Here, we identified and cloned the gene coding for carbonyl reductase from the blue mussel Mytilus spp. by a bioinformatics approach. In both laboratory and field studies, we could show that TNT induces a strong and concentration-dependent induction of gene expression of carbonyl reductase in the blue mussel. Carbonyl reductase may thus serve as a biomarker for TNT exposure on a molecular level which is useful to detect TNT contaminations in the environment and to perform a risk assessment both for the ecosphere and the human seafood consumer.In this review, we describe Schwann cell development from embryonic neural crest cells to terminally differentiated myelinated and nonmyelinated mature Schwann cells. We focus on the genetic drivers and signaling mechanisms mediating decisions to proliferate versus differentiate during Schwann cell development, highlighting pathways that overlap with Schwann cell development and are dysregulated in tumorigenesis. We conclude by considering how our knowledge of the events underlying Schwann cell development and mouse models of schwannoma, neurofibroma, and malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor can inform novel therapeutic strategies for patients with cancers derived from Schwann cell lineages.
  Induction chemotherapy (IC) followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy is the mainstay treatment for patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma. However, some patients obtain little benefit and experience unnecessary toxicities from IC. We intended to develop a gene-expression signature that can identify beneficiaries of IC.
 
  We screened chemosensitivity-related genes by comparing gene-expression profiles of patients with short-term tumor response or nonresponse to IC (n = 95) using microarray analysis. Chemosensitivity-related genes were quantified by digital expression profiling in a training cohort (n = 342) to obtain a gene signature. We then validated this gene signature in the clinical trial cohort (n = 187) and an external independent cohort (n = 240). Tests of statistical significance are 2-sided.
 
  We identified 43 chemosensitivity-related genes associated with the short-term tumor response to IC. In the training cohort, a 6-gene signature was developed that was highly accurate aharyngeal carcinoma patients.
  The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an ongoing global crisis, but how the virus spread across the world remains poorly understood.  https://www.selleckchem.com/  This is of vital importance for informing current and future pandemic response strategies.
 
  We performed two independent analyses, travel network-based epidemiological modelling and Bayesian phylogeographic inference, to investigate the intercontinental spread of COVID-19.
 
  Both approaches revealed two distinct phases of COVID-19 spread by the end of March 2020. In the first phase, COVID-19 largely circulated in China during mid-to-late January 2020 and was interrupted by containment measures in China. In the second and predominant phase extending from late February to mid-March, unrestricted movements between countries outside of China facilitated intercontinental spread, with Europe as a major source. Phylogenetic analyses also revealed that the dominant strains circulating in the USA were introduced from Europe. However, stringent restrictions on international travel across theational travel from countries with widespread community transmission, together with improved capacity in testing, genetic sequencing and contact tracing, can inform timely strategies for mitigating and containing ongoing and future waves of COVID-19 pandemic.
  Quantify the integrity, measured as completeness and concordance with a thoracic radiologist, of documenting pulmonary nodule characteristics in CT reports and assess impact on making follow-up recommendations.
 
  This Institutional Review Board-approved, retrospective cohort study was performed at an academic medical center. Natural language processing was performed on radiology reports of CT scans of chest, abdomen, or spine completed in 2016 to assess presence of pulmonary nodules, excluding patients with lung cancer, of which 300 reports were randomly sampled to form the study cohort. Documentation of nodule characteristics were manually extracted from reports by 2 authors with 20% overlap. CT images corresponding to 60 randomly selected reports were further reviewed by a thoracic radiologist to record nodule characteristics. Documentation completeness for all characteristics were reported in percentage and compared using χ2 analysis. Concordance with a thoracic radiologist was reported as percentage agreement; impact on making follow-up recommendations was assessed using kappa.
 
  Documentation completeness for pulmonary nodule characteristics differed across variables (range = 2%-90%, P < .001). Concordance with a thoracic radiologist was 75% for documenting nodule laterality and 29% for size. Follow-up recommendations were in agreement in 67% and 49% of reports when there was lack of completeness and concordance in documenting nodule size, respectively.
 
  Essential pulmonary nodule characteristics were under-reported, potentially impacting recommendations for pulmonary nodule follow-up.
 
  Lack of documentation of pulmonary nodule characteristics in radiology reports is common, with potential for compromising patient care and clinical decision support tools.
 Lack of documentation of pulmonary nodule characteristics in radiology reports is common, with potential for compromising patient care and clinical decision support tools.
  The Routine Opioid Outcome Monitoring (ROOM) tool measures outcomes with opioids using an established framework which includes domains such as pain, mood, opioid use disorder, alcohol use, and constipation. This study aims to validate and establish the test-retest reliability of the computer-administered ROOM tool.
 
  Cross-sectional analysis of an online sample.
 
  Participants comprised those with chronic noncancer pain who regularly used prescription opioids.
 
  Participants self-completed the online ROOM tool along with other validated measures (validation questionnaire), and those who were agreeable also completed the online test-retest questionnaire approximately two weeks later. Subcomponents of the ROOM tool (i.e., pain, mood, alcohol use, opioid use disorder, and constipation) were validated against longer measures of the same construct using Pearson correlation coefficients. Intraclass correlation coefficients were used to assess the stability of the ROOM tool over time.
 
  A total of 324 participants completed the validation questionnaire, of whom 260 also completed the test-retest questionnaire.