Ibrahim Abdelhafez

There is a lack of predictive markers for early and rapid identification of disease progression in COVID-19 patients. Our study aims at identifying microRNAs (miRNAs)/small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) as potential biomarkers of COVID-19 severity. Using differential expression analysis of microarray data (n = 29), we identified hsa-miR-1246, ACA40, hsa-miR-4532, hsa-miR-145-5p, and ACA18 as the top five differentially expressed transcripts in severe versus asymptomatic, and ACA40, hsa-miR-3609, ENSG00000212378 (SNORD78), hsa-miR-1231, hsa-miR-885-3p as the most significant five in severe versus mild cases. Moreover, we found that white blood cell (WBC) count, absolute neutrophil count (ANC), neutrophil (%), lymphocyte (%), red blood cell (RBC) count, hemoglobin, hematocrit, D-Dimer, and albumin are significantly correlated with the identified differentially expressed miRNAs and snoRNAs. We report a unique miRNA and snoRNA profile that is associated with a higher risk of severity in a cohort of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. Altogether, we present a differential expression analysis of COVID-19-associated microRNA (miRNA)/small nucleolar RNA (snoRNA) signature, highlighting their importance in SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Aim To establish a simple risk score for identifying individuals at high risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) in Qatar, based on easy-to-obtain variables. Materials and Methods A cross sectional sample of 2000 individuals from Qatar BioBank, obtained for the development cohort, was evaluated using the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) for feature selection along with logistic regression to determine the predictive variables for the risk of T2DM along with impaired glucose metabolism (IGM). Complex machine learning analyses were performed for comparative purposes. Another sample of 1000 participants was subsequently obtained for external validation of the developed models. Several existing scoring models screening for T2DM were evaluated and compared to the model proposed by this study. Results 1660 participants were included in the analysis which showed that age, gender, waist-to-hip-ratio, history of hypertension (HTN), history of hypercholesteremia (HCL) and levels of educational were statistically associated with the risk of T2DM and constituted the Qatari diabetes risk score (QDRISK). In addition to the 6 aforementioned variables constituting the QDRISK, the IGM model showed that BMI was statistically significant. The QDRISK performed well with an area under the curve (AUC) 0.870 (95%CI 0.843–0.896) in the development and 0.815 (95% CI: 0.765-0.864) and external validation cohort. Compared to the majority of evaluated scores, the QDRISK showed overall better accuracy and calibration. The IGM model performed moderately high with AUC 0.796 (95% CI: 0.774-0.819) in the development cohort and 0.774 (95% CI: 0.740-0.809) in the external validation cohort. Conclusions Our study investigated risk factors for developing T2DM as well as IGM and developed Qatari-specific risk scores based on demographic and anthropometric factors to identify high risk individuals. This simple, cost-effective and convenient tool can guide the development of a nationwide primary prevention program in Qatar.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common malignancy with a high mortality rate worldwide. It is a complex, multifactorial disease that is strongly impacted by both hereditary and environmental factors. The role of microbes (e.g., viruses) in the pathogenesis of CRC is poorly understood. In the current study, we explored the status of high-risk human papillomaviruses (HPV) and Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) in a well-defined CRC cohort using immunohistochemistry and polymerase chain reaction assays. Our data showed that high-risk HPVs were common (~80%) and EBV had a low presence (14–25%) in the CRC samples. The most common high-risk HPVs are HPV16, 31, 18, 51, 52 and 45 genotypes. The co-presence of high-risk HPV and EBV was observed in ~16% of the sample population without any significant association with the clinicopathological variables. We conclude that high-risk HPVs are very prevalent in CRC samples while EBV positivity is relatively low. The co-expression of the two viruses was observed in a minority of cases and without any correlation with the studied parameters. Further studies are necessary to confirm the clinical relevance and potential therapeutic (preventive) effects of the observations reported herein.

Predatory or pseudo journals have recently come into focus due to their massive internet expansion and extensive spam email soliciting. Recent studies explored this urging problem in several biomedical disciplines. In the present study, we identified 69 potential predatory (pseudo) pathology journals that were contrasted to 89 legitimate pathology journals obtained from the major bibliographic databases. All potential predatory journals in pathology shared at least one of the features proposed by previous studies (e.g. a poor web-site integrity, submissions via email, unclear or ambiguous peer-review process, missing names of the editorial board members, missing or pending the journal ISSN). Twenty-one (30%) of the potential predatory pathology journals had misleading titles mimicking those of legitimate journals. Only one of the identified journals was listed in the Directory of Open Access journals whereas none (0%) was indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE or Web of Science, listed in the Committee on Publication Ethics nor have they had a legitimate impact factor in the Journal Citation Reports.