Open science and conflict of interest policies of medical and health sciences journals before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A repeat cross-sectional study: Open science policies of medical journals.

Objectives: To audit the transparent and open science standards of health and medical sciences journal policies and explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Design: Repeat cross-sectional study. Setting: 19 journals listed in Google Scholar's Top Publications for health and medical sciences. Participants: Blood, Cell, Circulation, European Heart Journal, Gastroenterology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, PLoS ONE, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Translational Medicine, The British Medical Journal, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, The Lancet Oncology, and The New England Journal of Medicine. Main outcome measures: We used the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guideline and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) requirements for disclosing conflicts of interest (COIs) to evaluate journals standards. Results: TOP scores slightly improved during the COVID-19 pandemic, from a median of 5 (IQR: 2-12.5) out of a possible 24 points in February 2020 to 7 (IQR: 4-12) in May 2021, but overall, scores were very low at both time points. Journal policies scored highest for their adherence to data transparency and scored lowest for preregistration of study protocols and analysis plans and the submission of replication studies. Most journals fulfilled all ICMJE provisions for reporting COIs before (84%; n = 16) and during (95%; n = 18) the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of practising open science. However, requirements for open science practices in audited policies were overall low, which may impede progress in health and medical research. As key stakeholders in disseminating research, journals should promote a research culture of greater transparency and more robust open science practices.

Incremental value of left atrial booster and reservoir strain in predicting atrial fibrillation in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: a cardiovascular magnetic resonance study.

BACKGROUND: Left atrial (LA) size and function are known predictors of new onset atrial fibrillation (AF) in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients. Components of LA deformation including reservoir, conduit, and booster function provide additional information on atrial mechanics. Whether or not LA deformation can augment our ability to predict the risk of new onset AF in HCM patients beyond standard measurements is unknown. METHODS: We assessed LA size, function, and deformation on cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in 238 genotyped HCM patients and compared this with twenty age, sex, blood pressure and body mass index matched control subjects. We further evaluated the determinants of new onset AF in HCM patients. RESULTS: Compared to control subjects, HCM patients had higher LA antero-posterior diameter, lower LA ejection fraction and lower LA reservoir (19.9 [17.1, 22.2], 21.6 [19.9, 22.9], P = 0.047) and conduit strain (10.6 ± 4.4, 13.7 ± 3.3, P = 0.002). LA booster strain did not differ between healthy controls and HCM patients, but HCM patients who developed new onset AF (n = 33) had lower booster strain (7.6 ± 3.3, 9.5 ± 3.0, P = 0.001) than those that did not (n = 205). In separate multivariate models, age, LA ejection fraction, and LA booster and reservoir strain were each independent determinants of AF. Age ≥ 55 years was the strongest determinant (HR 6.62, 95% CI 2.79-15.70), followed by LA booster strain ≤ 8% (HR 3.69, 95% CI 1.81-7.52) and LA reservoir strain ≤ 18% (HR 2.56, 95% CI 1.24-5.27). Conventional markers of HCM phenotypic severity, age and sudden death risk factors were associated with LA strain components. CONCLUSIONS: LA strain components are impaired in HCM and, together with age, independently predicted the risk of new onset AF. Increasing age and phenotypic severity were associated with LA strain abnormalities. Our findings suggest that the routine assessment of LA strain components and consideration of age could augment LA size in predicting risk of AF, and potentially guide prophylactic anticoagulation use in HCM.

The Greatwall kinase safeguards the genome integrity by affecting the kinome activity in mitosis.

Progression through mitosis is balanced by the timely regulation of phosphorylation and dephosphorylation events ensuring the correct segregation of chromosomes before cytokinesis. This balance is regulated by the opposing actions of CDK1 and PP2A, as well as the Greatwall kinase/MASTL. MASTL is commonly overexpressed in cancer, which makes it a potential therapeutic anticancer target. Loss of Mastl induces multiple chromosomal errors that lead to the accumulation of micronuclei and multilobulated cells in mitosis. Our analyses revealed that loss of Mastl leads to chromosome breaks and abnormalities impairing correct segregation. Phospho-proteomic data for Mastl knockout cells revealed alterations in proteins implicated in multiple processes during mitosis including double-strand DNA damage repair. In silico prediction of the kinases with affected activity unveiled NEK2 to be regulated in the absence of Mastl. We uncovered that, RAD51AP1, involved in regulation of homologous recombination, is phosphorylated by NEK2 and CDK1 but also efficiently dephosphorylated by PP2A/B55. Our results suggest that MastlKO disturbs the equilibrium of the mitotic phosphoproteome that leads to the disruption of DNA damage repair and triggers an accumulation of chromosome breaks even in noncancerous cells.