Twenty Years of SPARTAN: From Inception to Impact (SPARTAN 2023 Annual Meeting Proceedings).

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review takes a look at the past, present, and future of SPARTAN, the Spondyloarthritis Research and Treatment Network, an organization of North American healthcare professionals dedicated to advancing research, education, and patient care in spondyloarthritis. RECENT FINDINGS: In 2022, SPARTAN completed the Classification of Axial SpondyloarthritiS Inception Cohort (CLASSIC) study, a collaboration with the Assessment in SpondyloArthritis International Society (ASAS). CLASSIC aimed to validate the 2009 ASAS classification criteria for axial spondyloarthritis. Other ongoing SPARTAN endeavors include the development of US referral recommendations for axial spondyloarthritis, an update of the 2019 ACR/SAA/SPARTAN treatment recommendations for axial spondyloarthritis and multiple educational initiatives. Twenty years after its inception, SPARTAN continues to grow and broaden its impact, guided by the SPARTAN vision of "a world free of spondyloarthritis through leadership in research and education."

DFT, Molecular Docking, ADME, and Cardiotoxicity studies of Persuasive Thiazoles as Potential Inhibitors of the Main Protease of SARS-CoV-2.

This study explores the capability of thiazoles as potent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro. Seventeen thiazoles (1-17) were screened for their linking affinity with the active site of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro and compared with the FDA-recommended antiviral drugs, Remdesivir and Baricitinib. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations provided electronic and energetic properties of these ligands, shedding light on their stability and reactivity. Molecular docking analysis revealed that thiazole derivatives exhibited favorable linking affinities with various functional sites of SARS-CoV-2 proteins, including spike receptor-linking zone, nucleocapsid protein N-terminal RNA linking zone, and Mpro. Notably, compounds 3, 10, and 12 displayed the best interaction with 6LZG as compared to FDA-approved antiviral drugs Remdesivir and Baricitinib, while compounds 1, 10, and 8 exhibited strong linking with 6M3M and also better than Remdesivir and Baricitinib. Additionally, compounds 3, 1, and 6 showed promising interactions with 6LU7 but only compound 3 performed better than Baricitinib. An ADME (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Excretion) study provided insights into the pharmacokinetics and drug-likeness of these compounds, with all ligands demonstrating good physicochemical characteristics, lipophilicity, water solubility, pharmacokinetics, drug-likeness, and medicinal chemistry attributes. The results suggest that these selected thiazole derivatives hold promise as potential candidates for further drug development.

Validation of deep amplicon sequencing of Dicrocoelium in small ruminants from Northern regions of Pakistan.

Dicrocoelium lancet flukes cause significant production loss in ruminant livestock. Although co-infection with multiple Dicrocoelium species within a host is common, techniques for studying the composition of these complex parasite communities are lacking. The pathogenicity, epidemiology, and therapeutic susceptibility of different helminth species vary, and little is known about the interactions that take place between co-infecting species and their hosts. Here, we describe the first applicationof metabarcoding deep amplicon sequencing method to studythe Dicrocoelium species in sheep and goats. First, rDNA ITS-2 sequences of four Dicrocoelium species (Dicrocoelium dendriticum, Dicrocoelium hospes, Dicrocoelium orientalis, and Dicrocoelium chinensis) were extracted from the NCBI public database. Phylogenetic analysis revealed separate clades of Dicrocoelium species; hence, molecular differentiation between each species is possible in co-infections. Second, 202 flukes belonging to seventeen host populations (morphologically verified as belonging to the Dicrocoelium genus) were evaluated to determine the deep amplicon sequencing read threshold of an individual fluke for each of the four species. The accuracy of the method in proportional quantification of samples collected from single hosts was further assessed. Overall, 198 (98.01%) flukes were confirmed as D. dendriticum and 1.98% produced no reads. The comparison of genetic distances between rDNA ITS-2 revealed 86% to 98% identity between the Dicrocoelium species. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated a distinct clustering of species, apart from D. orientalis and D. chinensis, which sit very close to each other in a single large clade whereas D. hospes and D. dendriticum are separated into their own clade. In conclusion each sample was identified as D. dendriticum based on the proportion of MiSeq reads and validated the presence of this group of parasites in the Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan. The metabarcoding deep amplicon sequencing technology and bioinformatics pathway have several potential applications, including species interactions during co-infections, identifying the host and geographical distribution of Dicrocoelium in livestock, drug therapy response evaluation and understanding of the emergence and spread of drug resistance.