Infantile Respiratory Distress Syndrome and Its Probable Links With Parameters of the Maternal Patient History: A Forensic Case Report.

Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) has a major contribution to neonatal mortality worldwide. Multiple factors associated with increased risk for RDS have been documented to effectively understand the emergence and progression of this disorder. A portion of these parameters has been broadly examined whereas the role of others, despite being clinically described, has not been fully evaluated. In this report, we analyze a forensic RDS case of a late preterm infant. Taking the maternal medical history into account, we focused on 2 not widely established risk factors, oligohydramnios and maternal age, discussing their possible pathophysiological relation to the development of RDS. Simultaneously, the fundamental role of the histopathological examination as a diagnostic tool resurfaces. Following a multidisciplinary approach derived from the collaboration of clinicians and researchers, the identification of factors that precipitate or contribute to this syndrome can be enhanced, leading to novel prognostic and therapeutic strategies against RDS.

Tunable Dynamics in a Multistrain Transcriptional Pulse Generator.

One challenge in synthetic biology is the tuning of regulatory components within gene circuits to elicit a specific behavior. This challenge becomes more difficult in synthetic microbial consortia since each strain's circuit must function at the intracellular level and their combination must operate at the population level. Here we demonstrate that circuit dynamics can be tuned in synthetic consortia through the manipulation of strain fractions within the community. To do this, we construct a microbial consortium comprised of three strains of engineered Escherichia coli that, when cocultured, use homoserine lactone-mediated intercellular signaling to create a multistrain incoherent type-1 feedforward loop (I1-FFL). Like naturally occurring I1-FFL motifs in gene networks, this engineered microbial consortium acts as a pulse generator of gene expression. We demonstrate that the amplitude of the pulse can be easily tuned by adjusting the relative population fractions of the strains. We also develop a mathematical model for the temporal dynamics of the microbial consortium. This model allows us to identify population fractions that produced desired pulse characteristics, predictions that were confirmed for all but extreme fractions. Our work demonstrates that intercellular gene circuits can be effectively tuned simply by adjusting the starting fractions of each strain in the consortium.