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Potash mining, typically performed for agricultural fertilizer production, can create piles of residual salt waste that are ecologically detrimental and difficult to revegetate. Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) have been found growing on and around these heaps, suggesting resilience to the hypersaline environment. We set out to understand the community dynamics of biocrust formation by examining two succesionary salinity gradients at historical mining sites using a high throughput amplicon sequencing. Bare heaps were distinct, with little overlap between sites, and were characterized by high salinity, low nutrient availability, and specialized, low diversity microbial communities, dominated by Halobacteria, Chloroflexia, and Deinococci. 'Initial' stages of biocrust development were dominated by site-specific Cyanobacteria, with significant overlap between sites. Established biocrusts were the most diverse, with large proportions of Alphaproteobacteria, Anaerolineae, and Planctomycetacia. Along the salinity gradient at both sites, salinity decreased, pH decreased, and nutrients and Chlorophyll a increased. Microbiomes between sites converged during succession and community assembly process analysis revealed biocrusts at both sites were dominated by deterministic, niche-based processes; indicating a high degree of phylogenetic turnover. We posit early cyanobacterial colonization is essential for biocrust initiation, and facilitates later establishment of plant and other higher-level biota., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of FEMS.)

Objective: One of the main medical treatment options for monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (MNE) is the vasopressin analog desmopressin. But not all children respond to desmopressin treatment, and no reliable treatment predictor has yet been established. We hypothesize that plasma copeptin, a surrogate marker for vasopressin, can be used to predict treatment response to desmopressin in children with MNE., Design/methods: In this prospective observational study, we included 28 children with MNE. At baseline, we assessed the number of wet nights, morning, and evening plasma copeptin, and plasma sodium and started treatment with desmopressin (120 µg daily). Desmopressin was increased to 240 µg daily if clinically necessary. The primary endpoint was reduction in the number of wet nights following 12 weeks of treatment with desmopressin using plasma copeptin ratio (evening/morning copeptin) at baseline., Results: Eighteen children responded to desmopressin treatment at 12 weeks, while 9 did not. A copeptin ratio cutoff of 1.34 (sensitivity 55.56%, specificity 94.12%, area under the curve 70.6%, P = .07) was best at predicting treatment response, with a lower ratio indicating a better treatment response. In contrast, neither the number of wet nights at baseline (P = .15) nor serum sodium (P = .11) alone or in combination with plasma copeptin improved outcome prediction., Conclusions: Our results indicate that, of our investigated parameters, plasma copeptin ratio is the best predictor for treatment response in children with MNE. Plasma copeptin ratio could thus be useful to identify children with the highest benefit of desmopressin treatment and improve individualized treatment of MNE., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: M.C.-C. has received speaker honoraria from Thermofisher AG, the manufacturer of the copeptin assay. M.C.-C. is on the editorial board of EJE. She was not involved in the review or editorial process for this paper, on which she is listed as an author. All other authors report no conflict of interests., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of (ESE) European Society of Endocrinology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Purpose: The purpose of this manuscript is to describe our experience developing an antimicrobial stewardship (AS) module as a clinical decision support tool in the Epic electronic health record (EHR)., Summary: Clinical decision support systems within the EHR can be used to decrease use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, improve antibiotic selection and dosing, decrease adverse effects, reduce antibiotic costs, and reduce the development of antibiotic resistance. The Johns Hopkins Hospital constructed an AS module within Epic. Customized stewardship alerts and scoring systems were developed to triage patients requiring stewardship intervention. This required a multidisciplinary approach with a team comprising AS physicians and pharmacists and Epic information technology personnel, with assistance from clinical microbiology and infection control when necessary. In addition, an intervention database was enhanced with stewardship-specific interventions, and workbench reports were developed specific to AS needs. We herein review the process, advantages, and challenges associated with the development of the Epic AS module., Conclusion: Customizing an AS module in an EHR requires significant time and expertise in antimicrobials; however, AS modules have the potential to improve the efficiency of AS personnel in performing daily stewardship activities and reporting through a single system., (© American Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2021. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Viruses closely related to human pathogens can reveal the origins of human infectious diseases. Human herpes simplexvirus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2) are hypothesized to have arisen via host-virus codivergence and cross-species transmission. We report the discovery of novel herpes simplexviruses during a large-scale screening of fecal samples from wild gorillas, bonobos, and chimpanzees. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that, contrary to expectation, simplexviruses from these African apes are all more closely related to HSV-2 than to HSV-1. Molecular clock-based hypothesis testing suggests the divergence between HSV-1 and the African great ape simplexviruses likely represents a codivergence event between humans and gorillas. The simplexviruses infecting African great apes subsequently experienced multiple cross-species transmission events over the past 3 My, the most recent of which occurred between humans and bonobos around 1 Ma. These findings revise our understanding of the origins of human herpes simplexviruses and suggest that HSV-2 is one of the earliest zoonotic pathogens., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.)

Herpesviruses are thought to have evolved in very close association with their hosts. This is notably the case for cytomegaloviruses (CMVs; genus Cytomegalovirus ) infecting primates, which exhibit a strong signal of co-divergence with their hosts. Some herpesviruses are however known to have crossed species barriers. Based on a limited sampling of CMV diversity in the hominine (African great ape and human) lineage, we hypothesized that chimpanzees and gorillas might have mutually exchanged CMVs in the past. Here, we performed a comprehensive molecular screening of all 9 African great ape species/subspecies, using 675 fecal samples collected from wild animals. We identified CMVs in eight species/subspecies, notably generating the first CMV sequences from bonobos. We used this extended dataset to test competing hypotheses with various degrees of co-divergence/number of host switches while simultaneously estimating the dates of these events in a Bayesian framework. The model best supported by the data involved the transmission of a gorilla CMV to the panine (chimpanzee and bonobo) lineage and the transmission of a panine CMV to the gorilla lineage prior to the divergence of chimpanzees and bonobos, more than 800,000 years ago. Panine CMVs then co-diverged with their hosts. These results add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that viruses with a double-stranded DNA genome (including other herpesviruses, adenoviruses, and papillomaviruses) often jumped between hominine lineages over the last few million years.

Skin biopsies were performed on female (NZB X NZW)F1 mice (B/W) at ages ranging from 1 to 12 months. The control strain was the C57B1/6. Immunoglobulin G and beta 1C globulin deposition was sought using the indirect immunofluorescence method. Both globulins were detected consistently at the dermal-epidermal junction from the age of 6 months. The pattern of staining was granular, and progressed from focal deposition to confluent and diffuse involvement of the basement membrane at 9-10 months of age. No staining was observed in any of the C57B1/6 mice up to 14 months of age. These findings increase the resemblance of B/W disease to human systemic lupus erythematosus.