Phytoplankton Assemblage over a 14-Year Period in the Adriatic Sea: Patterns and Trends.

Considering the role of phytoplankton in the functioning and health of marine systems, it is important to characterize its responses to a changing environment. The central Adriatic Sea, as a generally oligotrophic area, is a suitable environment to distinguish between regular fluctuations in phytoplankton and those caused by anthropogenic or climatic influences. This study provides a long-term perspective of phytoplankton assemblage in the central eastern Adriatic Sea, with 14 years of continuous time series data collected at two coastal and two offshore stations. The predominant phytoplankton groups were diatoms and phytoflagellates, but their proportion varied depending on the vicinity of the coast, as evidenced also by the distribution of chlorophyll a. In the coastal environment, the phytoplankton biomass was substantially higher, with a higher proportion of microphytoplankton, while small phytoplankton accounted for the majority of biomass in the offshore area. In addition, a decreasing trend in diatom abundance was observed in the coastal waters, while such trend was not so evident in the offshore area. Using a neural gas algorithm, five clusters were defined based on the contribution of the major groups. The observed increase in diversity, especially in dinoflagellates, which outnumber diatom taxa, could be a possible adaptation of dinoflagellates to the increased natural solar radiation in summer and the increased sea surface temperature.

MyD88 Signaling Accompanied by Microbiota Changes Supports Urinary Bladder Carcinogenesis.

Urinary bladder cancer (BC) inflicts a significant impairment of life quality and poses a high mortality risk. Schistosoma haematobium infection can cause BC, and the urinary microbiota of BC patients differs from healthy controls. Importantly, intravesical instillation of the bacterium Bacillus Calmette-Guerin stands as the foremost therapy for non-muscle invasive BC. Hence, studying the receptors and signaling molecules orchestrating bacterial recognition and the cellular response in the context of BC is of paramount importance. Thus, we challenged Toll-like receptor 4 (Tlr4) and myeloid differentiation factor 88 (Myd88) knock-out (KO) mice with N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxylbutyl)-nitrosamine (BBN), a well-known urinary bladder carcinogen. Gut microbiota, gene expression, and urinary bladder pathology were followed. Acute exposure to BBN did not reveal a difference in bladder pathology despite differences in the animal's ability to recognize and react to bacteria. However, chronic treatment resulted in reduced cancer invasiveness among Myd88KO mice while the absence of functional Tlr4 did not influence BC development or progression. These differences correlate with a heightened abundance of the Faecalibaculum genus and the lowest microbial diversity observed among Myd88KO mice. The presented data underscore the important role of microbiota composition and MyD88-mediated signaling during bladder carcinogenesis.

Clinical Characteristics in the Longitudinal Follow-Up of APECED Syndrome in Southern Croatia-Case Series.

BACKGROUND: Autoimmune polyendocrinopathy candidiasis ectodermal dystrophy (APECED) is a rare monogenetic autosomal recessive disorder caused by a mutation in the autoimmune regulator (AIRE) gene characterized by complex phenotypic characteristics discovered over years of follow-up. METHODS: 7 patients were recruited in this case series in a period of the last 37 years from Southern Croatia. All patients were screened for AIRE R257X mutations. RESULTS: This study group had a mean current age of 25.3 years (age range from 5.4 to 40.2 years), while the mean age at the onset of the disease was 6.5 years (age range from 0.7 to 9.2 years) and with a mean follow-up period of 17.8 years. The overall prevalence of APECED syndrome is estimated to be 1 in 75,000. The most common initial manifestation of the disease was onychodystrophy, while the first major component of APECED syndrome was chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis. CONCLUSIONS: APECED is a ''multi-faced'' disease based on the very unpredictable and inconsistent onset of major components. Furthermore, based on our results, we suggest that onychodystrophy could be included as a warning sign of APECED syndrome.

DNA Methylome Changes of Muscle- and Neuronal-Related Processes Precede Bladder Cancer Invasiveness.

Bladder cancer (BC) is the ninth leading cause of cancer death with one of the highest recurrence rates among all cancers. One of the main risks for BC development is exposure to nitrosamines present in tobacco smoke or in other products. Aberrant epigenetic (DNA methylation) changes accompanied by deregulated gene expression are an important element of cancer pathogenesis. Therefore, we aimed to determine DNA methylation signatures and their impacts on gene expression in mice treated with N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl) nitrosamine (BBN), a carcinogen similar to compounds found in tobacco smoke. Following BBN administration mice developed non-invasive or invasive bladder cancers. Surprisingly, muscle- and neuronal-related pathways emerged as the most affected in those tumors. Hypo- and hypermethylation changes were present within non-invasive BC, across CpGs mapping to the genes involved in muscle- and neuronal-related pathways, however, methylation differences were not sufficient to affect the expression of the majority of associated genes. Conversely, invasive tumors displayed hypermethylation changes that were linked with alterations in gene expression profiles. Together, these findings indicate that bladder cancer progression could be revealed through methylation profiling at the pre-invasive cancer stage that could assist monitoring of cancer patients and guide novel therapeutic approaches.

Microbiota Alters Urinary Bladder Weight and Gene Expression.

We studied the effect of microbiota on the transcriptome and weight of the urinary bladder by comparing germ-free (GF) and specific pathogen-free (SPF) housed mice. In total, 97 genes were differently expressed (fold change > ±2; false discovery rate (FDR) p-value < 0.01) between the groups, including genes regulating circadian rhythm (Per1, Per2 and Per3), extracellular matrix (Spo1, Spon2), and neuromuscular synaptic transmission (Slc18a3, Slc5a7, Chrnb4, Chrna3, Snap25). The highest increase in expression was observed for immunoglobulin genes (Igkv1-122, Igkv4-68) of unknown function, but surprisingly the absence of microbiota did not change the expression of the genes responsible for recognizing microbes and their products. We found that urinary bladder weight was approximately 25% lighter in GF mice (p = 0.09 for males, p = 0.005 for females) and in mice treated with broad spectrum of antibiotics (p = 0.0002). In conclusion, our data indicate that microbiota is an important determinant of urinary bladder physiology controlling its gene expression and size.

The urinary microbiome associated with bladder cancer.

Recent findings suggest that human microbiome can influence the development of cancer, but the role of microorganisms in bladder cancer pathogenesis has not been explored yet. The aim of this study was to characterize and compare the urinary microbiome of bladder cancer patients with those of healthy controls. Bacterial communities present in urine specimens collected from 12 male patients diagnosed with bladder cancer, and from 11 healthy, age-matched individuals were analysed using 16S sequencing. Our results show that the most abundant phylum in both groups was Firmicutes, followed by Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria. While microbial diversity and overall microbiome composition were not significantly different between groups, we could identify operational taxonomic units (OTUs) that were more abundant in either group. Among those that were significantly enriched in the bladder cancer group, we identified an OTU belonging to genus Fusobacterium, a possible protumorigenic pathogen. In an independent sample of 42 bladder cancer tissues, 11 had Fusobacterium nucleatum sequences detected by PCR. Three OTUs from genera Veillonella, Streptococcus and Corynebacterium were more abundant in healthy urines. However, due to the limited number of participants additional studies are needed to determine if urinary microbiome is associated with bladder cancer.