Our findings put forward insufficient autophagy as a potentially important contributor to mitochondrial and organ damage in critical illness and open perspectives for therapies that activate autophagy during critical illness.

Since the 1990s, developments in the field of genetics have led to many questions on the use and possible misuse of genetic information. 'Genetic discrimination' has been defined as the differential treatment of asymptomatic individuals or their relatives on the basis of their real or assumed genetic characteristics. Despite the public policy attention around genetic discrimination, there is currently still much confusion surrounding this phenomenon. On the one hand, there is little evidence of the occurrence of genetic discrimination. On the other hand, it appears that people remain concerned about this theme, and this fear influences their health and life choices. This article makes use of a systematic literature review to investigate what is already known about the nature, extent and background of these fears and concerns. The 42 included studies have found considerable levels of concerns about genetic discrimination. Concerns dominate in insurance contexts and within personal interactions. The extent of concerns appears to vary depending on the type of genetic illness. Furthermore, installed laws prohibiting genetic discrimination do not seem to alleviate existing fears. This raises important questions as to the origins of these fears. Based on the findings, recommendations for future research are made. First, research on the background of fears is needed. Second, future research needs to assess more fully all different forms (for example, direct and indirect) of genetic discrimination. Thirdly, it has to be studied whether genetic discrimination is a form of discrimination that is distinguishable from discrimination based on an illness or disability. Finally, a last element that should be addressed in future research is the most recent developments in research on genomics, such as next-generation sequencing or genome-wide association studies.

Critically ill patients are at increased risk of fractures during rehabilitation, and can experience impaired healing of traumatic and surgical bone fractures. In addition, markers of bone resorption are markedly increased in critically ill patients, while markers of bone formation are decreased. In the current study, we have directly investigated the effect of critical illness on bone metabolism and repair. In a human in vitro model of critical illness, Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis revealed an increase in circulating CD14þ/CD11bþ osteoclast precursors in critically ill patient peripheral blood compared to healthy controls. In addition, the formation of osteoclasts was increased in patient peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) cultures compared to healthy controls, both in the presence and absence of osteoclastogenic factors receptor activator of NF-kB ligand (RANKL) and macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF). Culturing PBMCs with 10% critically ill patient serum further increased osteoclast formation and activity in patient PBMCs only, and neutralization studies revealed that immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody signaling through the immunoreceptor Fc receptor common g chain III (FcRgIII) played an important role. When analyzing bone formation, no differences in osteogenic differentiation were observed using human periosteal-derived cells (hPDCs) treated with patient serum in vitro, but a decrease in the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1 (VEGF-R1) suggested impaired vascularization. This was confirmed using serum-treated hPDCs implanted onto calcium phosphate scaffolds in a murine in vivo model of bone formation, where decreased vascularization and increased osteoclast activity led to a decrease in bone formation in scaffolds with patient serum-treated hPDCs. Together, these findings may help to define novel therapeutic targets to prevent bone loss and optimize fracture healing in critically ill patients. ß

Considerable masses of soil may be lost from arable land during the harvest of crops such as sugar beet, potato and chicory roots, as soil adhering to these crops, soil clods and rock fragments are exported from the field (together with the crop) to places such as headlands, farmsteads and crop-processing factories. This soil erosion process is referred to as soil losses due to crop harvesting (SLCH). These soil losses range from a few to tens of tonnes per hectare and per harvest and are thus the same order of magnitude as soil losses caused by water, wind or tillage erosion. However, only a few studies have incorporated SLCH as a soil erosion process. We investigated the variability of soil losses due to sugar beet harvesting at the field plot scale and the importance of controlling factors related to soil, agronomic practices and crop characteristics. Twenty-six field parcels, distributed over the Belgian sugar beet growing area, were sampled during the harvesting seasons 2002, 2003 and 2004. Soil losses ranged between 1 and 30 Mg ha À1 harvest À1 with an average of 4 Mg ha À1 harvest À1 . Gravimetric soil moisture content at harvest was by far the most important controlling factor and was positively and exponentially related to SLCH. Differences in SLCH between harvesting seasons could not be explained by the factors investigated in this study, which indicates that other factors also play a role in SLCH variability.

Prolonged critically ill patients present with distinct alterations in calcium and bone metabolism. Circulating bone formation markers are reduced and bone resorption markers are substantially elevated, indicating an uncoupling between osteoclast and osteoblast activity, possibly resulting in pronounced bone loss, impaired traumatic or surgical fracture healing, and osteoporosis. In addition, we have previously shown that increased circulating osteoclast precursors in critically ill patients result in increased osteoclastogenesis in vitro, possibly through FcγRIII signaling. In the current study, we investigated the effects of sustained critical illness on bone metabolism at the tissue level in a standardized rabbit model of prolonged (7 days), burn injury-induced critical illness. This in vivo model showed a reduction in serum ionized calcium and osteocalcin levels, as is seen in humans. Trabecular area, bone mineral content, and -density were decreased in sick rabbits [by 43% (p<0.01), 31% (p<0.01), and 29% (p<0.05), respectively], as was the trabecular gene expression of osteoblast and angiogenesis markers, indicating decreased bone formation and impaired vascularization. There was no change in the expression of osteoclast differentiation markers from the canonical RANK/RANKL/OPG pathway, however, there was an increase in expression of markers from the non-canonical, immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif (ITAM) signaling pathway, FcγRIII, and DAP12 (148% and 59%, respectively; p<0.01). The current study has shown a detrimental effect of prolonged critical illness on trabecular bone integrity, possibly explained by reduced osteoblast differentiation and angiogenesis, coupled with increased osteoclastogenesis signaling that may be mediated via the non-canonical immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif signaling pathway.