J.D. MacLean Centre for Tropical &amp; Geographic Medicine aggregator /tropmed/aggregator J.D. MacLean Centre for Tropical & Geographic Medicine - aggregated feeds en Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: Wnt/β-catenin signalling underpins juvenile Fasciola hepatica growth and development https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39919127/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20250208020250&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 Infection by the liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica, places a substantial burden on the global agri-food industry and poses a significant threat to human health in endemic regions. Widespread resistance to a limited arsenal of chemotherapeutics, including the frontline flukicide triclabendazole (TCBZ), renders F. hepatica control unsustainable and accentuates the need for novel therapeutic target discovery. A key facet of F. hepatica biology is a population of specialised stem cells which drive... Fri, 07 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: Subtle genomic differences in <em>Klebsiella pneumoniae sensu stricto</em> isolates indicate host adaptation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39898312/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20250204005348&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 Klebsiella pneumoniae sensu stricto (KpI) is an opportunistic pathogen capable of residing as a commensal in both human and bovine intestinal tracts and can cause serious systemic infections in humans and severe clinical mastitis in dairy cattle. It is unclear what role zoonotic and anthroponotic transmission play in the dissemination of KpI. In this study, we use a comparative genomic approach to identify differences between KpI associated with disease in humans and cattle and aimed to identify... Mon, 03 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: Imputation for Lipidomics and Metabolomics (ImpLiMet): a web-based application for optimization and method selection for missing data imputation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39867531/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20250128005908&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 MOTIVATION: Missing values are prevalent in high-throughput measurements due to various experimental or analytical reasons. Imputation, the process of replacing missing values in a dataset with estimated values, plays an important role in multivariate and machine learning analyses. The three missingness patterns, including missing completely at random, missing at random, and missing not at random, describe unique dependencies between the missing and observed data. The optimal imputation method... Mon, 27 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: Usefulness of polymerase chain reaction tests in Chagas disease studies https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39817172/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20250117005834&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test is a highly sensitive, specific, and rapid diagnostic tool for Chagas disease. Chagas disease is caused by the protozoan flagellate Trypanosoma cruzi and is endemic to the Americas. While conventional serological methods are still used in the diagnosis of Chagas disease, they are being gradually replaced by molecular methods like PCR. PCR can detect the parasite's DNA in blood or tissue samples from humans and animals, including asymptomatic infections... Thu, 16 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: Manipulation of mitochondrial poly(A) polymerase family proteins in <em>Trypanosoma brucei</em> impacts mRNA termini processing https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39816830/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20250117005834&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 RNA-specific nucleotidyltransferases (rNTrs) add nontemplated nucleotides to the 3^(') end of RNA. Two noncanonical rNTRs that are thought to be poly(A) polymerases (PAPs) have been identified in the mitochondria of trypanosomes - KPAP1 and KPAP2. KPAP1 is the primary polymerase that adds adenines (As) to trypanosome mitochondrial mRNA 3^(') tails, while KPAP2 is a non-essential putative polymerase whose role in the mitochondria is ambiguous. Here, we elucidate the effects of manipulations of... Thu, 16 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: <em>Bartonella quintana</em> Infection in Canada: A Retrospective Laboratory Study and Systematic Review of the Literature https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39770331/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20250109020343&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 Background:Bartonella quintana is a body-louse-borne bacterium. Canadian B. quintana disease has been reported primarily in populations experiencing homelessness and in Indigenous communities with limited access to water. We sought to understand the epidemiology of B. quintana in Canada. Methods: This study combined an analysis of laboratory data from Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) with a systematic review of the literature. Laboratory data included quantitative polymerase chain... Wed, 08 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: Comprehensive Blood Metabolome and Exposome Analysis, Annotation, and Interpretation in E-Waste Workers https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39728452/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20241228011344&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 Background: Electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) production has emerged to be of global environmental public health concern. E-waste workers, who are frequently exposed to hazardous chemicals through occupational activities, face considerable health risks. Methods: To investigate the metabolic and exposomic changes in these workers, we analyzed whole blood samples from 100 male e-waste workers and 49 controls from the GEOHealth II project (2017-2018 in Accra, Ghana) using LC-MS/MS. A... Fri, 27 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: TPD-seq: A high throughput RNA-seq method to derive transcriptomic points of departure from cell lines https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39709020/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20241222003411&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 There is growing scientific and regulatory interest in transcriptomic points of departure (tPOD) values from high-throughput in vitro experiments. To further help democratize tPOD research, here we outline 'TPD-seq' which links microplate-based exposure methods involving cell lines for human (Caco-2, Hep G2) and environmental (rainbow trout RTgill-W1) health, with a commercially available RNA-seq kit, with a cloud-based bioinformatics tool (ExpressAnalyst.ca). We applied the TPD-seq workflow to... Sat, 21 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: Undernutrition and antibody response to measles, tetanus and Haemophilus Influenzae type b (Hib) vaccination in pre-school south African children: The VHEMBE birth cohort study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39665976/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20241213002141&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 CONCLUSIONS: Early life undernutrition may be associated with lower induction or persistence of antibody responses to certain vaccines. Addressing child undernutrition may improve vaccine efficacy and reduce the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases. Thu, 12 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0500 Recent publications from TDC/Clinical Epidemiology authors: Revisiting the functional annotation of TriTryp using sequence similarity tools https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39640808/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pubmed-2&utm_content=1zSVwQViw4htk0ptJE-rdb4g98Hn0Vy51ceCnixBnFkL6ILsbf&fc=20201106102241&ff=20241207012056&v=2.18.0.post9+e462414 Trypanosomatids are the causative agents of deadly diseases in humans and livestock. Given the high phylogenetic distance of trypanosomatids from model organisms, these organisms have ample unannotated genes. Manual functional annotation is time-consuming, highlighting the importance of automated functional annotation tools. The development of automated functional tools is a hot research topic, and multiple tools have been developed for the task. PANNZER2 is an automated functional annotation... Fri, 06 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0500