Project description:Historically, many diseases have been named after the species or location of discovery, the discovering scientists, or the most impacted population. However, species-specific disease names often misrepresent the true reservoir; location-based disease names are frequently targeted with xenophobia; some of the discovering scientists have darker histories; and impacted populations have been stigmatized for this association. Acknowledging these concerns, the World Health Organization now proposes naming diseases after their causative pathogen or symptomatology. Recently, this guidance has been retrospectively applied to a disease at the center of an outbreak rife with stigmatization and misinformation: mpox (f.k.a. 'monkeypox'). This disease, historically endemic to west and central Africa, has prompted racist remarks as it spread globally in 2022 in an epidemic ongoing today. Moreover, its elevated prevalence among men who have sex with men has yielded increased stigma against the LGBTQ+ community. To address these prejudicial associations, 'monkeypox' was renamed 'mpox' in November 2022. We used publicly available data from Google Search Trends to determine which countries were quicker to adopt this name change-and understand factors that limit or facilitate its use. Specifically, we built regression models to quantify the relationship between 'mpox' search intensity in a given country and the country's type of political regime, robustness of sociopolitical and health systems, level of pandemic preparedness, extent of gender and educational inequalities, and temporal evolution of mpox cases through December 2023. Our results suggest that, when compared to 'monkeypox' search intensity, 'mpox' search intensity was significantly higher in countries with any history of mpox outbreaks or higher levels of LGBTQ+ acceptance; meanwhile, 'mpox' search intensity was significantly lower in countries governed by leaders who had recently propagated infectious disease misinformation. Among infectious diseases with stigmatizing names, mpox is among the first to be revised retrospectively. While the adoption of a given disease name will be context-specific-depending in part on its origins and the affected subpopulations-our study provides generalizable insights, applicable to future changes in disease nomenclature.
Project description:The use of animal models has facilitated numerous scientific developments, especially when employing "omics" technologies to study the effects of various environmental factors on humans. Our study presents a new bioinformatics pipeline suitable when the generated microarray data from animal models does not contain the necessary human gene name annotation. We conducted single color gene expression microarray on duodenum and spleen tissue obtained from pigs which have been exposed to zearalenone and Escherichia coli contamination, either alone or combined. By performing a combination of file format modifications and data alignments using various online tools as well as a command line environment, we performed the pig to human gene name extrapolation with an average yield of 58.34%, compared to 3.64% when applying more simple methods. In conclusion, while online data analysis portals on their own are of great importance in data management and assessment, our new pipeline provided a more effective approach for a situation which can be frequently encountered by researchers in the "omics" era.
Project description:The name Miconia densiflora Cogn. (1886) is a later homonym of Miconia densiflora (Gardner) Naudin (1851), but since we propose it as a taxonomic synonym of Miconia caudata (Bonpl.) DC. (1828), we do not provide a new name. The name Miconia longicuspisHerzog (1909) is a later homonym of Miconia longicuspis Cogn. (1891) and we here propose its replacement by Miconia longicuspidata S.S. Renner & R. Goldenb.
Project description:We report 3 complicated and prolonged cases of mpox in people with advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) not on antiretroviral therapy (ART) at mpox diagnosis. Multiple medical countermeasures were used, including prolonged tecovirimat treatment and immune optimization with ART initiation. Immunofluorescence of skin biopsies demonstrated a dense immune infiltrate of predominantly myeloid and CD8+ T cells, with a strong type I interferon local response. RNAscope detected abundant replication of monkeypox virus (MPXV) in epithelial cells and dendritic cells. These data suggest that prolonged mpox in people with advanced HIV may be due to ongoing MPXV replication, warranting aggressive medical countermeasures and immune optimization.
Project description:Syngonanthus weddellii var. gracilis Moldenke, (1973) was described very briefly based on a single collection. A careful analysis reveals that this variety has dimerous flowers, free petals of the pistillate flower and bifid stigmatic branches. It is therefore misplaced in Syngonanthus Ruhland (1900). We transfer it to Paepalanthus Mart. (1834) at the species level, as it is distinct from morphologically similar species: Paepalanthus flaccidus (Bong.) Koern. (1863), Paepalanthus trichophyllus (Bong.) Koern. (1863), and Paepalanthus strictus Koern. (1863). The epithet gracilis is no longer available, hence, we have coined the name Paepalanthus rectifolius. We also provide a full description, illustrations, a distribution map, and pertinent comments.