Baobab Index

Cowpea (

Streptococcus pneumoniae is highly diverse, comprising over 100 serotypes and hundreds of genomic lineages amid widespread vaccination. While it can cause invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) which exhibits pronounced seasonal spikes, the interplay between pneumococcal diversity and environmental drivers remains unexplored. Here we analysed 59,017 IPD cases over 19 years from South Africa, incorporating 4,350 genome-sequenced isolates, using Bayesian spatiotemporal models to link environmental exposure and pneumococcal diversity. Cumulatively, across an 8-week period, moderate relative humidity (33-49%) and cold minimum temperatures (4-10 °C) increased IPD risk by 5% and 4%, respectively. Conversely, warm maximum temperatures (27-38 °C) were associated with up to a 10% increased risk within a week of exposure. There was a positive association between air pollution (PM

Several African countries experienced a surge in acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis (AHC) cases in 2024. Investigations in Kenya, Mayotte (an Indian Ocean island) and Tanzania identified coxsackievirus A24 variant (CVA24v) as the causative agent. To date, however, limited genomic data exist to elucidate the sources, epidemiology, and evolution of CVA24v in Africa. We generated 245 CVA24v genomes from samples collected between January and September 2024 in coastal Kenya, representing the largest outbreak CVA24v genomic data set available globally. Phylogenetic analysis showed that these viruses belonged to genotype IV, falling into two major clusters that differed by 52 nucleotide and five amino acid changes, and with an inter-species recombination event involving another enterovirus in the 3Dpol gene. Notably, the Kenyan sequences clustered closely with contemporaneous Africa (2024) sequences, specifically Mayotte and Malawi, reflecting a regionally connected CVA24v outbreak, but were distinct from those sampled previously in Asia in 2023, with phylodynamic analysis revealing that the Most Recent Common Ancestor of Kenyan sequences existed between June and October 2023. In summary, this study provides the first detailed genomic analysis of CVA24v from Africa to inform future surveillance and control strategies.

Plant-parasitic nematodes manipulate host tissues through stylet-secreted gene products synthesised principally in two subventral and one dorsal oesophageal gland. Earlier reviews have catalogued effector repertoires, described feeding-site formation, and explained how individual effectors modify host defence, development, and metabolism. However, the temporal coordination of the gland cells themselves has not been comparatively synthesised across parasitic lifestyles. This review therefore advances a gland-centred, lifestyle-dependent framework. In sedentary endoparasites, available evidence supports a pronounced developmental transition: subventral gland products dominate penetration and migration, whereas dorsal gland products become increasingly important during feeding-site initiation and maintenance. Migratory endoparasites repeatedly penetrate, migrate, and feed without establishing permanent feeding cells; their gland activity is consequently predicted to be recurrent and overlapping rather than a one-way replacement. Ectoparasites likewise require behaviour-dependent coordination during repeated probing and external feeding, although direct gland localisation evidence remains limited. We integrate gland origin, secretion chemistry, infection stage, and parasitic behaviour across root-knot, cyst, citrus, false root-knot, lesion, burrowing, and ectoparasitic nematodes. The synthesis distinguishes experimentally demonstrated gland localisation from evidence-weighted inference and formulates testable predictions for comparative gland transcriptomics, spatial expression, and functional silencing. This framework also identifies gland activation, secretion, and stage-critical products as targets for RNA interference, genome editing, resistance breeding, and sustainable nematode management. The principal novelty is therefore not another catalogue of nematode effectors, but a comparative model explaining when and why subventral and dorsal glands exchange, retain, or alternate their functions across contrasting parasitic lifestyles.

Early work in psychiatry research, often involving single sites, small samples, and limited variables, has shifted to contemporary research involving multiple sites, large samples, and many variables. Such research raises important questions, including concerns about data quality and methodological rigor, uncertainty about its key lessons, issues regarding clinical relevance, and questions about how to optimize future advances. Here we consider these questions and concerns against the context of big data work on community and register-based surveys, cohort and biobank studies, electronic health records, digital phenotyping, brain imaging, genomics and other -omics, and randomized controlled trials. The development of large datasets allowing well-powered analyses is a major milestone, but sample size alone does not guarantee more precise estimates, and ongoing attention to the quality and rigor of big data collation and analysis is needed. Big data research has fostered trans-disciplinarity and given insights into mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders, but also emphasizes the intricacy, heterogeneity and variability of such mechanisms, and the importance of triangulating between large-scale and small-scale research. The complexity of psychiatric phenotypes and psychobiological mechanisms contributes to the difficulty in bridging from big data to clinical application; big data research reinforces the importance of holding our diagnoses of psychiatric disorders lightly and providing explanations of these conditions humbly; and future work needs to be more attentive to clinical issues. There is enormous scope for further building databases relevant to psychiatry, but advances in conceptual models and asking the right questions are equally valuable. The full impact of big data, including artificial intelligence analyses, remains to be seen, but overenthusiastic support should be tempered by a better understanding of its strengths and limitations. At its best, such work will contribute in an iterative and integrative way to advancing our knowledge of psychiatric disorders and mental health.

Africa harbors more genetic variation than the rest of the world combined, but approximately 1% of genomes in major databases derive from individuals of African ancestry. This is not an equity problem; it is a scientific error that distorts drug dosing, degrades risk scores, and undermines precision medicine globally.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition with substantial genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity. However, populations of African ancestry remain underrepresented in genomic studies, limiting understanding of ASD genetic architecture. This study aimed to characterize rare, clinically relevant genetic variants in a Rwandan pediatric ASD cohort using trio-based whole-exome sequencing (WES). Trio-based WES was performed in 31 Rwandan pediatric patients with ASD (aged 2-18 years) and their parents. Variants were analyzed using a trio-based workflow and classified according to American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics/Association for Molecular Pathology (ACMG/AMP) guidelines. Eleven candidate variants were identified in 9 of 31 patients, including four likely pathogenic variants and seven variants of uncertain significance. This resulted in a diagnostic yield of 12.9% (4/31), expanded to 29.0% when phenotypically concordant variants of uncertain significance were considered. Most likely pathogenic variants were identified in individuals with syndromic ASD who presented with intellectual disability, epilepsy, and global developmental delay. Likely pathogenic findings included two single nucleotide variants in GABRB3, SYNGAP1, and two copy-number variants involving the GNAS locus and chromosome 1p35.3-p35.2. The diagnostic yield observed in this cohort is consistent with previous trio-based WES studies of ASD. The findings support the clinical utility of WES for the genetic evaluation of ASD and underscore the need for expanded genomic studies in African populations.