Search

Background: The Department of Clinical Cancer Genetics at the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana offers genetic counselling and testing to cancer patients and their relatives. Before undergoing genetic testing, patients sign the informed consent form. In addition to giving consent for collection of biological material and genetic testing, patients decide about storage of biological material and participation in international databases. Furthermore, patients decide whether the information regarding their test results may be revealed to their blood relatives and whether they want to be informed about secondary findings., Methods: Using the signed consent forms, we investigated the effect of selected factors on patients' decisions. Using different statistical methods, we tried to determine the proportion of patients who opted for different items and the effect of gender, age and cancer diagnoses on their decisions., Results: Nearly all (99.6%) patients, regardless of gender, age, and presence of oncological diagnosis, consented to the storage of their biological material, 98.4% of patients, regardless of gender, age, and presence of oncological diagnosis, wanted to be included in international databases in a pseudo-anonymised form, 98.8% of patients, irrespective of gender, age, and presence of oncological diagnosis, allowed blood relatives to see their results, and 98.4% of patients, irrespective of gender, age and presence of oncological diagnosis, wanted to know whether secondary findings were detected when genetic analysis of their biological material was performed. Men are, on average, more likely to consent but the difference between genders is not statistically significant. Patients without oncological disease were more likely to agree to be included in international databases than patients with a confirmed oncological diagnosis., Conclusions: Our results show that the vast majority of patients were in favour of the options they were offered. Most importantly, the majority of them allow their genetic test results be revealed to their blood relatives when needed and would participate in international databases. Research in rare diseases, including rare cancer genetic predisposition syndromes, is crucial for optimal diagnostic, prevention and treatment options for patients with rare genetic disorders. The results are also important for refining the approach to pre-and post-test cancer genetic counselling., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval >and concent to participate: The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana, the Institutional Review Board of the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana (KSOPKR (ERIDNPVO/-0025/2020)) and the National Medical Ethics Committee of the Republic of Slovenia. Research was conducted according to the 1975 Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Background: The northern Adriatic is characterised as the coldest and most productive marine area of the Mediterranean, which is due to high nutrient levels introduced by river discharges, the largest of which is the Italian Po River (at the same time also the largest freshwater input into the Mediterranean). The northern Adriatic is a very shallow marine ecosystem with ocean current patterns that result in long retention times of plankton in the area. The northern Adriatic phytoplankton biodiversity and abundance are well-studied, through many scientific and long-term monitoring reports. These datasets were based on phytoplankton morphological traits traditionally obtained with light microscopy. The most recent comprehensive eastern Adriatic phytoplankton checklist was published more than 20 years ago and is still valuable today. Since phytoplankton taxonomy and systematics are constantly being reviewed (partly also due to new molecular methods of species identification that complement classical methodologies), checklists need to be updated and complemented. Today, metabarcoding of molecular markers gains more and more importance in biodiversity research and monitoring. Here, we report the use of high throughput sequencing methods to re-examine taxonomic richness and provide updated knowledge of phytoplankton diversity in the eastern northern Adriatic to complement the standardised light microscopy method., New Information: This study aimed to report an up-to-date list of the phytoplankton taxonomic richness and phylogenetic relationships in the eastern northern Adriatic, based on sequence variability of barcoding genes resolved with advanced molecular tools, namely metabarcoding. Here, metabarcoding is used to complement standardised light microscopy to advance conventional monitoring and research of phytoplankton communities for the purpose of assessing biodiversity and the status of the marine environments. Monthly two-year net sampling targeted six phytoplankton groups including Bacillariophyceae (diatoms) and Chrysophyceae (golden algae) belonging to Ochrophyta, Dinophyceae (dinoflagellates), Cryptophyceae (cryptophytes), Haptophyta (mostly coccolithophorids) and Chlorophyta with Prasinophyceae (prasinophytes) and Chlorophyceae (protist green algae). Generated sequence data were taxonomically assigned and redistributed in two kingdoms, five classes, 32 orders, 49 families and 67 genera. The most diverse group were dinoflagellates, comprising of 34 found genera (48.3%), following by diatoms with 23 (35.4%) and coccolithophorids with three genera (4.0%). In terms of genetic diversity, results were a bit different: a great majority of sequences with one nucleotide tolerance (ASVs, Amplicon sequence variants) assigned to species or genus level were dinoflagellates (83.8%), 13.7% diatoms and 1.6% Chlorophyta, respectively. Although many taxa have not been detected that have been considered as common in this area, metabarcoding revealed five diatoms and 20 dinoflagellate genera that were not reported in previous checklists, along with a few species from other targeted groups that have been reported previously. We here describe the first comprehensive 18S metabarcode inventory for the northern Adriatic Sea., (Lana Grižančić, Ana Baričević, Mirta Smodlaka Tanković, Ivan Vlašiček, Mia Knjaz, Ivan Podolšak, Tjaša Kogovšek, Martin Andreas Pfannkuchen, Daniela Marić Pfannkuchen.)

Population ageing requires society to adjust by ensuring additional types of services and assistance for elderly people. These may be provided by either organized services and sources of informal social support. The latter are especially important since a lack of social support is associated with a lower level of psychological and physical well-being. During the Covid-19 pandemic, social support for the elderly has proven to be even more crucial, also due to physical distancing. Therefore, this study aims to identify and describe the various types of personal social support networks available to the elderly population during the pandemic. To this end, a survey of Slovenians older than 64 years was conducted from April 25 to May 4, 2020 on a probability web-panel-based sample (n = 605). The ego networks were clustered by a hierarchical clustering approach for symbolic data. Clustering was performed for different types of social support (socializing, instrumental support, emotional support) and different characteristics of the social support networks (i.e., type of relationship, number of contacts, geographical distance). The results show that most of the elderly population in Slovenia has a satisfactory social support network, while the share of those without any (accessible) source of social support is significant. The results are particularly valuable for sustainable care policy planning, crisis intervention planning as well as any future waves of the coronavirus., Competing Interests: Z.B. is an employee of Valicon. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Background: Employees with disabilities make up a significant share of the working population. The group of employees covered by this study is hard to include in research and yet must be researched due to the vulnerable position it holds in the labour market. The topic is quite complex., Objective: The article's main goal is to demonstrate how to implement a survey and adapt a questionnaire for assessing competencies and motivation for training and career changes among older and less-educated employees who have disabilities., Methods: In the paper, we discuss the approach to adapting a questionnaire and a survey by undertaking an extensive process of different testing and adaptation stages that is presented in the article., Results: We highlight some obstacles that employees with disabilities face when participating in surveys due to their low literacy skills, as well as low self-esteem, accessibility issues and other general methodological issues in the context of our population. Potential solutions gathered from all phases of the adaptation process are discussed., Conclusions: Proper survey implementation and questionnaire modification must be ensured if researchers aim to increase the willingness of individuals with disabilities to participate in the survey and to gather quality results.

Despite accumulating evidence of the importance of the jellyfish-associated microbiome to jellyfish, its potential relevance to blue biotechnology has only recently been recognized. In this review, we emphasize the biotechnological potential of host⁻microorganism systems and focus on gelatinous zooplankton as a host for the microbiome with biotechnological potential. The basic characteristics of jellyfish-associated microbial communities, the mechanisms underlying the jellyfish-microbe relationship, and the role/function of the jellyfish-associated microbiome and its biotechnological potential are reviewed. It appears that the jellyfish-associated microbiome is discrete from the microbial community in the ambient seawater, exhibiting a certain degree of specialization with some preferences for specific jellyfish taxa and for specific jellyfish populations, life stages, and body parts. In addition, different sampling approaches and methodologies to study the phylogenetic diversity of the jellyfish-associated microbiome are described and discussed. Finally, some general conclusions are drawn from the existing literature and future research directions are highlighted on the jellyfish-associated microbiome., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

The article presents an analysis of the use of focus groups in researching community mental health users, starting with the reasons for using them, their implementation in mental health service users' research, and the adaptations of focus group use when researching the experiences of users. Based on personal research experience and a review of scientific publications in the Google Scholar, Web of Science, ProQuest, EBSCOhost, and Scopus databases, 20 articles published between 2010 and 2016 were selected for targeted content analysis. A checklist for reporting on the use of focus groups with community mental health service users, aiming to improve the comparability, verifiability and validity was developed. Adaptations of the implementation of focus groups in relation to participants' characteristics were suggested. Focus groups are not only useful as a scientific research technique, but also for ensuring service users' participation in decision-making in community mental health and evaluating the quality of the mental health system and services .

A prominent increase in the moon jellyfish (genus Aurelia) populations has been observed since 1980 in two semi-enclosed temperate seas: the northern Adriatic Sea and the Inland Sea of Japan. Therefore, we reviewed long-term environmental and biotic data from the two Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites, along with the increase in the moon jellyfish occurrence to elucidate how these coastal seas shifted to the jellyfish-dominated ecosystems. The principal component analysis of atmospheric data revealed a simultaneous occurrence of similar climatic changes in the early 1980s; thereafter, air temperature increased steadily and precipitation decreased but became more extreme. Accordingly, the average seawater temperature from March to October, a period of polyps' asexual reproduction i.e. budding, increased, potentially leading to an increase in the reproductive rates of local polyp populations. Conspicuous eutrophication occurred due to the rise of anthropogenic activities in both areas from the 1960s onwards. This coincided with an increase of the stock size of forage fishes, such as anchovy and sardine, but not the population size of the jellyfish. However, by the end of the 1980s, when the eutrophication lessened due to the regulations of nutrients loads from the land, the productive fishing grounds of both systems turned into a state that may be described as 'jellyfish-permeated,' as manifested by a drastic decrease in fish landings and a prominent increase in the intensity and frequency of medusa blooms. A steady increase in artificial marine structures that provide substrate for newly settled polyps might further contribute to the enhancement of jellyfish population size. Elevated fishing pressure and/or predation by jellyfish on ichthyoplankton and zooplankton might jeopardize the recruitment of anchovy, so that the anchovy catch has never recovered fully. These semi-enclosed seas may represent many temperate coastal waters with increased anthropogenic stressors, which have degraded the ecosystem from fish-dominated to jellyfish-dominated., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Jellyfish blooms have increased in coastal areas around the world and the outbreaks have become longer and more frequent over the past few decades. The Mediterranean Sea is among the heavily affected regions and the common bloom-forming taxa are scyphozoans Aurelia aurita s.l., Pelagia noctiluca, and Rhizostoma pulmo. Jellyfish have few natural predators, therefore their carcasses at the termination of a bloom represent an organic-rich substrate that supports rapid bacterial growth, and may have a large impact on the surrounding environment. The focus of this study was to explore whether jellyfish substrate have an impact on bacterial community phylotype selection. We conducted in situ jellyfish-enrichment experiment with three different jellyfish species. Bacterial dynamic together with nutrients were monitored to assess decaying jellyfish-bacteria dynamics. Our results show that jellyfish biomass is characterized by protein rich organic matter, which is highly bioavailable to 'jellyfish-associated' and 'free-living' bacteria, and triggers rapid shifts in bacterial population dynamics and composition. Based on 16S rRNA clone libraries and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis, we observed a rapid shift in community composition from unculturable Alphaproteobacteria to culturable species of Gammaproteobacteria and Flavobacteria. The results of sequence analyses of bacterial isolates and of total bacterial community determined by culture independent genetic analysis showed the dominance of the Pseudoalteromonadaceae and the Vibrionaceae families. Elevated levels of dissolved proteins, dissolved organic and inorganic nutrient release, bacterial abundance and carbon production as well as ammonium concentrations characterized the degradation process. The biochemical composition of jellyfish species may influence changes in the amount of accumulated dissolved organic and inorganic nutrients. Our results can contribute insights into possible changes in bacterial population dynamics and nutrient pathways following jellyfish blooms which have important implications for ecology of coastal waters.