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Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/91913
The Fralin Biomedical Research Institute was named in 2019, and was formerly the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.

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Browsing Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC by Subject "11 Medical and Health Sciences"

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    Adenovirus transduction to express human ACE2 causes obesity-specific morbidity in mice, impeding studies on the effect of host nutritional status on SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis
    Rai, Pallavi; Chuong, Christina; LeRoith, Tanya; Smyth, James W.; Panov, Julia; Levi, Moshe; Kehn-Hall, Kylene; Duggal, Nisha K.; Weger-Lucarelli, James (Elsevier, 2021-11-01)
    The COVID-19 pandemic has paralyzed the global economy and resulted in millions of deaths globally. People with co-morbidities like obesity, diabetes and hypertension are at an increased risk for severe COVID-19 illness. This is of overwhelming concern because 42% of Americans are obese, 30% are pre-diabetic and 9.4% have clinical diabetes. Here, we investigated the effect of obesity on disease severity following SARS-CoV-2 infection using a well-established mouse model of diet-induced obesity. Diet-induced obese and lean control C57BL/6 N mice, transduced for ACE2 expression using replication-defective adenovirus, were infected with SARS-CoV-2, and monitored for lung pathology, viral titers, and cytokine expression. No significant differences in tissue pathology or viral replication was observed between AdV transduced lean and obese groups, infected with SARS-CoV-2, but certain cytokines were expressed more significantly in infected obese mice compared to the lean ones. Notably, significant weight loss was observed in obese mice treated with the adenovirus vector, independent of SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting an obesity-dependent morbidity induced by the vector. These data indicate that the adenovirus-transduced mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, as described here and elsewhere, may be inappropriate for nutrition studies.
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    Human Breast Milk 3’-Sialyllactose Positively Associates with Language Development During Infancy
    Cho, Seoyoon; Zhu, Ziliang; Li, Tengfei; Baluyot, Kristine; Howell, Brittany R.; Hazlett, Heather; Elison, Jed; Hauser, Jonas; Sprenger, Norbert; Wu, Di; Lin, Weili (2021)
    Background: Genetic polymorphisms leading to variations in human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) composition have been reported. Alpha-Tetrasaccharide (A-tetra), an HMO, has been shown to only be present (>limit of detection; A-tetra+) in the human milk (HM) of women with blood type A, suggesting genetic origins determining the presence or absence (A-tetra-) of A-tetra in HM. Objectives: This study aimed to determine whether associations exist between HMO concentrations and cognitive development, and whether the associations vary between A-tetra+ and A-tetra- groups in children (<25 months old). Methods: We enrolled typically developing children (2–25 months old; mean, 10 months old) who were at least partially breastfed at the study visit. The Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) were used as the primary outcome measure to assess early cognitive development. Linear mixed effects models were employed by stratifying children based on A-tetra levels (A-tetra+ or A-tetra- ) to assess associations between age-removed HMO concentrations and both MSEL composite scores and the 5 subdomain scores. Results: A total of 99 mother-child dyads and 183HMsamples were included (A-tetra+: 57 samples, 33 dyads; A-tetra-: 126 samples, 66 dyads). No significant association was observed between HMOs and MSEL when all samples were analyzed together. The composite score and 3’-sialyllactose (3’-SL) levels were positively associated [P = 0.002; effect size (EF), 13.12; 95% CI, 5.36–20.80] in the Atetra + group. This association was driven by the receptive (adjusted P = 0.015; EF, 9.95; 95% CI, 3.91–15.99) and expressive (adjusted P = 0.048; EF, 7.53; 95% CI, 2.51–13.79) language subdomain scores. Furthermore, there was an interaction between 3’-SL and age for receptive language (adjusted P = 0.03; EF, -14.93; 95% CI, - 25.29 to -4.24). Conclusions: Our study reports the association of 3’-SL and cognition, particularly language functions, in typically developing children who received HM containing detectable A-tetra during infancy.