Serious Illness Communication Tool for Palliative Care Fellows: Development, Implementation, and Lessons Learned.

Introduction: Learning expert communication skills is a core educational goal within palliative care training, yet there are few communication-based educational tools specifically designed for specialty-trained palliative care providers. Objective: To develop and implement a tool to facilitate effective learning of serious illness communication for hospice and palliative medicine fellows. Methods: A novel formative assessment tool was developed within the UCLA Palliative Care Fellowship program, and utilized throughout the academic year on a weekly basis. Focus groups were held for fellows and faculty separately at the end of the academic year in order to gain insight into the experience and effectiveness of the tool. Focus group transcripts were analyzed through thematic analysis. Results: There was a 47% participation rate in the focus groups (n = 7). Qualitative analysis demonstrated positive impact of the tool in identifying learning goals, improving quality of feedback, and in standardizing language around advanced communication skills, with most value in the first half of the fellowship year. Some aspects of the tool were found to increase feedback anxiety, including the competency scoring component, frequency of use, and utilization with individual patient encounters. Conclusion: This novel communication tool provides an important addition to serious illness communication training of specialist palliative care providers, in creating a shared mental model for naming and organizing skills, as well as generating specific high quality learning goals and feedback. Preliminary feedback from our pilot implementation phase provided important information about how to refine the tool and remove components that unnecessarily added to feedback anxiety.

A draft reference genome of the Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp, Branchinecta lynchi.

We present the reference genome of the Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp Branchinecta lynchi. This branchiopod crustacean is endemic to California's freshwater ephemeral ponds. It faces enormous habitat loss and fragmentation as urbanization and agriculture have fundamentally changed the vernal pool landscape over the past 3 centuries. The assembled genome consists of 22 chromosome-length scaffolds that account for 96.85% of the total sequence. One hundred and ninety-five unscaffolded contigs comprise the rest of the genome's 575.6 Mb length. The genome is substantially complete with a BUSCO score of 90.0%. There is no immediately identifiable sex chromosome, typical for this class of organism. This new resource will permit researchers to better understand the adaptive capacity of this imperiled species, as well as answer lingering questions about anostracan physiology, sex determination, and development.

A chromosome-level reference genome for the Versatile Fairy Shrimp, Branchinecta lindahli.

We present the novel reference genome of the Versatile Fairy Shrimp, Branchinecta lindahli. The Versatile Fairy Shrimp is a freshwater anostracan crustacean found across the western United States from Iowa to Oregon and from Alberta to Baja California. It is an ephemeral pool specialist, living in prairie potholes, irrigation ditches, tire treads, vernal pools, and other temporary freshwater wetlands. Anostracan fairy shrimp are facing global declines with 3 species in California on the Endangered Species list. This species was included in the California Conservation Genomics Project to provide an easily accessible reference genome, and to provide whole-genome resources for a generalist species, which may lead to new insights into Anostracan resiliency in the face of climate change. The final gapped genome comprises 15 chromosome-length scaffolds covering 98.63% of the 384.8 Mb sequence length, and an additional 55 unscaffolded contigs.

The reference genome of the Vernal Pool Tadpole Shrimp, Lepidurus packardi.

In this paper, we report on the scaffold-level assembled genome for the federally endangered, California endemic crustacean Lepidurus packardi (the Vernal Pool Tadpole Shrimp). L. packardi is a key food source for other conserved California species including the California Tiger Salamander Ambystoma californiense. It faces significant habitat loss and fragmentation as vernal pools are threatened by urbanization, agricultural conversion, and climate change. This resource represents the first scaffold-level genome of any Lepidurus species. The assembled genome spans 108.6 Mbps, with 6 chromosome-length scaffolds comprising 71% of total genomic length and 444 total contigs. The BUSCO score for this genome is 97.3%, suggesting a high level of completeness. We produced a predicted gene set for this species trained on the Daphnia magna set of genes and predicted 17,650 genes. These tools can aid researchers in understanding the evolution and adaptive potential of alternative reproductive modes within this species.

Mitochondrial Fatty Acid ß-Oxidation and Resveratrol Effect in Fibroblasts from Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have an increase in blood acyl-carnitine (AC) concentrations indicating a mitochondrial fatty acid ß-oxidation (mtFAO) impairment. However, there are no data on systematic mtFAO analyses in ASD. We analyzed tritiated palmitate oxidation rates in fibroblasts from patients with ASD before and after resveratrol (RSV) treatment, according to methods used for the diagnosis of congenital defects in mtFAO. ASD participants (N = 10, 60%; male; mean age (SD) 7.4 (3.2) years) were divided in two age-equivalent groups based on the presence (N = 5) or absence (N = 5) of elevated blood AC levels. In addition, electron transport chain (ETC) activity in fibroblasts and muscle biopsies and clinical characteristics were compared between the ASD groups. Baseline fibroblast mtFAO was not significantly different in patients in comparison with control values. However, ASD patients with elevated AC exhibited significantly decreased mtFAO rates, muscle ETC complex II activity, and fibroblast ETC Complex II/III activity (p < 0.05), compared with patients without an AC signature. RSV significantly increased the mtFAO activity in all study groups (p = 0.001). The highest mtFAO changes in response to RSV were observed in fibroblasts from patients with more severe symptoms on the Social Responsiveness Scale total (p = 0.001) and Awareness, Cognition, Communication and Motivation subscales (all p < 0.01). These findings suggested recognition of an ASD patient subset characterized by an impaired mtFAO flux associated with abnormal blood AC. The study elucidated that RSV significantly increased fibroblast mtFAO irrespective of plasma AC status, and the highest changes to RSV effects on mtFAO were observed in the more severely affected patients.

Environmental DNA sampling provides new management strategies for vernal pool branchiopods in California.

California's vernal pools are declining ecosystems that support valuable native plant and animal diversity. Vernal pool branchiopods are particularly at risk from vernal pool habitat loss and conservation efforts have targeted their long-term protection through the establishment of preserves and conservation banks. These conservation strategies require repeated, perpetual monitoring of preserved habitat, which is currently carried out through dip-net surveys and visual identification of specimens. Dip-netting may be destructive and frequently requires some sacrifice of protected species. Environmental DNA offers a new, modern method to monitor many protected freshwater organisms. We designed qPCR-based species-specific assays for four of California's vernal pool branchiopods: The Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp Branchinecta lynchi (BRLY), the Midvalley Fairy Shrimp Branchinecta mesovallensis (BRME), and the Conservancy Fairy Shrimp Branchinecta conservatio (BRCO), and the Vernal Pool Tadpole Shrimp Lepidurus packardi (LEPA). We tested these assays using eDNA sampling protocols alongside traditional dip-net surveys to assess their viability as an alternative method to monitor vernal pool branchiopods. Based on occupancy modeling, each of our assays achieved a 95% or higher detection rate when using optimized sampling protocols.

The Relationship between Temperature and Development in Globodera ellingtonae.

A new cyst nematode species, Globodera ellingtonae, was recently described from populations in Oregon and Idaho. This nematode has been shown to reproduce on potato. Because of this nematode's close relationship to the potato cyst nematodes, G. rostochiensis and G. pallida, an understanding of the risk of its potential spread, including prediction of potential geographical distribution, is required. To determine the development of G. ellingtonae under different temperatures, we conducted growth chamber experiments over a range of temperatures (10.0°C to 26.5°C) and tracked length of time to various developmental stages, including adult females bearing the next generation of eggs. Both the time to peak population densities of G. ellingtonae life stages and their duration in roots generally increased with decreasing temperature. Regression of growth rate to second-stage (J2) and third-stage (J3) juveniles on temperature yielded different base temperatures: 6.3°C and 4.4°C for J2 and J3, respectively. Setting a base temperature of 6°C allowed calculation of the degree-days (DD6) over which different life stages occurred. The largest population densities of J2 were found in roots between 50 and 200 DD6. Population densities of J3 peaked between 200 and 300 DD6. Adult males were detected in soil starting at 300 to 400 DD6 and remained detectable for approximately 500 DD6. By 784 to 884 DD6, half of the eggs in adult females contained vermiform juveniles. Given the similarity in temperature ranges for successful development between G. ellingtonae and G. rostochiensis, G. ellingtonae populations likely could survive in the same geographic range in which G. rostochiensis now occurs.