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Persistent immune stimulation exacerbates genetically driven myeloproliferative disorders via stromal remodeling

2017

Abstract Systemic immune stimulation has been associated with increased risk of myeloid malignancies, but the pathogenic link is unknown. We demonstrate in animal models that experimental systemic immune activation alters the bone marrow stromal microenvironment, disarranging extracellular matrix (ECM) microarchitecture, with downregulation of secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) and collagen-I and induction of complement activation. These changes were accompanied by a decrease in Treg frequency and by an increase in activated effector T cells. Under these conditions, hematopoietic precursors harboring nucleophosmin-1 (NPM1) mutation generated myeloid cells unfit for normal …

Computational Prediction of Position Effects of Apparently Balanced Human Chromosomal Rearrangements.

2017

Interpretation of variants of uncertain significance, especially chromosomal rearrangements in non-coding regions of the human genome, remains one of the biggest challenges in modern molecular diagnosis. To improve our understanding and interpretation of such variants, we used high-resolution three-dimensional chromosomal structural data and transcriptional regulatory information to predict position effects and their association with pathogenic phenotypes in 17 subjects with apparently balanced chromosomal abnormalities. We found that the rearrangements predict disruption of long-range chromatin interactions between several enhancers and genes whose annotated clinical features are strongly …

Homozygous Resistance to Thyroid Hormone β: Can Combined Antithyroid Drug and Triiodothyroacetic Acid Treatment Prevent Cardiac Failure?

2017

Resistance to thyroid hormone β (RTHβ) due to homozygous THRB defects is exceptionally rare, with only five kindreds reported worldwide. Cardiac dysfunction, which can be life-threatening, is recognized in the disorder. Here we describe the clinical, metabolic, ophthalmic, and cardiac findings in a 9-year-old boy harboring a biallelic THRB mutation (R243Q), along with biochemical, physiologic, and cardiac responses to carbimazole and triiodothyroacetic acid (TRIAC) therapy. The patient exhibits recognized features (goiter, nonsuppressed thyroid-stimulating hormone levels, upper respiratory tract infections, hyperactivity, low body mass index) of heterozygous RTHβ, with additional characteri…

Epithelium‐specific MyD88 signaling, but not DCs or macrophages, control acute intestinal infection with Clostridium difficile

2019

Infection with Clostridium difficile is one of the major causes of health care acquired diarrhea and colitis. Signaling though MyD88 downstream of TLRs is critical for initiating the early protective host response in mouse models of C. difficile infection (CDI). In the intestine, MyD88 is expressed in various tissues and cell types, such as the intestinal epithelium and mononuclear phagocytes (MNP), including DC or macrophages. Using a genetic gain-of-function system, we demonstrate here that restricting functional MyD88 signaling to the intestinal epithelium, but also to MNPs is sufficient to protect mice during acute CDI by upregulation of the intestinal barrier function and recruitment o…

Taking Advantage of Nature’s Gift: Can Endogenous Neural Stem Cells Improve Myelin Regeneration?

2016

Irreversible functional deficits in multiple sclerosis (MS) are directly correlated to axonal damage and loss. Neurodegeneration results from immune-mediated destruction of myelin sheaths and subsequent axonal demyelination. Importantly, oligodendrocytes, the myelinating glial cells of the central nervous system, can be replaced to some extent to generate new myelin sheaths. This endogenous regeneration capacity has so far mainly been attributed to the activation and recruitment of resident oligodendroglial precursor cells. As this self-repair process is limited and increasingly fails while MS progresses, much interest has evolved regarding the development of remyelination-promoting strateg…

Differential Tissue Fatty Acids Profiling between Colorectal Cancer Patients with and without Synchronous Metastasis

2018

The early detection of colorectal cancer and determination of its metastatic potential are important factors to set up more efficacious therapeutic strategies. In the present study, we hypothesize that fatty acids analysis in colorectal cancer patients can discriminate between metastatic and non-metastatic patients. Fifty-one consecutive patients with histologically proven colorectal cancer were enrolled in the study and the presence of synchronous metastasis was detected in 25 of these 51 patients. Fatty acid profile analysis in red blood cell membranes was not able to discriminate the metastatic colorectal cancer patients from those without metastasis. However, significant differences in …

A Methodology to Study Pseudogenized lincRNAs

2021

Long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs) are known to be tissue specifically expressed and able to regulate functional protein-coding genes: some can even act as competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs), because microRNAs can bind to them instead of the corresponding mRNA binding sites. Some lincRNAs contain remnants of protein-coding sequences and it has been hypothesized that they might arise after a pseudogenization processes. However, a major limitation in the study of such phenomenon is the lack of proper computational tools designed to align/analyze protein-coding sequences and noncoding sequences. To overcome this limitation, we published a method that finds the remnants of protein-coding…

Optimal doses of caspofungin during continuous venovenous hemodiafiltration in critically ill patients

2017

GAS6

2017

Venous thrombosis is determined by the recruitment of monocytes and neutrophils to the inflamed endothelium and is primarily influenced by the plasmatic coagulation system.1 Monocyte tissue factor (TF) was identified as the causative trigger for intraluminal fibrin formation and thrombus load in the inferior vena cava (IVC) stenosis model, resembling human deep vein thrombosis.1 Although monocyte TF is prothrombotic, the TF expressed by activated endothelial cells triggers proinflammatory protease-activated receptor signaling pathways.2,3 See accompanying article on page 1315 In the past years, GAS6 (growth arrest–specific gene-6) was described as a major regulatory protein of prothrombotic…

Identifying Host Molecular Features Strongly Linked With Responses to Huanglongbing Disease in Citrus Leaves

2018

© 2018 Balan, Ibáñez, Dandekar, Caruso and Martinelli. A bioinformatic analysis of previously published RNA-Seq studies on Huanglongbing (HLB) response and tolerance in leaf tissues was performed. The aim was to identify genes commonly modulated between studies and genes, pathways and gene set categories strongly associated with this devastating Citrus disease. Bioinformatic analysis of expression data of four datasets present in NCBI provided 46–68 million reads with an alignment percentage of 72.95–86.76%. Only 16 HLB-regulated genes were commonly identified between the three leaf datasets. Among them were key genes encoding proteins involved in cell wall modification such as CESA8, pecti…