Epithelial-mesenchymal transition and H2O2 signaling - a driver of disease progression and a vulnerability in cancers.

Mutation-selective drugs constitute a great advancement in personalized anticancer treatment with increased quality of life and overall survival in cancers. However, the high adaptability and evasiveness of cancers can lead to disease progression and the development of drug resistance, which cause recurrence and metastasis. A common characteristic in advanced neoplastic cancers is the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) which is strongly interconnected with H2O2 signaling, increased motility and invasiveness. H2O2 relays its signal through the installation of oxidative posttranslational modifications on cysteines. The increased H2O2 levels that are associated with an EMT confer a heightened sensitivity towards the induction of ferroptosis as a recently discovered vulnerability.

Caregiver burden and emotional wellbeing in informal caregivers to ICU survivors-A prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Informal caregivers to intensive care unit (ICU) survivors may develop post-intensive care syndrome family (PICS-F), including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress (PTS). Our primary aim was to investigate associations between caregiver burden in informal caregivers cohabiting with ICU survivors and patients' physical and psychological outcomes. METHODS: A prospective, multicentre cohort study in four ICUs in Sweden. Adults cohabiting with ICU patients included in a previous study were eligible for inclusion. Three months post-ICU, informal caregivers received questionnaires assessing caregiver burden, health-related quality of life (HRQL) and symptoms of depression, anxiety and PTS. In parallel, patients reported their three-month physical and psychological status via validated questionnaires. The primary outcome of this study was to compare caregiver burden in informal caregivers to patients with and without adverse physical and psychological outcomes 3 months post-ICU. Secondary outcomes were correlations between caregiver burden and informal caregivers' mental HRQL. RESULTS: Among 62 included informal caregivers, 55 (89%) responded to the follow-up questionnaires. Caregiver burden was higher among informal caregivers to patients with an adverse outcome, compared to informal caregivers to patients without an adverse outcome, caregiver burden scale score mean (±standard deviation) 52 (11) and 41 (13) respectively (p = 0.003). There was strong negative correlation between caregiver burden and informal caregivers' mental HRQL (rs -0.74, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Informal caregivers to ICU survivors with adverse physical or psychological outcome experience a higher caregiver burden. A higher caregiver burden correlates with worse caregiver mental HRQL. ICU follow-up programs should consider screening and follow-up of informal caregivers for mental health problems.

ICU discharge screening for prediction of new-onset physical disability-A multinational cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Methods to identify patients at risk for incomplete physical recovery after intensive care unit (ICU) stay are lacking. Our aim was to develop a method for prediction of new-onset physical disability at ICU discharge. METHODS: Multinational prospective cohort study in 10 general ICUs in Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Adult patients with an ICU stay ≥12 hours were eligible for inclusion. Sixteen candidate predictors were analyzed with logistic regression for associations with the primary outcome; new-onset physical disability 3 months post-ICU, defined as a ≥10 score reduction in the Barthel Index (BI) compared to baseline. RESULTS: Of the 572 included patients, follow-up data are available on 78% of patients alive at follow-up. The incidence of new-onset physical disability was 19%. Univariable and multivariable modeling rendered one sole predictor for the outcome: physical status at ICU discharge, assessed with the five first items of the Chelsea critical care physical assessment tool (CPAx) (odds ratio 0.87, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.81-0.93), a higher score indicating a lower risk, with an area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.68 (95% CI 0.61-0.76). Negative predictive value for a low-risk group (CPAx score >18) was 0.88, and positive predictive value for a high-risk group (CPAx score ≤18) was 0.32. CONCLUSION: The ICU discharge assessment described in this study had a moderate AUC but may be useful to rule out patients unlikely to need physical interventions post-ICU. For high-risk patients, research to determine post-ICU risk factors for an incomplete rehabilitation is mandated.

Early psychological screening of intensive care unit survivors: a prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: A majority of patients survive their episode of critical illness but up to 30% of patients suffer from psychological problems such as post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression in the year after intensive care unit (ICU) stay. A method to identify discharged patients at risk for adverse psychological outcome would be helpful in the triage for ICU follow-up and could enable early intervention. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether early screening with validated questionnaires after ICU discharge can identify patients at risk for symptoms of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression 3 months after ICU stay. METHODS: We performed a prospective observational cohort study in the general ICU at the Karolinska University Hospital Solna, Stockholm, Sweden. All adult patients surviving ≥ 24 hours in the ICU in a 9-month period were eligible for inclusion. Patients with mental disability, serious auditory and visual disorder, aphasia or who were unable to understand Swedish were excluded. One hundred and thirty-two patients were included and visited by a follow-up nurse within 1 week after ICU discharge. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms Checklist-10 (PTSS-10) were administered. Three months after ICU discharge the patients received the same questionnaires by postal mail. We assessed the predictive values of the questionnaires using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC). For correlation calculations, we used Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Negative and positive predictive values for each questionnaire were calculated. RESULTS: Eighty-two patients returned the follow-up questionnaires. We found correlation between early and late scores and reasonable predictive precision regarding 3-month outcomes, with an AUROC of 0.90 for PTSS-10 part B, 0.80 for the HADS anxiety subscale and 0.75 for the HADS depression subscale. CONCLUSIONS: Symptoms of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression assessed 1 week after ICU stay correlate with 3-month psychological outcome. The HADS and PTSS-10 may be useful aids to identify ICU survivors at high risk for clinically significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression 3 months post ICU stay.

Single Deranged Physiologic Parameters Are Associated With Mortality in a Low-Income Country.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether deranged physiologic parameters at admission to an ICU in Tanzania are associated with in-hospital mortality and compare single deranged physiologic parameters to a more complex scoring system. DESIGN: Prospective, observational cohort study of patient notes and admission records. Data were collected on vital signs at admission to the ICU, patient characteristics, and outcomes. Cutoffs for deranged physiologic parameters were defined a priori and their association with in-hospital mortality was analyzed using multivariable logistic regression. SETTING: ICU at Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. PATIENTS: All adults admitted to the ICU in a 15-month period. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Two hundred sixty-nine patients were included: 54% female, median age 35 years. In-hospital mortality was 50%. At admission, 69% of patients had one or more deranged physiologic parameter. Sixty-four percent of the patients with a deranged physiologic parameter died in hospital compared with 18% without (p < 0.001). The presence of a deranged physiologic parameter was associated with mortality (adjusted odds ratio, 4.64; 95% CI, 1.95-11.09). Mortality increased with increasing number of deranged physiologic parameters (odds ratio per deranged physiologic parameter, 2.24 [1.53-3.26]). Every individual deranged physiologic parameter was associated with mortality with unadjusted odds ratios between 1.92 and 16.16. A National Early Warning Score of greater than or equal to 7 had an association with mortality (odds ratio, 2.51 [1.23-5.14]). CONCLUSION: Single deranged physiologic parameters at admission are associated with mortality in a critically ill population in a low-income country. As a measure of illness severity, single deranged physiologic parameters are as useful as a compound scoring system in this setting and could be termed "danger signs." Danger signs may be suitable for the basis of routines to identify and treat critically ill patients.

Ferroptosis in health and disease.

Ferroptosis is a pervasive non-apoptotic form of cell death highly relevant in various degenerative diseases and malignancies. The hallmark of ferroptosis is uncontrolled and overwhelming peroxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids contained in membrane phospholipids, which eventually leads to rupture of the plasma membrane. Ferroptosis is unique in that it is essentially a spontaneous, uncatalyzed chemical process based on perturbed iron and redox homeostasis contributing to the cell death process, but that it is nonetheless modulated by many metabolic nodes that impinge on the cells' susceptibility to ferroptosis. Among the various nodes affecting ferroptosis sensitivity, several have emerged as promising candidates for pharmacological intervention, rendering ferroptosis-related proteins attractive targets for the treatment of numerous currently incurable diseases. Herein, the current members of a Germany-wide research consortium focusing on ferroptosis research, as well as key external experts in ferroptosis who have made seminal contributions to this rapidly growing and exciting field of research, have gathered to provide a comprehensive, state-of-the-art review on ferroptosis. Specific topics include: basic mechanisms, in vivo relevance, specialized methodologies, chemical and pharmacological tools, and the potential contribution of ferroptosis to disease etiopathology and progression. We hope that this article will not only provide established scientists and newcomers to the field with an overview of the multiple facets of ferroptosis, but also encourage additional efforts to characterize further molecular pathways modulating ferroptosis, with the ultimate goal to develop novel pharmacotherapies to tackle the various diseases associated with - or caused by - ferroptosis.

Morc3 silences endogenous retroviruses by enabling Daxx-mediated histone H3.3 incorporation.

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) comprise a significant portion of mammalian genomes. Although specific ERV loci feature regulatory roles for host gene expression, most ERV integrations are transcriptionally repressed by Setdb1-mediated H3K9me3 and DNA methylation. However, the protein network which regulates the deposition of these chromatin modifications is still incompletely understood. Here, we perform a genome-wide single guide RNA (sgRNA) screen for genes involved in ERV silencing and identify the GHKL ATPase protein Morc3 as a top-scoring hit. Morc3 knock-out (ko) cells display de-repression, reduced H3K9me3, and increased chromatin accessibility of distinct ERV families. We find that the Morc3 ATPase cycle and Morc3 SUMOylation are important for ERV chromatin regulation. Proteomic analyses reveal that Morc3 mutant proteins fail to interact with the histone H3.3 chaperone Daxx. This interaction depends on Morc3 SUMOylation and Daxx SUMO binding. Notably, in Morc3 ko cells, we observe strongly reduced histone H3.3 on Morc3 binding sites. Thus, our data demonstrate Morc3 as a critical regulator of Daxx-mediated histone H3.3 incorporation to ERV regions.