dr. Julia Brailovskaia. Participants who followed this advice for two weeks felt happier, more satisfied, less stressed by the Covid-19 pandemic and less depressed than a control group. These effects lasted even six months after the study had ended. The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Public Health on Sept. 2, 2022.

The downside of social media

In times of lockdowns and contact restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, social media channels like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp ensured that we still felt connected to other people. They distracted us from the stress brought about by the pandemic, which caused many people to experience anxiety, insecurities, and hopelessness. But social media consumption has also its drawbacks. Heavy use can lead to addictive behaviour that manifests itself in, for example, a close emotional bond to the social media. In addition, fake news and conspiracy theories can spread uncontrollably on social channels and trigger even more anxiety.

“Given that we don’t know for certain how long the coronavirus crisis will last, we wanted to know how to protect people’s mental health with services that are as free and low-threshold as possible,” explains Julia Brailovskaia. To find out whether the type and duration of social media use can contribute to this, she conducted an experimental study as part of her fellowship at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS).

A two-week experiment

She and her team recruited a total of 642 volunteers, assigning them randomly to one of four groups of roughly equal size. The first group reduced the daily social media consumption by 30 minutes during an intervention period of two weeks. Since previous studies had shown that physical activity can increase well-being and reduce depressive symptoms, the second group increased the duration of physical activity by 30 minutes daily during this period, while continuing to use social media as usual. The third group combined both, reducing social media use and increasing physical activity. A control group didn’t change the behaviour during the intervention phase.

Before, during and up to six months after the two-week intervention phase, the participants responded to online surveys on the duration, intensity and emotional significance of their social media use, physical activity, their satisfaction with life, their subjective feeling of happiness, depressive symptoms, the psychological burden of the Covid-19 pandemic and their cigarette consumption.

Healthy and happy in the age of digitalisation

The findings clearly showed that both reducing the amount of time spent on social media each day and increasing physical activity have a positive impact on people’s well-being. And particularly the combination of the two interventions increases one’s satisfaction with life and subjective feeling of happiness and reduces depressive symptoms. The effects last for a long time: even six months after the two-week intervention phase had ended, participants in all three intervention groups spent less time on social media than before: namely about a half hour in the groups that had either reduced social media time or increased their daily exercise, and about three-quarters of an hour in the group that had combined both measures. Six months after the intervention, the combination group engaged one hour and 39 minutes more each week in physical activity than before the experiment. The positive influence on mental health continued throughout the entire follow-up period.

“This shows us how vital it is to reduce our availability online from time to time and to go back to our human roots,” concludes Julia Brailovskaia. “These measures can be easily implemented into one’s everyday life and they’re completely free – and, at the same time, they help us to stay happy and healthy in the digital age.”

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JOURNAL

Journal of Public Health

DOI

10.1007/s10389-022-01751-x 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Experimental longitudinal evidence for causal role of social media use and physical activity in COVID‑19 burden and mental health

Light accelerates conductivity in nature’s ‘electric grid’

Peer-Reviewed Publication

YALE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: CAPTION: BACTERIA PRODUCING NANOWIRES MADE UP OF CYTOCHROME OMCS. (CREDIT: ELLA MARU STUDIO) view more 

CREDIT: (CREDIT: ELLA MARU STUDIO)

September 7, 2022

New Haven, Conn. — The natural world possesses its own intrinsic electrical grid composed of a global web of tiny bacteria-generated nanowires in the soil and oceans that “breathe” by exhaling excess electrons.

In a new study, Yale University researchers discovered that light is a surprising ally in fostering this electronic activity within biofilm bacteria. Exposing bacteria-produced nanowires to light, they found, yielded an up to a 100-fold increase in electrical conductivity.

The findings were published Sept. 7 in the journal Nature Communications,

“The dramatic current increases in nanowires exposed to light show a stable and robust photocurrent that persists for hours,” said senior author Nikhil Malvankar, associate professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (MBB) at Yale’s Microbial Sciences Institute on Yale’s West Campus.

The results could provide new insights as scientists pursue ways to exploit this hidden electrical current for a variety of purposes, from eliminating biohazard waste and creating new renewable fuel sources.

Almost all living things breathe oxygen to get rid of excess electrons when converting nutrients into energy. Without access to oxygen, however, soil bacteria living deep under oceans or buried underground over billions of years have developed a way to respire by “breathing minerals,” like snorkeling, through tiny protein filaments called nanowires.

When bacteria were exposed to light, the increase in electrical current surprised researchers because most of the bacteria tested exist deep in the soil, far from the reach of light. Previous studies had shown that when exposed to light nanowire-producing bacteria grew faster.

 “Nobody knew how this happens,” Malvankar said.

In the new study, a Yale team led by postdoctoral researcher Jens Neu and graduate student Catharine Shipps concluded that a metal-containing protein known as cytochrome OmcS — which makes up bacterial nanowires — acts as a natural photoconductor: the nanowires greatly facilitate electron transfer when biofilms are exposed to light.

“It is a completely different form of photosynthesis,” Malvankar said. “Here, light is accelerating breathing by bacteria due to rapid electron transfer between nanowires.”

Malvankar’s lab is exploring how this insight into bacterial electrical conductivity could be used to spur growth in optoelectronics — a subfield of photonics that studies devices and  systems that find and control light — and capture methane, a greenhouse gas known to be a significant contributor to global climate change.

Other authors of the paper are Matthew Guberman-Pfeffer, Cong Shen, Vishok Srikanth, Sibel Ebru Yalcin from the Malvankar Lab at Yale; Jacob Spies, Professor Gary Brudvig and Professor Victor Batista from the Yale Department of Chemistry; and Nathan Kirchhofer from Oxford Instruments.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

Researchers have identified antibodies that may make coronavirus vaccines unnecessary

Breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: DR. NATALIA FREUND view more 

CREDIT: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY

• Tel Aviv University researchers have isolated two antibodies that neutralize all known strains of COVID-19 – including Omicron – with up to 95% efficiency.
• The researchers: Targeted treatment with antibodies and their delivery to the body in high concentrations may serve as an effective substitute for vaccines, especially for at-risk populations and those with weakened immune systems. By using antibody treatment, there is a possibility that the need to provide repeated booster shots to the entire population every time a new variant emerges will be eliminated.

 

A scientific breakthrough by Tel Aviv University: A team of researchers from the university has demonstrated that antibodies isolated from the immune system of recovered COVID-19 patients are effective in neutralizing all known strains of the virus, including the Delta and the Omicron variants. According to the researchers, this discovery may eliminate the need for repeated booster vaccinations and strengthen the immune system of populations at risk.

 

The research was led by Dr. Natalia Freund and doctoral students Michael Mor and Ruofan Lee of the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine. The study was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Ben Croker of the University of California San Diego. Prof. Ye Xiang of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Prof. Meital Gal-Tanamy and Dr. Moshe Dessau of Bar-Ilan University also took part in the study. The study was published in the Nature journal Communications Biology.

  

The present study is a continuation of a preliminary study conducted in October 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. At that time, Dr. Freund and her colleagues sequenced all the B immune system cells from the blood of people who had recovered from the original COVID strain in Israel, and isolated nine antibodies that the patients produced. The researchers now found that some of these antibodies are very effective in neutralizing the new coronavirus variants, Delta and Omicron.

 

Dr. Freund: “In the previous study, we showed that the various antibodies that are formed in response to infection with the original virus are directed against different sites of the virus. The most effective antibodies were those that bound to the virus’s ‘spike’ protein, in the same place where the spike binds the cellular receptor ACE2. Of course, we were not the only ones to isolate these antibodies, and the global health system made extensive use of them until the arrival of the different variants of the coronavirus, which in fact rendered most of those antibodies useless.

 

“In the current study, we proved that two other antibodies, TAU-1109 and TAU-2310, which bind the viral spike protein in a different area from the region where most of the antibodies were concentrated until now (and were therefore less effective in neutralizing the original strain) are actually very effective in neutralizing the Delta and Omicron variants. According to our findings, the effectiveness of the first antibody, TAU-1109, in neutralizing the Omicron strain is 92%, and in neutralizing the Delta strain, 90%. The second antibody, TAU-2310, neutralizes the Omicron variant with an efficacy of 84%, and the Delta variant with an efficacy of 97%.”

 

According to Dr. Freund, the surprising effectiveness of these antibodies might be related to the evolution of the virus: “The infectivity of the virus increased with each variant because each time, it changed the amino acid sequence of the part of the spike protein that binds to the ACE2 receptor, thereby increasing its infectivity and at the same time evading the natural antibodies that were created following vaccinations. In contrast, the antibodies TAU-1109 and TAU-2310 don’t bind to the ACE2 receptor binding site, but to another region of the spike protein – an area of ​​the viral spike that for some reason does not undergo many mutations – and they are therefore effective in neutralizing more viral variants. These findings emerged as we tested all the known COVID strains to date.”

 

The two antibodies, cloned in Dr. Freund’s laboratory at Tel Aviv University, were sent for tests to check their effectiveness against live viruses in laboratory cultures at the University of California San Diego, and against pseudoviruses in the laboratories of the Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University in the Galilee; the results were identical and equally encouraging in both tests.

 

Dr. Freund believes that the antibodies can bring about a real revolution in the fight against COVID-19: “We need to look at the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of previous disease outbreaks that humankind has witnessed. People who were vaccinated against smallpox at birth and who today are 50 years old still have antibodies, so they are probably protected, at least partially, from the monkeypox virus that we have recently been hearing about. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the coronavirus. For reasons we still don’t yet fully understand, the level of antibodies against COVID-19 declines significantly after three months, which is why we see people getting infected again and again, even after being vaccinated three times. In our view, targeted treatment with antibodies and their delivery to the body in high concentrations can serve as an effective substitute for repeated boosters, especially for at-risk populations and those with weakened immune systems. COVID-19 infection can cause serious illness, and we know that providing antibodies in the first days following infection can stop the spread of the virus. It is therefore possible that by using effective antibody treatment, we will not have to provide booster doses to the entire population every time there is a new variant.”

 

Link to the article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-03739-5

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JOURNAL

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-022-03739-5 

ARTICLE TITLE

Conformational flexibility in neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 by naturally elicited anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

Engineering industrial microalgae for producing healthy biological oil

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERSp

 

IMAGE: FUNCTIONAL SPECIALIZATION OF NODGAT2S IN CHAIN-LENGTH OF SUBSTRATES AND PRODUCTS REVEALS A PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN DIMENSION OF CONTROL IN CELLULAR TAG PROFILE, WHICH CAN BE EXPLOITED FOR PRODUCING CUSTOMIZABLE OILS IN MICROALGAE view more 

CREDIT: LIU YANG

The genetic talents of a marine microalga are now unlocked, to produce medium-chain triacylglycerols, which is a kind of plant oil with a variety of health benefits, according to a study led by researchers from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

This study was published in Plant Physiology on August 30.

Called triacylglycerols, these biological oils are the main form of energy storage in cells and found in all vegetable oils and animal fats — but they are not made equal.

Each triacylglycerol molecule consists of three fatty acid moieties that are anchored to a glycerol scaffold. Depending on the chain-length of the fatty acids, each molecule can be classified as long-chain triacylglycerol or a medium-chain triacylglycerol (MCT), which are distinct in application area, economical value and market potential.

"During digestion, MCTs are converted to medium-chain fatty acids, which bypass fat tissue, lowering the chance of it converting into fat tissue," said XU Jian, a professor at Single-Cell Center of QIBEBT. "It also increases energy expenditure, fat oxidation and satiety and lowers energy and food intake in both lean and obese individuals."

The issue is availability. MCT oil can only be manufactured by processing oils from palm and coconut plants, both of which are limited to growth in tropical and subtropical regions.

"Moreover, only about 3% of the whole plant mass is stored in the form of oil, so we need a more efficient and versatile feedstock," said XIN Yi, an associate professor at Single-Cell Center, explaining that the limited availability of MCT has hindered exploration of the product on a large scale.

The marine microalgae Nannochloropsis oceanica has drawn significant attention in the research community with its high photosynthetic growth potential and rich oil content, but has generally been found to only contain 0.01% to 0.05% of MCT. Despite this low content, a genetic analysis previously revealed evidence of a native MCT-assembling mechanism in this microalga.

In this study, the researchers discovered in the microalga two specific enzymes that are dedicated to assembling medium-chain fatty acids. These two very talented enzymes, when stacked with additional enzymes that feed substrates to the specialized MCT-assembly mechanism, can elevate MCT productivity by 64.8-fold at the peak phase of oil production.

Such functional specialization of these proteins in chain-length determination of products reveals a previously unknown dimension of control in cellular triacylglycerol, which can be exploited for producing customizable oils in microalgae.

The researchers plan to further enhance MCT production by genetically manipulating the molecules to halt degradation, control how long fatty acids can be and to increase the total triacylglycerol content.

"Such efforts should further enhance cellular MCT production and accelerate the pace of engineering industrial microalgae into efficient and sustainable feedstock for customizable oils," said HU Chunxiu, an associate professor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of CAS.

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program, the DICP-QIBEBT Joint Innovation Program and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

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JOURNAL

PLANT PHYSIOLOGY

DOI

10.1093/plphys/kiac396 

ARTICLE TITLE

Medium-Chain Triglyceride Production in Nannochloropsis via a Fatty Acid Chain Length Discriminating Mechanism

Artificial ocean cooling to weaken hurricanes is futile, study finds

Researchers suggest ocean cooling is an effectively impossible solution to mitigate disasters

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ROSENSTIEL SCHOOL OF MARINE & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE

 

IMAGE: A SATELLITE IMAGE FROM THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION CAPTURES AN ACTIVE HURRICANE SEASON WHICH INCLUDED HURRICANES KATIA AND IRMA AND TROPICAL STORM JOSE (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) ON SEPTEMBER 8, 2017 view more 

CREDIT: NOAA

A new study found that even if we did have the infinite power to artificially cool enough of the oceans to weaken a hurricane, the benefits would be minimal. The study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science showed that the energy alone that is needed to use intervention technology to weaken a hurricane before landfall makes it a highly inefficient solution to mitigate disasters.

“The main result from our study is that massive amounts of artificially cooled water would be needed for only a modest weakening in hurricane intensity before landfall,” said the study’s lead author James Hlywiak, a graduate of the UM Rosenstiel School. “Plus, weakening the intensity by marginal amounts doesn’t necessarily mean that the likelihood for inland damages and safety risks would decrease as well. While any amount of weakening before landfall is a good thing, for these reasons it makes more sense to direct focus towards adaptation strategies such as reinforcing infrastructure, improving the efficiency of evacuation procedures, and advancing the science around detection and prediction of impending storms.”

To scientifically answer questions about the effectiveness of artificially cooling the ocean to weaken hurricanes, the authors used a combination of air-sea interaction theories and a highly sophisticated computer model of the atmosphere.

In their computer simulations, they cooled areas of the ocean up to 260,000 km2 in size - larger than the state of Oregon and equating to 21,000 cubic kilometers of water - by up to 2 degrees Celsius. Even with the largest area of cooling, the simulated hurricanes weakened by only 15 percent. The amount of energy extracted from the ocean to achieve this small reduction is equivalent to more than 100 times the amount consumed across the entire United States in 2019 alone.

“You might think that the main finding of our article, that it’s pointless to try to weaken hurricanes, should be obvious,” said David Nolan, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the UM Rosenstiel School and senior author of the study. “And yet, various ideas for hurricane modification appear often in popular media and are even submitted for patents every few years. We’re happy to be able to put something into the peer-reviewed literature that actually addresses this.”

The study, titled “Targeted Ocean Cooling to Weaken Tropical Cyclones Would Be Futile,” was published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment. The study was supported by a University of Miami Graduate Fellowship and National Science Foundation PREEVENTS grant (Award # 1663947).

 

The University of Miami is a private research university and academic health system with a distinct geographic capacity to connect institutions, individuals, and ideas across the hemisphere and around the world. The University’s vibrant and diverse academic community comprises 12 schools and colleges serving more than 17,000 undergraduate and graduate students in more than 180 majors and programs. Located within one of the most dynamic and multicultural cities in the world, the University is building new bridges across geographic, cultural, and intellectual borders, bringing a passion for scholarly excellence, a spirit of innovation, a respect for including and elevating diverse voices, and a commitment to tackling the challenges facing our world. Founded in the 1940’s, the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science has grown into one of the world’s premier marine and atmospheric research institutions. Offering dynamic interdisciplinary academics, the Rosenstiel School is dedicated to helping communities to better understand the planet, participating in the establishment of environmental policies, and aiding in the improvement of society and quality of life. www.earth.miami.edu.

 

 

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s43247-022-00519-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Targeted artificial ocean cooling to weaken tropical cyclones would be futile

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Aug-2022