Large scale, simultaneous chronic neural recordings from multiple brain areas

Understanding how brain activity is related to animal behavior requires measuring multi-area interactions on multiple timescales. However, methods to perform chronic, simultaneous recordings of neural activity from many brain areas are lacking. Here, we introduce a novel approach for independent chronic probe implantation that enables flexible, simultaneous interrogation of neural activity from many brain regions during head restrained or freely moving behavior. The approach enables repeated retrieval and reimplantation of probes. The chronic implantation approach can be combined with other modalities such as skull clearing for cortex wide access and optogenetics with optic fibers. Using this approach, we implanted 6 probes chronically in one hemisphere of the mouse brain. The implant is lightweight, allows flexible targeting with different angles, and offers enhanced stability. Our approach broadens the applications of chronic recording while retaining its main advantages over acute recording (superior stability, longitudinal monitoring of activity and freely moving interrogations) and provides an appealing avenue to study processes not accessible by acute methods, such as the neural substrate of learning across multiple areas.

Neuroscience Cloud Analysis As a Service: An open-source platform for scalable, reproducible data analysis

A key aspect of neuroscience research is the development of powerful, general-purpose data analyses that process large datasets. Unfortunately, modern data analyses have a hidden dependence upon complex computing infrastructure (e.g., software and hardware), which acts as an unaddressed deterrent to analysis users. Although existing analyses are increasingly shared as open-source software, the infrastructure and knowledge needed to deploy these analyses efficiently still pose significant barriers to use. In this work, we develop Neuroscience Cloud Analysis As a Service (NeuroCAAS): a fully automated open-source analysis platform offering automatic infrastructure reproducibility for any data analysis. We show how NeuroCAAS supports the design of simpler, more powerful data analyses and that many popular data analysis tools offered through NeuroCAAS outperform counterparts on typical infrastructure. Pairing rigorous infrastructure management with cloud resources, NeuroCAAS dramatically accelerates the dissemination and use of new data analyses for neuroscientific discovery.

Chronic, cortex-wide imaging of specific cell populations during behavior

Measurements of neuronal activity across brain areas are important for understanding the neural correlates of cognitive and motor processes such as attention, decision-making and action selection. However, techniques that allow cellular resolution measurements are expensive and require a high degree of technical expertise, which limits their broad use. Wide-field imaging of genetically encoded indicators is a high-throughput, cost-effective and flexible approach to measure activity of specific cell populations with high temporal resolution and a cortex-wide field of view. Here we outline our protocol for assembling a wide-field macroscope setup, performing surgery to prepare the intact skull and imaging neural activity chronically in behaving, transgenic mice. Further, we highlight a processing pipeline that leverages novel, cloud-based methods to analyze large-scale imaging datasets. The protocol targets laboratories that are seeking to build macroscopes, optimize surgical procedures for long-term chronic imaging and/or analyze cortex-wide neuronal recordings. The entire protocol, including steps for assembly and calibration of the macroscope, surgical preparation, imaging and data analysis, requires a total of 8 h. It is designed to be accessible to laboratories with limited expertise in imaging methods or interest in high-throughput imaging during behavior.

Abstract P1-08-27: Advanced stage at diagnosis and worse clinicopathologic features in young woman with breast cancer. A sub-analysis of Brazilian population through the AMAZONA III study (GBECAM 0115)

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer (BC) in young women is uncommon and often more aggressive. There are disparities in terms of screening coverage, diagnostic features and access to optimal treatment among young BC patients worldwide. To better understand this scenario through real world data we performed a sub-analysis of AMAZONA III study. METHODS: The AMAZONA III study (GBECAM 0115) is a prospective registry that included 2950 women newly diagnosed with invasive BC in Brazil during the period of January 2016 to March 2018 within 22 sites. Of them, 2888 patients had valid data regarding age at diagnosis and complete baseline information. For the purpose of comparisons of epidemiologic and clinicopathologic features at the time of diagnosis of BC, patients were divided in two groups: women aged ≤40 years (Group 1) and >40 years (Group 2). Quantitative variables were expressed with mean, while categorical variables were described as their count and percentage and compared using the chi-square test. RESULTS: Of 2888 women, 486 (17%) were ≤40 years of age. No differences were found between ethnicity, performance status, body mass index, personal income, health insurance and family history of cancer between the two groups. Young women had higher educational level (p<0.001), were more involved into a labor activity (p<0.001) and were more frequently married (p<0.001). There were also significant differences regarding nulliparity (p<0.001) and previous use of oral contraceptives (p<0.001). Mode of detection of BC was symptomatic in 73.4% of young group versus 64.5% in older group and screen-detected was only 26.6% vs. 35.5% respectively (p<0.001). Table 1 describes clinicopathological characteristics of the two groups. Young women presented more frequently with stage III,T3/T4, Grade 3 tumors and HER-2 positive, Luminal B and triple negative subtypes. Women older than 40 years had more stage I, Luminal A and Grade 1/2 tumors. CONCLUSION: Brazilian women under the age of 40 have unfavorable clinicopathological features of BC at diagnosis with more aggressive subtypes and advanced stage compared with older women. No differences in socioeconomic and ethnical aspects were found but a higher percentage of young women had symptomatic detection of BC which could explain the later stage of disease at diagnosis. Young women were economically active and the majority married which highlights the socioeconomic impact of this disease in Brazil.

Breast cancer features by age groups at diagnosis in Brazilian women.InformationGroup 1 (≤40 years)Group 2 (> 40 years)p-valueN: 2888486 (16.83%)2402 (83.17%) Stage at diagnosis  p< 0.001I76 (19.2%)541 (27.8%) II156 (39.4%)816 (41.9%) III146 (36.8%)489 (25.1%) IV19 (4.6%)101 (5.2%) Tumor size  p< 0.001T1114 (27.1%)749 (36.9%) T2141 (33.6%)764 (37.6%) T3101 (24.1%)282 (13.9%) T464 (15.2%)235 (11.6%) Tumor grade  p < 0.001Grade 146 (10.7%)381 (17.9%) Grade 2198 (46.2%)1150 (52.0%) Grade 3185 (43.1%)641 (30.1%) Molecular Subtype  p < 0.001Luminal A106 (30.6%)957 (51.3%) Luminal B - HER 2 negative55 (15.8%)212 (11.4%) Luminal B- HER 2 positive79 (22.8%)298 (16.0%) HER 2 positive27 (7.8%)135 (7.2%) Triple negative80 (23.0%)264 (14.1%) 

Citation Format: Franzoi MA, Rosa D, Barrios C, Bines J, Cronemberger E, Queiroz G, Cordeiro de Lima VC, Junior R, Couto J, Emerenciano K, Resende H, Crocamo S, Reinert T, Van Evyl B, Neron Y, Dybal V, Lazaretti N, Costamilan RdC, de Andrade D, Mathias C, Zerwes Vacaro G, Borges G, Silva K, Werutsky G, Morelle A, Sampaio Filho CA, Mano M, Zaffaroni F, Simon S, Liedke PE. Advanced stage at diagnosis and worse clinicopathologic features in young woman with breast cancer. A sub-analysis of Brazilian population through the AMAZONA III study (GBECAM 0115) [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-08-27.

Abstract P1-08-29: Current status of clinical and pathological characteristics of breast cancer patients in Brazil: Results of the AMAZONA III study (GBECAM 0115)

BACKGROUND

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common tumor in women in Brazil with about 60 thousand new cases estimated per year. In low and middle-income countries, patients with BC are diagnosed with more advanced stages as compared with high-income countries. In Brazil, disparities in access to new therapies are recognized; previous data suggests worse survival of BC patients treated in the public system. The aim of AMAZONA III study (GBECAM 0115) is to describe the current status of BC care in Brazil. Here we report patients data at baseline.

METHODS

The AMAZONA III is a prospective BC registry that included women 18 years or older with newly diagnosed stage I to IV BC from 22 sites in Brazil in the period of January 2016 to March 2018. All patients provided written informed consent; data was collected from interview and medical charts, comprising clinical-demographic variables, initial treatment and a planned follow-up for 5 years. BC subtypes were defined by hormone receptor (HR) expression, HER2 status and grade according to von Minckwitz G. et al 2012. Here we present a descriptive analysis of the patients' baseline characteristics. Continuous variables are shown as mean (standard-deviation) and categorical variables by its absolute and relative frequencies. The study is registered in clinicaltrials.gov NCT02663973.

RESULTS

A total of 2950 patients were included in the study. Median age at diagnosis was 53 years old (8.4% <= 35 years, 34.8% 36-50 years, 56.8% > 50 years), 58.6% were white, 34.4% had brown skin-color, 83% had children before BC diagnosis (median of 1 child/patient) and 63.1% had public health insurance. In terms of method of detection 34% were screen-detected whereas 66% were symptomatic, the last was even higher (70%) in patients in younger than 50 years. The distribution of BC stage at diagnosis was I (26.4%), II (41.6%), III (27%) and IV (5%). The most common histologies were ductal (80.9%) and lobular carcinoma (6.9%). The pathological characteristics were HR positive in 78.0%, HER-2 positive in 23.4% and grade 2 in 51%. BC subtypes were as follows: Luminal A 48%, Luminal B 12%, Luminal HER2 positive 17%, Non-luminal HER2 positive 7.3% and Triple negative 15.5%.

DISCUSSION

Breast cancer is diagnosed at an earlier age among Brazilian patients. The majority of patients were detected through symptomatic BC and therefore a significant proportion is still diagnosed in stages III and IV. Among other factors, these findings could have a significant impact in treatment outcomes. Further analysis of this large cohort of patients will help to identify other important elements and direct future strategies for breast cancer control.

TRIAL REGISTRY: NCT02663973

KEYWORDS: Breast Cancer; Epidemiology; Treatment; Brazil

Citation Format: Rosa D, Barrios C, Bines J, Werustky G, Cronemberger E, Queiroz GS, Lima VC, Freitas-Júnior R, Couto J, Emerenciano K, Resende H, Crocamo S, Reinert T, Van Eyil B, Néron Y, Dybal V, Lazaretti N, Costamilan RC, Andrade DA, Mathias C, Vacaro GZ, Borges G, Torres KL, Morelle A, Sampaio Filho CA, Mano M, Zaffaroni F, Simon S. Current status of clinical and pathological characteristics of breast cancer patients in Brazil: Results of the AMAZONA III study (GBECAM 0115) [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-08-29.

The Anopheles gambiae transcriptome - a turning point for malaria control

Mosquitoes are important vectors of several pathogens and thereby contribute to the spread of diseases, with social, economic and public health impacts. Amongst the approximately 450 species of Anopheles, about 60 are recognized as vectors of human malaria, the most important parasitic disease. In Africa, Anopheles gambiae is the main malaria vector mosquito. Current malaria control strategies are largely focused on drugs and vector control measures such as insecticides and bed-nets. Improvement of current, and the development of new, mosquito-targeted malaria control methods rely on a better understanding of mosquito vector biology. An organism's transcriptome is a reflection of its physiological state and transcriptomic analyses of different conditions that are relevant to mosquito vector competence can therefore yield important information. Transcriptomic analyses have contributed significant information on processes such as blood-feeding parasite-vector interaction, insecticide resistance, and tissue- and stage-specific gene regulation, thereby facilitating the path towards the development of new malaria control methods. Here, we discuss the main applications of transcriptomic analyses in An. gambiae that have led to a better understanding of mosquito vector competence.

Duration of Purkinje cell complex spikes increases with their firing frequency

Climbing fiber (CF) triggered complex spikes (CS) are massive depolarization bursts in the cerebellar Purkinje cell (PC), showing several high frequency spikelet components (±600 Hz). Since its early observations, the CS is known to vary in shape. In this study we describe CS waveforms, extracellularly recorded in awake primates (Macaca mulatta) performing saccades. Every PC analyzed showed a range of CS shapes with profoundly different duration and number of spikelets. The initial part of the CS was rather constant but the later part differed greatly, with a pronounced jitter of the last spikelets causing a large variation in total CS duration. Waveforms did not effect the following pause duration in the simple spike (SS) train, nor were SS firing rates predictive of the waveform shapes or vice versa. The waveforms did not differ between experimental conditions nor was there a preferred sequential order of CS shapes throughout the recordings. Instead, part of their variability, the timing jitter of the CS’s last spikelets, strongly correlated with interval length to the preceding CS: shorter CS intervals resulted in later appearance of the last spikelets in the CS burst, and vice versa. A similar phenomenon was observed in rat PCs recorded in vitro upon repeated extracellular stimulation of CFs at different frequencies in slice experiments. All together these results strongly suggest that the variability in the timing of the last spikelet is due to CS frequency dependent changes in PC excitability.

Subchronic memantine induced concurrent functional disconnectivity and altered ultra-structural tissue integrity in the rodent brain: revealed by multimodal MRI

BACKGROUND

An effective NMDA antagonist imaging model may find key utility in advancing schizophrenia drug discovery research. We investigated effects of subchronic treatment with the NMDA antagonist memantine by using behavioural observation and multimodal MRI.

METHODS

Pharmacological MRI (phMRI) was used to map the neuroanatomical binding sites of memantine after acute and subchronic treatment. Resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI) and diffusion MRI were used to study the changes in functional connectivity (FC) and ultra-structural tissue integrity before and after subchronic memantine treatment. Further corroborating behavioural evidences were documented.

RESULTS

Dose-dependent phMRI activation was observed in the prelimbic cortex following acute doses of memantine. Subchronic treatment revealed significant effects in the hippocampus, cingulate, prelimbic and retrosplenial cortices. Decreases in FC amongst the hippocampal and frontal cortical structures (prelimbic, cingulate) were apparent through rs-fMRI investigation, indicating a loss of connectivity. Diffusion kurtosis MRI showed decreases in fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity changes, suggesting ultra-structural changes in the hippocampus and cingulate cortex. Limited behavioural assessment suggested that memantine induced behavioural effects comparable to other NMDA antagonists as measured by locomotor hyperactivity and that the effects could be reversed by antipsychotic drugs.

CONCLUSION

Our findings substantiate the hypothesis that repeated NMDA receptor blockade with nonspecific, noncompetitive NMDA antagonists may lead to functional and ultra-structural alterations, particularly in the hippocampus and cingulate cortex. These changes may underlie the behavioural effects. Furthermore, the present findings underscore the utility and the translational potential of multimodal MR imaging and acute/subchronic memantine model in the search for novel disease-modifying treatments for schizophrenia.

Genetic study of the myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) gene in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a neuropsychiatric disorder that affects approximately 1% of the general population. The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system has been implicated in several genetic studies of SCZ. The myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) gene, which is located close to the HLA region, is considered a candidate for SCZ due to its association with white matter abnormalities and its importance in mediating the complement cascade. Four polymorphisms in the MOG gene (CA)n (TAAA)n, and two intronic polymorphisms, C1334T and C10991T, were investigated for the possibility of association with SCZ using 111 SCZ proband and their families. We examined the transmission of the alleles of each of these polymorphisms with the transmission disequilibrium test. We did not observe significant evidence for biased transmission of alleles at the (CA)n (chi2=2.430, 6 df, P=0.876) (TAAA)n (chi2=3.550, 5 df, P=0.616), C1334T (chi2=0.040, 1 df, P=0.841) and C10991T (chi2=0.154, 1 df, P=0.695) polymorphisms. Overall haplotype analysis using the TRANSMIT program was also not significant (chi2=7.954, 9 df, P=0.539). Furthermore, our results comparing mean age at onset in the genotype groups using the Kruskal-Wallis Test were not significant. Our case-control analyses (182 cases age-, sex- and ethnicity-matched with healthy controls) and combined z-score [(CA)n: z-score=-1.126, P=0.130; (TAAA)n: z-score=-0.233, P=0.408; C1334T: z-score=0.703, P=0.241; C10991T: z-score=0.551, P=0.291] were also not significant. Although our data are negative, the intriguing hypothesis for MOG in SCZ may warrant further investigation of this gene.

A streamlined process to phenotypically profile heterologous cDNAs in parallel using yeast cell-based assays

To meet the demands of developing lead drugs for the profusion of human genes being sequenced as part of the human genome project, we developed a high-throughput assay construction method in yeast. A set of optimized techniques allows us to rapidly transfer large numbers of heterologous cDNAs from nonyeast plasmids into yeast expression vectors. These high- or low-copy yeast expression plasmids are then converted quickly into integration-competent vectors for phenotypic profiling of the heterologous gene products. The process was validated first by testing proteins of diverse function, such as p38, poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1, and PI 3-kinase, by making active-site mutations and using existing small molecule inhibitors of these proteins. For less well-characterized genes, a novel random mutagenesis scheme was developed that allows a combination selection/screen for mutations that retain full-length expression and yet reverse a growth phenotype in yeast. A broad range of proteins in different functional classes has been profiled, with an average yield for growth interference phenotypes of approximately 30%. The ease of manipulation of the yeast genome affords us the opportunity to approach drug discovery and exploratory biology on a genomic scale and shortens assay development time significantly.

Novel inhibitors of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase/PARP1 and PARP2 identified using a cell-based screen in yeast

Multicellular organisms must have means of preserving their genomic integrity or face catastrophic consequences such as uncontrolled cell proliferation or massive cell death. One response is a modification of nuclear proteins by the addition and removal of polymers of ADP-ribose that modulate the properties of DNA-binding proteins involved in DNA repair and metabolism. These ADP-ribose units are added by poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) and removed by poly(ADP-ribose) glycohydrolase. Although budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae does not possess proteins with significant sequence similarity to the human PARP family of proteins, we identified novel small molecule inhibitors against two family members, PARP1 and PARP2, using a cell-based assay in yeast. The assay was based on the reversal of growth inhibition caused by the heterologous expression of either PARP1 or PARP2. Validation of the assay was achieved by showing that the growth inhibition was relieved by a mutation in a single residue in the catalytic site of PARP1 or PARP2 or exposure of yeast to a known PARP1 inhibitor, 6(5H)-phenanthridinone. In separate experiments, when a putative protein regulator of PARP activity, human poly(ADP-ribose) glycohydrolase, was coexpressed with PARP1 or PARP2, yeast growth was restored. Finally, the inhibitors identified by screening the yeast assay are active in a mammalian PARP biochemical assay and inhibit PARP1 and PARP2 activity in yeast cell extracts. Thus, our data reflect the strength of using yeast to identify small molecule inhibitors of therapeutically relevant gene families, including those that are not found in yeast, such as PARP. The resultant inhibitors have two critical uses (a) as leads for drug development and (b) as tools to dissect cellular function.

Autologous fibrin glue as a sealant of the common bile duct

Autologous fibrin glue was evaluated as a sealant of the common bile duct (CBD) with the use of experimental animal models. It proved to be highly effective. Since it is a safe product that can be easily obtained from the patient's own blood, it may find useful application in most biliary tract procedures, liver transplants, and hepatectomies.