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ObjectiveThis study was carried out to identify the frequency and types of injuries in adult ice hockey, in order to better understand injury patterns and identify potential areas for injury prevention.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective database review of acute injuries reported in ice hockey in patients presenting to a Level-1 adult Emergency Centre in Switzerland. Patients between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2019 and over 16 years of age were identified in our computerised patient database. Each consultation was reviewed to derive information on demographics, playing level and the features of the injury, including location, type, mechanism and consequences. Different age groups were compared, as were amateur and professional players. A statistical analysis was performed.ResultsA total of 230 patients were identified. The most common diagnoses were fracture (28.3%), contusion/abrasion (23.9%), laceration (12.6%) and concussion (10.4%). The most commonly affected body parts were the face (31.3%), the shoulder/clavicle (13.0%) and the head (12.2%). Most lesions were caused by player-player contact (37.4%), contact with the puck (24.3%) and falls (10.9%). In comparison to the younger cohorts, patients >36 years of age more frequently suffered injuries caused by falls, (p < 0.001) and were less frequently injured by player-player contact (p = 0.01813). In amateur players, significantly more injuries were caused by stick contact (OR 0, 95% CI (0.00-0.83), p = 0.02) and surgery was more rarely performed (OR 2.35, 95% CI 0.98-5.46, p = 0.04).ConclusionsInjuries continue to play a major role in ice hockey, especially in the face and due to player-player contact. Future investigations should focus on player-player contact and possible effective preventive measures. Players must be encouraged to employ face protection and to wear a mouth guard at all times.

PI3K signaling is frequently dysregulated in NSCLC-SQCC. In contrast to well characterized components of the PI3K signaling network contributing to the formation of SQCC, potential oncogenic effects of alterations in PIK3C2B are poorly understood. Here, a large cohort (n = 362) of NSCLC-SQCC was selectively screened for four reported somatic mutations in PIK3C2B via Sanger sequencing. In addition, two mutations leading to an amino acid exchange in the kinase domain (C1181, H1208R) were examined on a functional level. None of the mutations were identified in the cohort while well characterized hotspot PIK3CA mutations were observed at the expected frequency. Ultimately, kinase domain mutations in PI3KC2β were found to have no altering effect on downstream signaling. A set of SQCC tumors sequenced by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) equally indicates a lack of oncogenic potential of the kinase domain mutations or PIK3C2B in general. Taken together, this study suggests that PIK3C2B might only have a minor role in SQCC oncogenesis.

Recurrent airway obstruction (RAO) is a common and potentially debilitating lower airway disease in horses, which shares many similarities with human asthma. In susceptible horses RAO exacerbation is caused by environmental allergens and irritants present in hay dust. The objective of this study was the identification of genes and pathways involved in the pathology of RAO by global transcriptome analyses in stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). We performed RNA-seq on PBMCs derived from 40 RAO affected and 45 control horses belonging to three cohorts of Warmblood horses: two half-sib families and one group of unrelated horses. PBMCs were stimulated with hay dust extract, lipopolysaccharides, a recombinant parasite antigen, or left unstimulated. The total dataset consisted of 561 individual samples. We detected significant differences in the expression profiles between RAO and control horses. Differential expression (DE) was most marked upon stimulation with hay dust extract. An important novel finding was a strong upregulation of CXCL13 together with many genes involved in cell cycle regulation in stimulated samples from RAO affected horses, in addition to changes in the expression of several HIF-1 transcription factor target genes. The RAO condition alters systemic changes observed as differential expression profiles of PBMCs. Those changes also depended on the cohort and stimulation of the samples and were dominated by genes involved in immune cell trafficking, development, and cell cycle regulation. Our findings indicate an important role of CXCL13, likely macrophage or Th17 derived, and the cell cycle regulator CDC20 in the immune response in RAO.

Complete transcriptomic data at high resolution are available only for a few model organisms with medical importance. The gene structures of non-model organisms are mostly computationally predicted based on comparative genomics with other species. As a result, more than half of the horse gene models are known only by projection. Experimental data supporting these gene models are scarce. Moreover, most of the annotated equine genes are single-transcript genes. Utilizing RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) the experimental validation of predicted transcriptomes has become accessible at reasonable costs. To improve the horse genome annotation we performed RNA-seq on 561 samples of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) derived from 85 Warmblood horses. The mapped sequencing reads were used to build a new transcriptome assembly. The new assembly revealed many alternative isoforms associated to known genes or to those predicted by the Ensembl and/or Gnomon pipelines. We also identified 7,531 transcripts not associated with any horse gene annotated in public databases. Of these, 3,280 transcripts did not have a homologous match to any sequence deposited in the NCBI EST database suggesting horse specificity. The unknown transcripts were categorized as coding and noncoding based on predicted coding potential scores. Among them 230 transcripts had high coding potential score, at least 2 exons, and an open reading frame of at least 300 nt. We experimentally validated 9 new equine coding transcripts using RT-PCR and Sanger sequencing. Our results provide valuable detailed information on many transcripts yet to be annotated in the horse genome.