Detecting adherence to the recommended childhood vaccination schedule from user-generated content in a US parenting forum

Vaccine hesitancy is considered as one of the leading causes for the resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases. A non-negligible minority of parents does not fully adhere to the recommended vaccination schedule, leading their children to be partially immunized and at higher risk of contracting vaccine preventable diseases. Here, we leverage more than one million comments of 201,986 users posted from March 2008 to April 2019 on the public online forum BabyCenter US to learn more about such parents. For 32% with geographic location, we find the number of mapped users for each US state resembling the census population distribution with good agreement. We employ Natural Language Processing to identify 6884 and 10,131 users expressing their intention of following the recommended and alternative vaccination schedule, respectively RSUs and ASUs. From the analysis of their activity on the forum we find that ASUs have distinctly different interests and previous experiences with vaccination than RSUs. In particular, ASUs are more likely to follow groups focused on alternative medicine, are two times more likely to have experienced adverse events following immunization, and to mention more serious adverse reactions such as seizure or developmental regression. Content analysis of comments shows that the resources most frequently shared by both groups point to governmental domains (.gov). Finally, network analysis shows that RSUs and ASUs communicate between each other (indicating the absence of echo chambers), however with the latter group being more endogamic and favoring interactions with other ASUs. While our findings are limited to the specific platform analyzed, our approach may provide additional insights for the development of campaigns targeting parents on digital platforms.     

Photoincorporation of [3H]-chloropromazine into a solubilized bovine striatal preparation

Photolysis at 300 nm of [³H]-chlorpromazine (CPZ) in the presence of a digitonin-solubilized bovine striatal homogenate results in the formation of a high molecular mass component (>200,000 daltons) which does not arise upon photolysis of either [³H]-CPZ or the solubilized preparation separately. Additional components of low molecular mass are observed in both photolyzed and unphotolyzed preparations. The high molecular mass component to which [³H]-CPZ binds irreversibly contains a significant fraction of the initial [³H] activity. The formation of the high molecular mass component is inhibited by 35 ± 9% when the original photolysis is performed in the presence of 500 nM (+)-butaclamol, an active antagonist of specific binding to postsynaptic dopamine receptors, compared to photolysis in the presence of 500 nM (?)-butaclamol, which has negligible specific affinity for these dopamine receptors. EGTA at a concentration of 5mM has no effect on the photolabeling by [³H]-CPZ. SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoretic separation of the high molecular mass component shows a major band at ～61,000 daltons which is not evidenced in the low molecular mass fraction. These observations suggest that upon photoexcitation CPZ may photocrosslink a complex of membrane proteins which includes a neuronal DA receptor.     

Screening Human Genes for Small Alterations Performing an Enzymatic Cleavage Mismatched Analysis (ECMA) Protocol

Many human diseases are caused by small alterations in the genes and in the majority of cases sophisticated protocols are required for their detection. In this study we estimated the efficacy of an enzymatic protocol, which using a new mismatch-specific DNA plant endonuclease from celery (CEL family) recognizes and cleaves mismatched alleles between mutant and normal PCR products. The protocol was standardized on a variety of known mutations, in 11 patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), Fabry’s disease (FD), steroid 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-HD), and Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy (DMD/BMD). The method does not require special equipment, labeling or standardization for every PCR product, since conditions of heteroduplex formation and enzyme digestion are universal for all products. The results showed that the method is rapid, effective, safe, reliable, and very simple, as the mutations are visualized on agarose or nusieve/agarose gels. The protocol was furthermore evaluated in three DMD patients with the detection of three alterations, which after sequencing, were characterized as disease causative mutations. The proposed assay, which was applied for the first time in a variety of monogenic disorders, indicates that point mutation identification is feasible in any conventional molecular lab even for cases where other techniques have failed.