Search results for "Normal"
showing 10 items of 2571 documents
Expanding the β-III Spectrin-Associated Phenotypes toward Non-Progressive Congenital Ataxias with Neurodegeneration
2021
(1) Background: A non-progressive congenital ataxia (NPCA) phenotype caused by b-III spectrin (SPTBN2) mutations has emerged, mimicking spinocerebellar ataxia, autosomal recessive type 14 (SCAR14). The pattern of inheritance, however, resembles that of autosomal dominant classical spinocerebellar ataxia type 5 (SCA5). (2) Methods: In-depth phenotyping of two boys studied by a customized gene panel. Candidate variants were sought by structural modeling and protein expression. An extensive review of the literature was conducted in order to better characterize the SPTBN2-associated NPCA. (3) Results: Patients exhibited an NPCA with hypotonia, developmental delay, cerebellar syndrome, and cogni…
Skraban‐Deardorff syndrome: Six new cases of WDR 26 ‐related disease and expansion of the clinical phenotype
2021
International audience; Skraban-Deardorff syndrome (a disease related to variations in the WDR26 gene; OMIM #617616) was first described in a cohort of 15 individuals in 2017. The syndrome comprises intellectual deficiency, severe speech impairment, ataxic gait, seizures, mild hypotonia with feeding difficulties during infancy, and dysmorphic features. Here, we report on six novel heterozygous de novo pathogenic variants in WDR26 in six probands. The patients’ phenotypes were consistent with original publication. One patient displayed marked hypotonia with an abnormal muscle biopsy; this finding warrants further investigation. Gait must be closely monitored, in order to highlight any muscul…
Normalization with Corresponding Naïve Tissue Minimizes Bias Caused by Commercial Reverse Transcription Kits on Quantitative Real-Time PCR Results
2016
Real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the gold standard for expression analysis. Designed to improve reproducibility and sensitivity, commercial kits are commonly used for the critical step of cDNA synthesis. The present study was designed to determine the impact of these kits. mRNA from mouse brains were pooled to create serial dilutions ranging from 0.0625 μg to 2 μg, which were transcribed into cDNA using four different commercial reverse-transcription kits. Next, we transcribed mRNA from brain tissue after acute brain injury and naïve mice into cDNA for qPCR. Depending on tested genes, some kits failed to show linear results in dilution series and revealed s…
N-Acetylcysteine Amide Exerts Possible Neuroprotective Effects in Newborn Pigs after Perinatal Asphyxia
2016
<b><i>Background:</i></b> Perinatal asphyxia and ensuing reoxygenation change the antioxidant capacity of cells and organs. <b><i>Objectives:</i></b> To analyze the neuroprotective effect of the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine amide (NACA) after perinatal hypoxia-reoxygenation with an emphasis on proinflammatory cytokines and the transcription factor NF-&#x03BA;B in the prefrontal cortex of neonatal pigs. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Twenty-nine newborn pigs, aged 12-36 h, were subjected to global hypoxia and hypercapnia. One sham-operated group (n = 5) and 2 experimental groups (n = 12) were exposed to 8% oxygen, until the …
Reversing behavioural abnormalities in mice exposed to maternal inflammation
2016
Viral infection during pregnancy is correlated with increased frequency of neurodevelopmental disorders, and this is studied in mice prenatally subjected to maternal immune activation (MIA). We previously showed that maternal T helper 17 cells promote the development of cortical and behavioural abnormalities in MIA-affected offspring. Here we show that cortical abnormalities are preferentially localized to a region encompassing the dysgranular zone of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1DZ). Moreover, activation of pyramidal neurons in this cortical region was sufficient to induce MIA-associated behavioural phenotypes in wild-type animals, whereas reduction in neural activity rescued the be…
Intragenic FMR1 disease-causing variants: a significant mutational mechanism leading to Fragile-X syndrome
2017
International audience; Fragile-X syndrome (FXS) is a frequent genetic form of intellectual disability (ID). The main recurrent mutagenic mechanism causing FXS is the expansion of a CGG repeat sequence in the 5'-UTR of the FMR1 gene, therefore, routinely tested in ID patients. We report here three FMR1 intragenic pathogenic variants not affecting this sequence, identified using high-throughput sequencing (HTS): a previously reported hemizygous deletion encompassing the last exon of FMR1, too small to be detected by array-CGH and inducing decreased expression of a truncated form of FMRP protein, in three brothers with ID (family 1) and two splice variants in boys with sporadic ID: a de novo …
Head-to-head comparison of plasma cTnI concentration values measured with three high-sensitivity methods in a large Italian population of healthy vol…
2019
Abstract Background The study aim is to compare cTnI values measured with three high-sensitivity (hs) methods in apparently healthy volunteers and patients admitted to emergency department (ED) with acute coronary syndrome enrolled in a large multicentre study. Methods Heparinized plasma samples were collected from 1511 apparently healthy subjects from 8 Italian clinical institutions (mean age: 51.5 years, SD: 14.1 years, range: 18–65 years, F/M ratio:0.95). All volunteers denied chronic or acute diseases and had normal values of routine laboratory tests. Moreover, 1322 heparinized plasma sample were also collected by 9 Italian clinical institutions from patients admitted to ED with clinica…
Longitudinal study on modulated corticospinal excitability throughout recovery in supratentorial stroke
2016
Corticospinal excitability (CSE) is modulated by stroke-induced lesions affecting the brain. This modulation is known to be dependent on the timing of the evaluation, and strongest abnormalities are often found in the acute stage. Our study aimed to characterize changes in CSE asymmetry between the affected and the unaffected hemisphere (AH and UH) during the first month after stroke onset and at 6 month follow-up. Neuronavigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) was used to assess the CSE of the abductor pollicis brevis (APB) muscle of the hand and tibialis anterior (TA) muscle of the leg in 16 patients over 5 time-points. AH excitability recovered significantly during 6 months, whe…
Redefining the MED13L syndrome
2015
Congenital cardiac and neurodevelopmental deficits have been recently linked to the mediator complex subunit 13-like protein MED13L, a subunit of the CDK8-associated mediator complex that functions in transcriptional regulation through DNA-binding transcription factors and RNA polymerase II. Heterozygous MED13L variants cause transposition of the great arteries and intellectual disability (ID). Here, we report eight patients with predominantly novel MED13L variants who lack such complex congenital heart malformations. Rather, they depict a syndromic form of ID characterized by facial dysmorphism, ID, speech impairment, motor developmental delay with muscular hypotonia and behavioral difficu…
Frequency and characterization of DNA methylation defects in children born SGA
2012
Various genes located at imprinted loci and regulated by epigenetic mechanisms are involved in the control of growth and differentiation. The broad phenotypic variability of imprinting disorders suggests that individuals with inborn errors of imprinting might remain undetected among patients born small for gestational age (SGA). We evaluated quantitative DNA methylation analysis at differentially methylated regions (DMRs) of 10 imprinted loci (PLAGL1, IGF2R DMR2, GRB10, H19 DMR, IGF2, MEG3, NDN, SNRPN, NESP, NESPAS) by bisulphite pyrosequencing in 98 patients born SGA and 50 controls. For IGF2R DMR2, methylation patterns of additional 47 parent pairs and one mother (95 individuals) of patie…