Ocean Sampling Day was initiated by the EU-funded Micro B3 (Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology) project to obtain a snapshot of the marine microbial biodiversity and function of the world’s oceans. It is a simultaneous global mega-sequencing campaign aiming to generate the largest standardized microbial data set in a single day. This will be achievable only through the coordinated efforts of an Ocean Sampling Day Consortium, supportive partnerships and networks between sites. This commentary outlines the establishment, function and aims of the Consortium and describes our vision for a sustainable study of marine microbial communities and their embedded functional traits.

A study was conducted to investigate the cumulative survival rates among groups of patients with liver cirrhosis who were stratified by plasma branched-chain amino acid (BCAA)/aromatic amino acid (AAA) molar ratio (BCAA/AAA), and to evaluate the effect of long-term oral supplementation with BCAA on the prognosis of cirrhotics with noticeably lower BCAA/AAA molar ratio. When 104 patients with liver cirrhosis were divided into three groups on the basis of BCAA/AAA molar ratio, i.e., BCAA/AAA greater than or equal to 1.8 (Group 1), 1.8 greater than or equal to BCAA/AAA greater than or equal to 1.0 (Group 2), and 1.0 greater than BCAA/AAA (Group 3), Group 1 showed the highest cumulative survival rate, followed, respectively, by Groups 2 and 3 (P less than 0.05). In 20 cases of non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis having BCAA/AAA less than 1.8, oral supplementation with branched-chain amino acid granules (BCAA-G) for 6 months or more (median 27 months, range 7-62 months) brought about significant increase of plasma BCAA concentration, BCAA/AAA molar ratio, and serum albumin concentration. Furthermore, the 20 cases with BCAA-G supplementation showed significantly higher cumulative survival rate during 2-4 years as compared to the control cases matched for age, sex, and etiology (involvement of hepatitis B virus). These findings indicate that long-term oral supplementation with BCAA to cirrhotic patients provides beneficial effect on the prognosis by improving protein malnutritional status and consequently delaying fatal complications such as hepatic failure and gastrointestinal bleeding.

Background and Aim: The question of whether fatty liver might predict impaired fasting glucose or type 2 diabetes mellitus in a longitudinal manner was assessed in Japanese subjects undergoing a health checkup. Methods: A total of 12 375 individuals (6799 men and 5576 women) without hyperglycemia or type 2 diabetes mellitus in 2000 and participating in 2005 were included. Multiple logistic regression analyses were performed for both sexes, adjusted for age, body mass index, elevated blood pressure or hypertension, family history of diabetes mellitus, alcohol drinking and smoking. Results: Impaired fasting glucose and type 2 diabetes mellitus were newly diagnosed in 7.6% and 1.0% of men and 3.8% and 0.5% of women, respectively, within the 5-year period. The prevalence of newly diagnosed impaired fasting glucose and type 2 diabetes mellitus was significantly higher in the participants with fatty liver than without fatty liver in both sexes. Fatty liver adjusted for the other factors was thus a risk factor for impaired fasting glucose and/or type 2 diabetes mellitus in both sexes (men odds ratio [OR] 1.91, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.56-2.34 and women OR 2.15, 95% CI 1.53-3.01). The impact of fatty liver was stronger among the participants with a lower body mass index (men OR 0.92, 95% CI 0.86-0.99 and women OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.81-0.99, for one increment of body mass index). Conclusion: Fatty liver is an independent risk factor for impaired fasting glucose and type 2 diabetes mellitus, having a stronger impact in those Japanese with a lower body mass index undergoing a health checkup.

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The use of immune checkpoint inhibitors to treat urothelial carcinoma (UC) is increasing rapidly without clear guidance for validated risk stratification. This multicenter retrospective study collected clinicopathological information on 463 patients, and 11 predefined variables were analyzed to develop a multivariate model predicting overall survival (OS). The model was validated using an independent dataset of 292 patients. Patient characteristics and outcomes were well balanced between the discovery and validation cohorts, which had median OS times of 10.2 and 12.5 mo, respectively. The final validated multivariate model was defined by risk scores based on the hazard ratios (HRs) of independent prognostic factors including performance status, site of metastasis, hemoglobin levels, and the neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio. The median OS times (95% confidence intervals [CIs]) for the low‐, intermediate‐, and high‐risk groups (discovery cohort) were not yet reached (NYR) (NYR–19.1), 6.8 mo (5.8‐8.9), and 2.3 mo (1.2‐2.6), respectively. The HRs (95% CI) for OS in the low‐ and intermediate‐risk groups vs the high‐risk group were 0.07 (0.04‐0.11) and 0.23 (0.15‐0.37), respectively. The objective response rates for in the low‐, intermediate‐, and high‐risk groups were 48.3%, 28.8%, and 10.5%, respectively. These differential outcomes were well reproduced in the validation cohort and in patients who received pembrolizumab after perioperative or first‐line chemotherapy (N = 584). In conclusion, the present study developed and validated a simple prognostic model predicting the oncological outcomes of pembrolizumab‐treated patients with chemoresistant UC. The model provides useful information for external validation, patient counseling, and clinical trial design.