Bethune-Cookman University

Abstract Insects frequently carry maternally-transmitted endosymbionts that mediate ecological interactions, including resource acquisition and host defense. All pea aphids ( Acyrthosiphon pisum ), for example, carry the obligate nutritional symbiont Buchnera , while most have one or more of the seven heritable facultative symbionts, which play diverse roles. A common symbiont, Hamiltonella defensa , confers protection against the parasitic wasp Aphidius ervi via a toxin-bearing bacteriophage called APSE, with strain-level variation in protection best predicted by APSE variant. Yet, little is known about Hamiltonella /APSE strain variation in the field, resulting in an incomplete understanding of the full arsenal of symbiont defenses and how these change over space and time. Here, we characterized Hamiltonella /APSE diversity in over 3,000 field-collected aphids from two North American populations across multiple years. We identified bacterial strains representing five Hamiltonella clades, seven APSE variants, and numerous toxin alleles, resulting in at least 38 distinct combinations. We found that APSEs moved laterally among Hamiltonella strains more readily than toxins among phage backbones, together generating modular defensive diversity. Hamiltonella strains exhibited strain-specific coinfection preferences with other symbionts, particularly Fukatsuia , Rickettsia , and Rickettsiella , indicating strain-level structuring of heritable bacterial communities. Geographic and temporal analyses revealed dramatic regional differences and rapid population turnover, with combinations conferring intermediate laboratory protection dominating despite the decline of highly protective strains, suggesting ecological success goes beyond parasitoid resistance alone. This extensive cryptic diversity provides standing genetic variation enabling rapid evolutionary responses to biological control efforts and anthropogenic stressors, including climate change, with implications for pest management and host adaptation.

The genes that encode the universal stress protein (USP) family domain (pfam00582) aid the survival of bacteria in specific host or habitat-induced stress conditions. Genome sequencing revealed that the genome of Helicobacter pylori, a gastric cancer pathogen, typically contains one USP gene, while related helicobacters have one or two distinct USP genes. However, insights into the functions of Helicobacteraceae (Helicobacter and Wolinella) USP genes are still limited to inferences from large-scale genome sequencing. Thus, we have combined bioinformatics and visual analytics approaches to conduct a more comprehensive data investigation of a set of 1045 universal stress protein sequences encoded in 1014 genomes including 785 Helicobacter pylori genomes. The study generated a representative set of 183 USP sequences consisting of 180 Helicobacter sequences, two Wolinella succinogenes sequences, and a sequence from a related campylobacteria. We used the amino acid residues and positions of the 12 possible functional sites in 1030 sequences to identify 25 functional sites patterns for guiding studies on functional interactions of Helicobacteraceae USPs with ATP and other molecules. Genomic context searches and analysis identified USP genes of gastric and enterohepatic helicobacters that are adjacent or in operons with genes for proteins responsive to DNA-damaging oxidative stress (ATP-dependent proteases: ClpS and ClpA); and DNA uptake proteins (natural competence for transformation proteins: ComB6, ComB7, ComB8, ComB9, ComB10, ComBE, and conjugative transfer signal peptidase TraF). Since transcriptomic evidence indicates that oxidative stress and the presence of virulence-associated genes regulate the transcription of H. pylori USP gene, we recommend further research on Helicobacter USP genes and their neighboring genes in oxidative stress response and virulence of helicobacters. To facilitate the reuse of data and research, we produced interactive analytics resources of a dataset composed of values for variables including phylogeography of H. pylori strains, protein sequence features, and gene neighborhood.

Abstract Certain plants have been identified with the capability to take up metallic and metal oxide nanoparticles (ENPs), thus suggesting their potential role in phytoremediation. The reported study evaluated the response of two aquatic plants, sedge (Carex rostrata) and cattail (Typha latifolia), on their exposure to Ag, ZnO, TiO2, BiVO4/Pd, and Cu2O/Pd nanoparticles over 15 weeks. Plant physiological responses (chlorophyll content, carbonic anhydrase (CA) activity, leaf area, production of new shoots, and root length) varied according to the plant species and ENP type. By week 15, sedge treated with BiVO4/Pd ENP had a high chlorophyll content and increased CA activity and leaf area compared to the control. In contrast, cattail had reduced chlorophyll levels and number of new shoots when exposed to exogenously applied BiVO4/Pd. Highest sedge chlorophyll content at week 15 was measured in the mixed-ENPs, Cu2O, and Ag (53.2, 35.8, and 32.7%, respectively, greater than the control). The ZnO ENPs were beneficial for sedge chlorophyll content, cattail shoot production and root length. The mixed-ENPs treatment imparted positive effects to several sedge properties (CA and new shoots) and cattail (chlorophyll, leaf area, and root length). Additional research is needed to assess the capabilities of different aquatic plant species to tolerate metal-based ENPs for remediation purposes.

In recent years, multi-rotor UAVs have become valuable tools in several productive fields, from entertainment to agriculture and security. However, during their flight trajectory, they sometimes do not accurately perform a specific set of tasks, and the implementation of flight controllers in these vehicles is required to achieve a successful performance. Therefore, this research describes the design of a flight position controller based on Deep Neural Networks and subsequent implementation for a multi-rotor UAV. Five promising Neural Network architectures are developed based on a thorough literature review, incorporating LSTM, 1-D convolutional, pooling, and fully-connected layers. A dataset is then constructed using the performance data of a PID flight controller, encompassing diverse trajectories with transient and steady-state information such as position, speed, acceleration, and motor output signals. The tuning of hyperparameters for each type of architecture is performed by applying the Hyperband algorithm. The best model obtained (LSTMCNN) consists of a combination of LSTM and CNN layers in one dimension. This architecture is compared with the PID flight controller in different scenarios employing evaluation metrics such as rise time, overshoot, steady-state error, and control effort. The findings reveal that our best models demonstrate the successful generalization of flight control tasks. While our best model is able to work with a wider operational range than the PID controller and offers step responses in the Y and X axis with 97% and 98% similarity, respectively, within the PID’s operational range. This outcome opens up possibilities for efficient online training of flight controllers based on Neural Networks, enabling the development of adaptable controllers tailored to specific application domains.

To increase access to highly effective contraception and improve reproductive autonomy, a growing number of state Medicaid programs pay for the provision of immediate postpartum long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) in addition to providing a global payment for maternity care. Using Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System data, we examined postpartum LARC use both overall and by race and ethnicity among respondents with Medicaid-paid births during the period 2012-18 in eight states that implemented immediate postpartum LARC payment and eight states without it. Using a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences design, we found that the policy resulted in an overall 2.1-percentage-point increase in postpartum LARC use. Our triple-differences analysis found no significant change among White mothers and a 3.7-percentage-point increase in use among Black mothers compared with White mothers. Additional research is needed to determine whether this increase was aligned with patients' preferences and whether hospitals' immediate postpartum LARC policies and practices take a patient-centered approach that supports reproductive autonomy and equity.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has catalyzed the expectations for technology-enhanced interactions with personalized educational materials. Adjusting the content of educational materials to the geographical location of a learner is a customization feature of personalized education and is used to develop the interest of a learner in the content. The educational content of interest in this report is bioinformatics, in which the knowledge spans biological science and applied mathematics disciplines. The Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Initiative is a resource suitable for use when obtaining data and peer-reviewed scholarly articles, which are geographically relevant and focus on authentic problem solving in the human health domain. We developed a computerized platform of interactive visual representations of curated bioinformatics datasets from H3Africa projects, which also supports customization, individualization and adaptation features of personalized education. We obtained evidence for the positive effect size and acceptable usability of a visual analytics resource designed for the retrieval-based learning of facts on functional impacts of genomic sequence variants. We conclude that technology-enhanced personalized bioinformatics educational interventions have implications in (1) the meaningful learning of bioinformatics; (2) stimulating additional student interest in bioinformatics; and (2) improving the accessibility of bioinformatics education to non-bioinformaticians.

ABSTRACT The increased utilization of telehealth has provided patients with the opportunity to interact with racially diverse healthcare providers (HCPs). While evidence of racial stereotypes in healthcare is well documented, less is known about whether linguistic cues increase or decrease racial bias in healthcare interactions. The purpose of this pilot study was to use virtual clinicians (VCs) to examine how varying linguistic features affect patient perceptions of Black-identifying HCPs. Participants (N = 282) were recruited to participate in an online pilot study using a two-arm posttest-only experimental design. Participants were randomly assigned to interact with a Black VC that used vocal cues associated with either Standard American English (SAE) or African American English (AAE) on the topic of colorectal cancer. After the interaction, participants completed a posttest questionnaire. Resulting data were analyzed using mediation.

Coproporphyrins (CP-I and CP-III) in plasma are considered potential markers for assessing liver organic anion-transporting polypeptide transporter OATP1B activity and monitoring OATP1B-mediated drug-drug interactions (DDIs) in clinical settings. However, the effect of altered renal clearance (CLrenal ) on CP-I and CP-III plasma exposure has rarely been examined. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to further evaluate CP-I and CP-III as clinical endogenous markers for OATP1B activity and to investigate the impact of CLrenal on DDI assessments for the first time. In this study, 18 healthy participants were recruited to receive RO7049389 (a potential inhibitor of OATP1B) 800 mg twice daily for 6 days and a single dose of pitavastatin (a probe drug of OATP1B) before and after RO7049389 treatment. Plasma concentrations of pitavastatin, CP I, CP III, and the amounts of CP-I and CP-III excreted in urine were measured. Seventeen healthy participants completed the study. After multiple doses of RO7049389, the area under the plasma concentration-time curve from time 0 to 12 hours of pitavastatin increased 1.95-fold (90% confidence interval [CI], 1.58-2.41), while for CP-I and CP-III it increased 3.00-fold (90%CI, 2.35-3.82) and 2.84-fold (90%CI, 2.22-3.65), respectively. Concurrently, the CLrenal of CP-I decreased by 31% (90%CI, 23%-39%), and that of CP-III decreased by 70% (90%CI, 61%-77%). In conclusion, CP-I and CP-III in plasma display the potential to be applied as endogenous markers for the evaluation of OATP1B inhibition in clinical trials. While renal transporters contribute significantly to the CLrenal of CP-III, it would be better to investigate the impact of the CLrenal on plasma exposure of CP-III during clinical DDI assessments.