Infants and children born with CHD are at significant risk for neurodevelopmental delays and abnormalities. Individualised developmental care is widely recognised as best practice to support early neurodevelopment for medically fragile infants born premature or requiring surgical intervention after birth. However, wide variability in clinical practice is consistently demonstrated in units caring for infants with CHD. The Cardiac Newborn Neuroprotective Network, a Special Interest Group of the Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Outcome Collaborative, formed a working group of experts to create an evidence-based developmental care pathway to guide clinical practice in hospital settings caring for infants with CHD. The clinical pathway, “Developmental Care Pathway for Hospitalized Infants with Congenital Heart Disease,” includes recommendations for standardised developmental assessment, parent mental health screening, and the implementation of a daily developmental care bundle, which incorporates individualised assessments and interventions tailored to meet the needs of this unique infant population and their families. Hospitals caring for infants with CHD are encouraged to adopt this developmental care pathway and track metrics and outcomes using a quality improvement framework.

The current small study utilised prospective data collection of patterns of prenatal alcohol and tobacco exposure (PAE and PTE) to examine associations with structural brain outcomes in 6-year-olds and served as a pilot to determine the value of prospective data describing community-level patterns of PAE and PTE in a non-clinical sample of children. Participants from the Safe Passage Study in pregnancy were approached when their child was ∼6 years old and completed structural brain magnetic resonance imaging to examine with archived PAE and PTE data (n = 51 children–mother dyads). Linear regression was used to conduct whole-brain structural analyses, with false-discovery rate (FDR) correction, to examine: (a) main effects of PAE, PTE and their interaction; and (b) predictive potential of data that reflect patterns of PAE and PTE (e.g. quantity, frequency and timing (QFT)). Associations between PAE, PTE and their interaction with brain structural measures demonstrated unique profiles of cortical and subcortical alterations that were distinct between PAE only, PTE only and their interactive effects. Analyses examining associations between patterns of PAE and PTE (e.g. QFT) were able to significantly detect brain alterations (that survived FDR correction) in this small non-clinical sample of children. These findings support the hypothesis that considering QFT and co-exposures is important for identifying brain alterations following PAE and/or PTE in a small group of young children. Current results demonstrate that teratogenic outcomes on brain structure differ as a function PAE, PTE or their co-exposures, as well as the pattern (QFT) or exposure.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a cartilage destroying disease. We are investigating abaloparatide (ABL) activation of parathyroid hormone receptor type 1 (PTH1R), which is expressed by articular chondrocytes in OA. We propose ABL treatment is chondroprotective in murine PTOA via stimulation of matrix production and inhibition of chondrocyte maturation. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: 16-week-old C57BL/6 male mice received destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) surgery to induce knee PTOA. Beginning 2 weeks post-DMM, 40 μg/kg of ABL (or saline) was administered daily via subcutaneous injection and tissues were harvested after 6 weeks of daily injections and 8 weeks after DMM surgery. Harvested joint tissues were used for histological and molecular assessment of OA using three 5 μm thick sagittal sections from each joint, 50 μm apart, cut from the medial compartment of injured knees. Safranin O/Fast Green tissue staining and immunohistochemistry-based detection of type 10 collagen (Col10) and lubricin (Prg4) was performed using standard methods. Histomorphometric quantification of tibial cartilage area and larger hypertrophic-like cells was performed using the Osteomeasure system. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Safranin O/Fast Green stained sections showed a decreased cartilage loss in DMM joints from ABL-treated versus saline-treated mice. Histomorphometric analysis of total tibial cartilage area revealed preservation of cartilage tissue on the tibial surface. Immunohistochemical analyses showed that upregulation of Col10 in DMM joints was mitigated in the cartilage of ABL-treated mice, and chondrocyte expression of Prg4 was increased in uncalcified cartilage areas in ABL-treated group. The Prg4 finding suggests a matrix anabolic effect that may counter OA cartilage loss. Quantification of chondrocytes in uncalcified and calcified tibial cartilage areas revealed a reduction in the number of larger hypertrophic-like cells in ABL treated mice, suggesting deceleration of hypertrophic differentiation. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Cartilage preservation/regeneration therapies would fill a critical unmet need. We demonstrate that an osteoporosis drug targeting PTH1R decelerates PTOA in mice. ABL treatment was associated with preservation of cartilage, decreased Col10, increased Prg4, and decreased number of large hypertrophic-like chondrocytes in the tibial cartilage.

In spite of large year-to-year variations in clove yields, production in the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba is often in synchrony and the annual harvests of the two islands are correlated with similar variables. Clove harvests are positively correlated with rainfall in October to February two years before the harvest and negatively correlated with the harvest in the previous year and rainfall around July, and October to December of the year before the harvest. It is likely that rainfall in these periods affects vegetative growth of the clove tree and clove bud differentiation.

Recent 13C solid state nuclear magnetic resonance studies have demonstrated differences in the composition of sporopollenins (the inert biomolecule forming spore and pollen walls) from the major groups of extant plants. This substance is also the main constituent of fossil spore walls.

We have obtained 13C NMR spectra from three species of Carboniferous lycopod megaspores, and in one case, the associated microspores. Additionally, spores from the Devonian plant Parka decipiens Fleming have been analyzed. The spectra obtained are relatively similar although at present it is unclear how much of this similarity results from diagenesis.

The spectra of the fossil spores have been compared to those obtained from extant lycopods and from other plant groups. The fossil lycopod spores share some of the distinctive features of modern lycopod sporopollenin but are, none the less, very different. The spectra of the fossil species also demonstrate the loss of constituents known to form a significant part of the sporopollenin in extant species. Our studies show that some of the chemical characteristics of sporopollenins are retained in fossil spores, allowing the investigation of evolutionary changes of sporopollenin within a group and facilitating the assignment of taxonomically enigmatic fossil species. Further investigation of a range of fossil material, combined with data obtained from pyrolysis, should provide further information on the composition of sporopollenin from different plant groups and on its diagenesis.