Insights into the FAIRness of the German Network University Medicine: A Survey.

The need to harness large amounts of data, possibly within a short period of time, became apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. In 2022, the Corona Data Exchange Platform (CODEX), which had been developed within the German Network University Medicine (NUM), was extended by a number of common components, including a section on FAIR science. The FAIR principles enable research networks to evaluate how well they comply with current standards in open and reproducible science. To be more transparent, but also to guide scientists on how to improve data and software reusability, we disseminated an online survey within the NUM. Here we present the outcomes and lessons learnt.

The MeDaX Knowledge Graph Prototype.

Data sharing is sustainable for several reasons, including minimising economical and human costs or maximising knowledge gain. Still, reuse of biomedical (research) data is often hampered by the diverse technical, juridical, and scientific requirements for biomedical data handling and specifically sharing. We are building a toolbox for automated generation of knowledge graphs (KGs) from diverse sources, for data enrichment, and for data analysis. Into the MeDaX KG prototype, we integrated data from the core data set of the German Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) with ontological and provenance information. This prototype is currently used for internal concept and method testing only. In subsequent versions it will be expanded by including more meta-data and relevant data sources as well as further tools, including a user interface.

Phytyl fatty acid esters in vegetables pose a risk for patients suffering from Refsum's disease.

Patients suffering from Refsum's disease show mutations in the enzyme necessary for the degradation of phytanic acid. Accumulation of this tetramethyl-branched fatty acid in inner organs leads to severe neurological and cardiac dysfunctions which can even result in death. Thus, patients with Refsum's disease have to follow a specific diet resigning foods with high levels of phytanic acid and trans-phytol like products from ruminant animals with a tolerable daily intake (TDI) of ≤ 10 mg/d. We recently reported the occurrence of phytyl fatty acid esters (PFAE, trans-phytol esterified with a fatty acid) in bell pepper with trans-phytol amounts of up to 5.4 mg/100 g fresh weight (FW). In this study we carried out in vitro-digestion experiments of PFAE with artificial digestion fluids. Our results demonstrate that PFAE actually are a source for bioavailable trans-phytol and thus add to the TDI. Eating only one portion of bell pepper (∼150 g) could therefore lead to exploitation of the TDI of up to 81%. Analysis of additional vegetable matrices showed that also rocket salad with up to 4.2 mg/100 g FW trans-phytol bound in PFAE represents a risk-relevant food for patients with Refsum's disease and should therefore be taken into account.