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Background: Polyphenols are secondary metabolites produced by plants to defend themselves from environmental stressors. We explored the effect of Wolffia globosa 'Mankai', a novel cultivated strain of a polyphenol-rich aquatic plant, on the metabolomic-gut clinical axis in vitro, in-vivo and in a clinical trial., Methods: We used mass-spectrometry-based metabolomics methods from three laboratories to detect Mankai phenolic metabolites and examined predicted functional pathways in a Mankai artificial-gut bioreactor. Plasma and urine polyphenols were assessed among the 294 DIRECT-PLUS 18-month trial participants, comparing the effect of a polyphenol-rich green-Mediterranean diet (+1240 mg/polyphenols/day, provided by Mankai, green tea and walnuts) to a walnuts-enriched (+440 mg/polyphenols/day) Mediterranean diet and a healthy controlled diet., Results: Approximately 200 different phenolic compounds were specifically detected in the Mankai plant. The Mankai-supplemented bioreactor artificial gut displayed a significantly higher relative-abundance of 16S-rRNA bacterial gene sequences encoding for enzymes involved in phenolic compound degradation. In humans, several Mankai-related plasma and urine polyphenols were differentially elevated in the green Mediterranean group compared with the other groups ( p < 0.05) after six and 18 months of intervention (e.g., urine hydroxy-phenyl-acetic-acid and urolithin-A; plasma Naringenin and 2,5-diOH-benzoic-acid). Specific polyphenols, such as urolithin-A and 4-ethylphenol, were directly involved with clinical weight-related changes., Conclusions: The Mankai new plant is rich in various unique potent polyphenols, potentially affecting the metabolomic-gut-clinical axis.

Objective: To identify prognostic factors of clinical outcome and long-term survival in medullary thyroid cancer (MTC)., Design: Retrospective case series of 51 consecutive patients (mean age 46.9 years, 57% female) treated at a single tertiary university medical center from 1970 to 2005. Medical records were reviewed for demographic data, laboratory and clinical course, treatment, and long-term outcome., Main Outcome: At presentation, 25 patients (49%) had local disease and 26 (51%) had metastatic disease (three with distant metastases). RET mutations were identified in nine of 23 patients tested. The patients with hereditary disease were younger than the patients with sporadic disease (p < 0.001) and had lower calcitonin levels at diagnosis (p = 0.004) and more multicentric tumors (p = 0.02). Initial surgery consisted of total thyroidectomy in 47 patients, with neck dissection in 26; 22 patients achieved long-term remission. The 5-, 10- and 15-year survival rates were 88%, 85%, and 77%, respectively. On univariate analysis, distant metastases during the course of the disease and elevated calcitonin levels postoperatively were significant prognostic factors of reduced survival (p = 0.001 and 0.016, respectively). Lymph node involvement at initial surgery was associated with a lower remission rate (p = 0.016) but had no impact on long-term survival (p = 0.269)., Conclusion: Patients with MTC have a generally favorable outcome, perhaps owing to recent advances in diagnosis and treatment. Although postoperative serum calcitonin level and distant metastases are the only determinants of long-term survival, the presence of cervical metastases is predictive of a higher risk of recurrent or persistent disease.

Recent enhancements and current research in the GeneCards (GC) (http://bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il/cards/) project are described, including the addition of gene expression profiles and integrated gene locations. Also highlighted are the contributions of specialized associated human gene-centric databases developed at the Weizmann Institute. These include the Unified Database (UDB) (http://bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il/udb) for human genome mapping, the human Chromosome 21 database at the Weizmann Insti-tute (CroW 21) (http://bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il/crow21), and the Human Olfactory Receptor Data Explora-torium (HORDE) (http://bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il/HORDE). The synergistic relationships amongst these efforts have positively impacted the quality, quantity and usefulness of the GeneCards gene compendium.

This study was designed to explore whether native Hebrew and English speakers differ in their susceptibility to the blend illusion and in their lip-reading of words and cliché sentences. Four lip-reading tests, designed to assess recognition of syllables, words, and overlearned sentences, were administered to two groups of subjects who were matched for age, sex, and educational level. The English-speaking group showed significantly higher susceptibility to the blending illusion. The source of the effect was in the enhanced sensitivity to the auditory input in males along with reduced number of auditory biases in females. No sex differences in lip-reading of any item of the lip-reading battery was obtained in native Hebrew speakers. Subjects in both groups performed at the same level in recognizing the words and overlearned sentences. The result is attributed to the shorter Voice Onset Time values of Hebrew when native listeners would hear acoustic messages prior to discernable lip movements.