Amantadine plasma concentrations correlate well with desired therapeutic effects and adverse outcomes; information on amantadine exposure could be useful when multiple amantadine clearance pathways are impaired or non-compliance is suspected. Micro sampling strategies, like dried plasma spot, would be particularly useful because ambulatory patients that do not attend a clinic can easily sample a few drops of blood by themselves at the required time of the dosing interval. We developed and validated a dried-plasma-spot-based high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) assay to quantify amantadine. This assay met relevant validation requirements within a haematocrit range of 20%-50% and was linear from 100 to 2000 ng/mL. Kinase Inhibitor Library cell line Amantadine was stable in dried plasma spots for up to 21 days at room temperature, regardless of whether the dried plasma spot was protected from light or not. The correlation between paired dried and wet plasma concentrations was assessed in 52 patients. Deming regression coefficients between wet plasma and simultaneously pipetted dried plasma spots were used to predict plasma concentrations. Bland-Altman plots revealed a strong agreement between dried and wet plasma concentrations, supporting the clinical usefulness of dried plasma spots for amantadine monitoring with a self-sampling strategy at a convenient time and place for the patient. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Due to limited information reported on the clinical characteristics and outcomes of Burkitt lymphoma (BL) patients with gastrointestinal (GI) involvement, here we used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to perform our study in a population-based scale. Extranodal GI involvement was categorized into gastric and intestinal primary sites. A total of 477 BL patients with GI involvement extracted from the SEER database between 2004 and 2015 were included in this study, 112 (23.5%) with the stomach and 365 (76.5%) with the intestine. Our study demonstrated that gastric involvement, older age, male gender, black race, advanced-stage III/IV, no-chemotherapy, and earlier years of diagnosis were associated with a significantly worse overall survival (OS) in GI BL patients after adjustment in multivariate analysis, whereas marital status did not significantly influence OS. Notably, BL Patients with gastric involvement had a significantly inferior 5-year OS in both univariate and multivariate analysis, as compared to those with intestinal involvement (37.8% vs. 70.2%; Univariate HR = 2.637, P  less then  .001; Multivariate HR = 1.489, P = .016). In subgroup analysis, we demonstrated that gastric BL patients had a consistently worse OS than intestinal patients regardless of gender, clinical stage and year of diagnosis. Hopefully, with the advances in modern therapy, improved survival has been found in BL patients with GI involvement as a whole, specifically those with gastric involvement (HR = 0.529, P = .011) in recent years of diagnosis. In conclusion, despite the improved survival achieved in recent years, the prognosis of BL patients with gastric involvement is still poor. Novel personalized therapies and better access to intensive care remain to be needed. © 2020 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.BACKGROUND Congenital dyserythropoiesis anemia type Ia (OMIM224120), is a rare hereditary anemia. The diagnosis is difficult to make and usually delayed in part due to its rarity and nonspecific clinical manifestations. METHODS Whole exome sequencing was applied for the genetic diagnosis of a 12-year-old boy who has suffered from hemolytic anemia since birth and who requires regular transfusions. Sanger sequencing of the variants detected in whole exome sequencing was performed in the patient and his parents. RESULTS Compound heterozygous mutations of CDAN1 gene, including one previously reported and one novel mutation, which is a splicing change, were detected in the whole exome sequencing and confirmed by Sanger sequencing. The autosomal recessive inheritance was confirmed by pedigree analysis. CONCLUSION To our knowledge, this is the first case report of congenital dyserythropoiesis anemia type Ia with genetic diagnosis to be located in Taiwan. Because of the rarity of CDA Ia and the overlapping of the clinical manifestations with other hereditary anemias, the next-generation sequencing approach is effective for conclusive diagnosis of CDA Ia. © 2020 The Authors. Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.There is strong interest in valorization of lignin to produce valuable products; however, its structural complexity has been a conversion bottleneck. Chemical pretreatment liberates lignin-derived soluble fractions that may be upgraded by bioconversion. Cholinium ionic liquid pretreatment of sorghum produced soluble aromatic-rich fractions which were converted by Pseudomonas putida, a promising host for aromatic bioconversion. Growth studies and mutational analysis demonstrated that P. putida growth on these fractions was dependent on aromatic monomers, but unknown factors also contributed. Proteomic and metabolomic analyses indicated that these unknown factors were amino acids and residual ionic liquid; the oligomeric aromatic fraction derived from lignin was not converted. A cholinium catabolic pathway was identified and deletion of the pathway abrogated the ability of P. putida to grow on cholinium ionic liquid. This work demonstrates that aromatic-rich fractions obtained through pretreatment contain multiple substrates; conversion strategies should account for this complexity. © 2020 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.The HV 1 voltage-gated proton (HV 1) channel is a key component of the cellular proton extrusion machinery and is pivotal for charge compensation during the respiratory burst of phagocytes. The best described physiological inhibitor of HV 1 is Zn2+ . Externally applied ZnCl2 drastically reduces proton currents reportedly recorded in Homo sapiens, Rattus norvegicus, Mus musculus, Oryctolagus cuniculus, Rana esculenta, Helix aspersa, Ciona intestinalis, Coccolithus pelagicus, Emiliania huxleyi, Danio rerio, Helisoma trivolis and Lingulodinium polyedrum, but with considerable species variability. Here, we report the effects of Zn2+ and Cd2+ on HV 1 from Nicoletia phytophila, NpHV 1. We introduced mutations at potential Zn2+ coordination sites and measured Zn2+ inhibition in different extracellular pH, with Zn2+ concentrations up to 1000 μM. Zn2+ inhibition in NpHV 1 was quantified by the slowing of the activation-time constant and a positive shift of the conductance-voltage curve. Replacing aspartate in the S3-S4 loop with histidine (D145H) enhanced both the slowing of activation kinetics and the shift in the voltage-conductance curve, such that Zn2+ inhibition closely resembled that of the human channel.