Psychosocial interventions and strategies to support young people at mass gathering events: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES

To improve health and safety outcomes at mass gathering events (MGEs) for young attendees, it is essential to understand the psychosocial factors that may influence behaviour so that the implementation of support strategies before, during and after MGEs can be developed to enhance outcomes. This review identifies the psychosocial outcomes that may occur at MGEs, including social connection, substance use, risky behaviours and psychological distress and examines what interventions have been implemented to target these outcomes.

STUDY DESIGN

Scoping review.

METHODS

This study examined MGE psychosocial interventions with predominantly youth attendees was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. Papers were collected from the databases CINAHL, MEDLINE, Embase and PsycINFO. Titles and abstracts were scanned for relevance, followed by a full-text screening. Information relevant to the research question was extracted from papers meeting the inclusion criteria.

RESULTS

Twenty-six papers met the inclusion criteria. The psychosocial factors that were most studied included social influence, social interactions and psychological stressors, which lead to behaviours such as excessive alcohol consumption, drug taking, risky casual sex and risk taking amongst psychological factors of young attendees. Effective interventions implemented before or during MGEs, such as alcohol-free zones, antidrinking campaigns, psychoeducation and disapproval from parents with regard to drinking alcohol, showed promise in reducing harms.

CONCLUSION

Psychosocial interventions have the potential to reduce harms and enhance well-being for young people attending MGEs. This review has identified gaps and opportunities in the current literature with regard to psychosocial interventions and strategies to support young people at MGEs and makes recommendations to support the development and refinement of evidence-based interventions aimed at young MGE attendees.

Exploring the Galectin Network by Light and Fluorescence Microscopy

Dynamic changes of a cell's glycophenotype are increasingly interpreted as shifts in the capacity to interact with tissue (endogenous) lectins. The status of glycan branching or chain length (e.g., core 1 vs core 2 mucin-type O-glycans and polyLacNAc additions) as well as of sialylation/sulfation has been delineated to convey signals. They are "read" by galectins, for example regulating lattice formation on the membrane and cell growth. Owing to the discovery of the possibility that these effectors act in networks physiologically resulting in functional antagonism or cooperation, their detection and distribution profiling need to be expanded from an individual (single) protein to the-at best-entire family. How to work with non-cross-reactive antibodies and with the labeled tissue-derived proteins (used as probes) is exemplarily documented for chicken and human galectins including typical activity and specificity controls. This description intends to inspire the systematic (network) study of members of a lectin family and also the application of tissue proteins beyond a single lectin category in lectin histochemistry.

Galectin-Glycan Interactions: Guidelines for Monitoring by 77 Se NMR Spectroscopy, and Solvent (H2 O/D2 O) Impact on Binding

Functional pairing between cellular glycoconjugates and tissue lectins like galectins has wide (patho)physiological significance. Their study is facilitated by nonhydrolysable derivatives of the natural O‐glycans, such as S‐ and Se‐glycosides. The latter enable extensive analyses by specific ⁷⁷Se NMR spectroscopy, but still remain underexplored. By using the example of selenodigalactoside (SeDG) and the human galectin‐1 and ‐3, we have evaluated diverse ⁷⁷Se NMR detection methods and propose selective ¹H,⁷⁷Se heteronuclear Hartmann–Hahn transfer for efficient use in competitive NMR screening against a selenoglycoside spy ligand. By fluorescence anisotropy, circular dichroism, and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), we show that the affinity and thermodynamics of SeDG binding by galectins are similar to thiodigalactoside (TDG) and N‐acetyllactosamine (LacNAc), confirming that Se substitution has no major impact. ITC data in D₂O versus H₂O are similar for TDG and LacNAc binding by both galectins, but a solvent effect, indicating solvent rearrangement at the binding site, is hinted at for SeDG and clearly observed for LacNAc dimers with extended chain length.

Influence of protein (human galectin-3) design on aspects of lectin activity

The concept of biomedical significance of the functional pairing between tissue lectins and their glycoconjugate counterreceptors has reached the mainstream of research on the flow of biological information. A major challenge now is to identify the principles of structure–activity relationships that underlie specificity of recognition and the ensuing post-binding processes. Toward this end, we focus on a distinct feature on the side of the lectin, i.e. its architecture to present the carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD). Working with a multifunctional human lectin, i.e. galectin-3, as model, its CRD is used in protein engineering to build variants with different modular assembly. Hereby, it becomes possible to compare activity features of the natural design, i.e. CRD attached to an N-terminal tail, with those of homo- and heterodimers and the tail-free protein. Thermodynamics of binding disaccharides proved full activity of all proteins at very similar affinity. The following glycan array testing revealed maintained preferential contact formation with N-acetyllactosamine oligomers and histo-blood group ABH epitopes irrespective of variant design. The study of carbohydrate-inhibitable binding of the test panel disclosed up to qualitative cell-type-dependent differences in sections of fixed murine epididymis and especially jejunum. By probing topological aspects of binding, the susceptibility to inhibition by a tetravalent glycocluster was markedly different for the wild-type vs the homodimeric variant proteins. The results teach the salient lesson that protein design matters: the type of CRD presentation can have a profound bearing on whether basically suited oligosaccharides, which for example tested positively in an array, will become binding partners in situ. When lectin-glycoconjugate aggregates (lattices) are formed, their structural organization will depend on this parameter. Further testing (ga)lectin variants will thus be instrumental (i) to define the full range of impact of altering protein assembly and (ii) to explain why certain types of design have been favored during the course of evolution, besides opening biomedical perspectives for potential applications of the novel galectin forms.

Positional Scanning MUC1 Glycopeptide Library Reveals the Importance of PDTR Epitope Glycosylation for Lectin Binding

One of the main barriers to explaining the functional significance of glycan-based changes in cancer is the natural epitope heterogeneity found on the surface of cancer cells. To help address this knowledge gap, we focused on designing synthetic tools to explore the role of tumor-associated glycans of MUC1 in the formation of metastasis via association with lectins. In this study, we have synthesized for the first time a MUC1-derived positional scanning synthetic glycopeptide combinatorial library (PS-SGCL) that vary in number and location of cancer-associated Tn antigen using the "tea bag" approach. The determination of the isokinetic ratios necessary for the equimolar incorporation of (glyco)amino acids mixtures to resin-bound amino acid was determined, along with developing an efficient protocol for on resin deprotection of O-acetyl groups. Enzyme-linked lectin assay was used to screen PS-SGCL against two plant lectins, Glycine max soybean agglutinin and Vicia villosa. The results revealed a carbohydrate density-dependent affinity trend and site-specific glycosylation requirements for high affinity binding to these lectins. Hence, PS-SGCLs provide a platform to systematically elucidate MUC1-lectin binding specificities, which in the long term may provide a rational design for novel inhibitors of MUC1-lectin interactions involved in tumor spread and glycopeptide-based cancer vaccines.