{"title":"Clinical and genetic characteristics of Chinese patients with Shwachman Diamond syndrome: a literature review of Chinese publication.","authors":"Lijun Wang, Youpeng Jin, Yuan Chen, Ping Zhao, Xiaohong Shang, Haiyan Liu, Lifeng Sun","doi":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10035","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10035","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Shwachman Diamond syndrome (SDS) is a rare autosomal recessive genetic disorder and due to its complex and varied clinical manifestations, diagnosis is often delayed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical manifestations and genetic characteristics of SDS in Chinese patients, in order to increase pediatricians' awareness of SDS and to allow early diagnosis. We conducted a search to identify patients presenting SBDS gene pathogenic variant in two Chinese academic databases. We analyzed and summarized the epidemiology, clinical features, gene pathogenic variants, and key points in the diagnosis and treatment of SDS. We reviewed the clinical data of 39 children with SDS from previously published articles. The interval from the onset of the first symptoms to diagnosis was very long for most of our patients. The age of presentation ranged from 1 day to 10 years (median: 3 months). However, the age of diagnosis was significantly delayed, ranging from 1 month to 14 years (median: 14 months). Hematological abnormalities were the most common presentation, 89.7% (35/39) at the beginning and 94.9% (37/39) at diagnosis of SDS. Diarrhea was the second most common clinical abnormality at the time of diagnosis. 59% (23/39) of patients had a typical history of persistent chronic diarrhea. Furthermore, hepatic enlargement or elevation of transaminase occurred in 15 cases (38.5%). 56.4% patients (22/39) had a short stature, and 17.9% (7/39) patients showed developmental delay. Additionally, twenty patients had compound heterozygous pathogenic variants of c.258 + 2T > C and c.183_ 184TA > CT. Children with SDS in China had high incidence rates of chronic diarrhea, cytopenia, short stature, and liver damage. Furthermore, SBDS c.258 + 2T > C and c.183_ 184TA > CT were the most common pathogenic variants in patients with SDS. The diagnosis of SDS can be delayed if the clinical phenotype is not recognized by the health care provider.</p>","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"249 ","pages":"10035"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11033403/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140852882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Qiuling Chen, Yan Hong, WeiFeng Chen, Feng Lin, Jiawei Zeng, Yueting Huang, Li Zhang, Jingwei Yao, Bing Xu
{"title":"Prognostic implications of cGAS and STING gene expression in acute myeloid leukemia.","authors":"Qiuling Chen, Yan Hong, WeiFeng Chen, Feng Lin, Jiawei Zeng, Yueting Huang, Li Zhang, Jingwei Yao, Bing Xu","doi":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10108","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10108","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is one of the most threatening hematological malignances. cGAS-STING pathway plays an important role in tumor immunity and development. However, the prognostic role of cGAS-STING pathway in AML remains unknown. Firstly, The expression of cGAS and STING was analyzed by bioinformatics analysis. Subsequently, Bone marrow samples were collected from 120 AML patients and 15 healthy individuals in an independent cohort. The cGAS and STING expression was significantly elevated in AML patients compared with healthy controls. Patients with high cGAS and STING expression had a higher NRAS/KRAS mutation rate and lower complete remission (CR) rate. High cGAS and STING expression was significantly associated with lower overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Our findings revealed that the expression levels of cGAS and STING in AML are elevated. High expression of cGAS and STING correlated with worse OS and DFS and may be a useful biomarker for inferior prognosis in AML patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"249 ","pages":"10108"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10954193/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140179558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bahareh Ahmadi, Felipe C K Duarte, John Srbely, Pawel M Bartlewski
{"title":"Ultrasound-based assessment of the expression of inflammatory markers in the rectus femoris muscle of rats.","authors":"Bahareh Ahmadi, Felipe C K Duarte, John Srbely, Pawel M Bartlewski","doi":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10064","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10064","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ultrasonographic characteristics of skeletal muscles are related to their health status and functional capacity, but they still provide limited information on muscle composition during the inflammatory process. It has been demonstrated that an alteration in muscle composition or structure can have disparate effects on different ranges of ultrasonogram pixel intensities. Therefore, monitoring specific clusters or bands of pixel intensity values could help detect echotextural changes in skeletal muscles associated with neurogenic inflammation. Here we compare two methods of ultrasonographic image analysis, namely, the echointensity (EI) segmentation approach (EI banding method) and detection of selective pixel intensity ranges correlated with the expression of inflammatory regulators using an in-house developed computer algorithm (r-Algo). This study utilized an experimental model of neurogenic inflammation in segmentally linked myotomes (i.e., rectus femoris (RF) muscle) of rats subjected to lumbar facet injury. Our results show that there were no significant differences in RF echotextural variables for different EI bands (with 50- or 25-pixel intervals) between surgery and sham-operated rats, and no significant correlations among individual EI band pixel characteristics and protein expression of inflammatory regulators studied. However, mean numerical pixel values for the pixel intensity ranges identified with the proprietary r-Algo computer program correlated with protein expression of ERK1/2 and substance P (both 86-101-pixel ranges) and CaMKII (86-103-pixel range) in RF, and were greater (<i>p</i> < 0.05) in surgery rats compared with their sham-operated counterparts. Our findings indicate that computer-aided identification of specific pixel intensity ranges was critical for ultrasonographic detection of changes in the expression of inflammatory mediators in neurosegmentally-linked skeletal muscles of rats after facet injury.</p>","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"249 ","pages":"10064"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10911122/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140093742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Weighted gene co-expression network analysis reveals immune evasion related genes in <i>Echinococcus granulosus</i> sensu stricto.","authors":"Ismael Pereira, Gabriela Prado Paludo, Christian Hidalgo, Caroll Stoore, María Soledad Baquedano, Carolina Cabezas, Martín Cancela, Henrique Bunselmeyer Ferreira, Macarena Bastías, Aníbal Riveros, Claudio Meneses, Leonardo Sáenz, Rodolfo Paredes","doi":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10126","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10126","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a zoonotic disease caused by the tapeworm <i>Echinococcus granulosus</i> sensu lato (s.l). In the intermediate host, this disease is characterized by the growth of cysts in viscera such as liver and lungs, inside of which the parasite develops to the next infective stage known as protoscoleces. There are records that the infected viscera affect the development and morphology of <i>E. granulosus</i> s.l. protoscolex in hosts such as buffalo or humans. However, the molecular mechanisms that drive these differences remains unknown. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) using a set of RNAseq data obtained from <i>E. granulosus</i> sensu stricto (s.s.) protoscoleces found in liver and lung cysts reveals 34 modules in protoscoleces of liver origin, of which 12 have differential co-expression from protoscoleces of lung origin. Three of these twelve modules contain hub genes related to immune evasion: tegument antigen, tegumental protein, ubiquitin hydrolase isozyme L3, COP9 signalosome complex subunit 3, tetraspanin CD9 antigen, and the methyl-CpG-binding protein Mbd2. Also, two of the twelve modules contain only hypothetical proteins with unknown orthology, which means that there are a group of unknown function proteins co-expressed inside the protoscolex of liver CE cyst origin. This is the first evidence of gene expression differences in protoscoleces from CE cysts found in different viscera, with co-expression networks that are exclusive to protoscoleces from liver CE cyst samples. This should be considered in the control strategies of CE, as intermediate hosts can harbor CE cysts in liver, lungs, or both organs simultaneously.</p>","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"249 ","pages":"10126"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10954194/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140178671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yvonne Chen, Julia Mateski, Linda Gerace, Jonathan Wheeler, Jan Burl, Bhavna Prakash, Cherie Svedin, Rebecca Amrick, Brian D Adams
{"title":"Non-coding RNAs and neuroinflammation: implications for neurological disorders.","authors":"Yvonne Chen, Julia Mateski, Linda Gerace, Jonathan Wheeler, Jan Burl, Bhavna Prakash, Cherie Svedin, Rebecca Amrick, Brian D Adams","doi":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10120","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10120","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Neuroinflammation is considered a balanced inflammatory response important in the intrinsic repair process after injury or infection. Under chronic states of disease, injury, or infection, persistent neuroinflammation results in a heightened presence of cytokines, chemokines, and reactive oxygen species that result in tissue damage. In the CNS, the surrounding microglia normally contain macrophages and other innate immune cells that perform active immune surveillance. The resulting cytokines produced by these macrophages affect the growth, development, and responsiveness of the microglia present in both white and gray matter regions of the CNS. Controlling the levels of these cytokines ultimately improves neurocognitive function and results in the repair of lesions associated with neurologic disease. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are master regulators of the genome and subsequently control the activity of inflammatory responses crucial in sustaining a robust and acute immunological response towards an acute infection while dampening pathways that result in heightened levels of cytokines and chemokines associated with chronic neuroinflammation. Numerous reports have directly implicated miRNAs in controlling the abundance and activity of interleukins, TGF-B, NF-kB, and toll-like receptor-signaling intrinsically linked with the development of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's, ALS, epilepsy, Alzheimer's, and neuromuscular degeneration. This review is focused on discussing the role miRNAs play in regulating or initiating these chronic neurological states, many of which maintain the level and/or activity of neuron-specific secondary messengers. Dysregulated miRNAs present in the microglia, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and epididymal cells, contribute to an overall glial-specific inflammatory niche that impacts the activity of neuronal conductivity, signaling action potentials, neurotransmitter robustness, neuron-neuron specific communication, and neuron-muscular connections. Understanding which miRNAs regulate microglial activation is a crucial step forward in developing non-coding RNA-based therapeutics to treat and potentially correct the behavioral and cognitive deficits typically found in patients suffering from chronic neuroinflammation.</p>","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"249 ","pages":"10120"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10911137/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140093741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jie Ding, Tae-Hoon Kim, Guangying Ma, Xincheng Yao
{"title":"Intrinsic signal optoretinography of dark adaptation abnormality due to rod photoreceptor degeneration.","authors":"Jie Ding, Tae-Hoon Kim, Guangying Ma, Xincheng Yao","doi":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10024","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10024","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This research aims to investigate the potential of using intrinsic optical signal (IOS) optoretinography (ORG) to objectively detect dark adaptation (DA) abnormalities related to rod photoreceptor degeneration. Functional optical coherence tomography (OCT) was employed in both wild-type (WT) and retinal degeneration 10 (rd10) mice to conduct this assessment. Dynamic OCT measurements captured the changes in retinal thickness and reflectance from light-to-dark transition. Comparative analysis revealed significant IOS alterations within the outer retina. Specifically, a reduction in thickness from external limiting membrane (ELM) peak to retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) peak was observed (WT: 1.13 ± 0.69 µm, 30 min DA; rd10: 2.64 ± 0.86 µm, 30 min DA), as well as a decrease in the intensity of the inner segment ellipsoid zone (EZ) in 30 min DA compared to light adaptation (LA). The reduction of relative EZ intensity was notable in rd10 after 5 min DA and in WT after 15 min DA, with a distinguishable difference between rd10 and WT after 10 min DA. Furthermore, our findings indicated a significant decrease in the relative intensity of the hypo-reflective band between EZ and RPE in rd10 retinas during DA, which primarily corresponds to the outer segment (OS) region. In conclusion, the observed DA-IOS abnormalities, including changes in ELM-RPE thickness, EZ, and OS intensity, hold promise as differentiators between WT and rd10 mice before noticeable morphological abnormalities occur. These findings suggest the potential of this non-invasive imaging technique for the early detection of dysfunction in retinal photoreceptors.</p>","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"249 ","pages":"10024"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10911128/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140093708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nahid Zareian, Oleg Eremin, Hardev Pandha, Richard Baird, Vineet Kwatra, Gabriel Funingana, Chandan Verma, Desmond Choy, Steven Hargreaves, Pejvak Moghimi, Adrian Shepherd, Dileep N Lobo, Jennifer Eremin, Farzin Farzaneh, Shahram Kordasti, James Spicer
{"title":"A phase 1 trial of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) vaccination combined with therapeutic strategies to control immune-suppressor mechanisms.","authors":"Nahid Zareian, Oleg Eremin, Hardev Pandha, Richard Baird, Vineet Kwatra, Gabriel Funingana, Chandan Verma, Desmond Choy, Steven Hargreaves, Pejvak Moghimi, Adrian Shepherd, Dileep N Lobo, Jennifer Eremin, Farzin Farzaneh, Shahram Kordasti, James Spicer","doi":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10021","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10021","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The presence of inhibitory immune cells and difficulty in generating activated effector T cells remain obstacles to development of effective cancer vaccines. We designed a vaccine regimen combining human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) peptides with concomitant therapies targeting regulatory T cells (Tregs) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2)-mediated immunosuppression. This Phase 1 trial combined an hTERT-derived 7-peptide library, selected to ensure presentation by both HLA class-I and class-II in 90% of patients, with oral low-dose cyclophosphamide (to modulate Tregs) and the COX2 inhibitor celecoxib. Adjuvants were Montanide and topical TLR-7 agonist, to optimise antigen presentation. The primary objective was determination of the safety and tolerability of this combination therapy, with anti-cancer activity, immune response and detection of antigen-specific T cells as additional endpoints. Twenty-nine patients with advanced solid tumours were treated. All were multiply-pretreated, and the majority had either colorectal or prostate cancer. The most common adverse events were injection-site reactions, fatigue and nausea. Median progression-free survival was 9 weeks, with no complete or partial responses, but 24% remained progression-free for ≥6 months. Immunophenotyping showed post-vaccination expansion of CD4<sup>+</sup> and CD8<sup>+</sup> T cells with effector phenotypes. The <i>in vitro</i> re-challenge of T cells with hTERT peptides, TCR sequencing, and TCR similarity index analysis demonstrated the expansion following vaccination of oligoclonal T cells with specificity for hTERT. However, a population of exhausted PD-1<sup>+</sup> cytotoxic T cells was also expanded in vaccinated patients. This vaccine combination regimen was safe and associated with antigen-specific immunological responses. Clinical activity could be improved in future by combination with anti-PD1 checkpoint inhibition to address the emergence of an exhausted T cell population.</p>","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"249 ","pages":"10021"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10911124/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140093706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Experimental biology and medicine: new frontiers.","authors":"Steven R Goodman","doi":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10069","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ebm.2024.10069","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"249 ","pages":"10069"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10911118/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140093707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dan Li, Dong Wang, Donald J. Johann, H. Hong, Joshua Xu
{"title":"Assessments of tumor mutational burden estimation by targeted panel sequencing: A comprehensive simulation analysis","authors":"Dan Li, Dong Wang, Donald J. Johann, H. Hong, Joshua Xu","doi":"10.1177/15353702231211882","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15353702231211882","url":null,"abstract":"Tumor mutational burden (TMB), when at a high level, is an emerging indicative factor of sensitivity to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Previous studies have shown that the more affordable and accurate targeted panels can be used to measure TMB as a substitute for whole exome sequencing (WES). However, additional processes, such as hotspot mutations exclusion and TMB adjustment, are usually required to deal with the effect of the limited panel sizes. A comprehensive investigation of the effective factors is needed for accurate TMB estimation by targeted panels. In this study, we quantitatively evaluated the variances of TMB values calculated by WES and targeted panels using 10,000 simulated targeted panels with panel sizes ranging from 0.2 to 3.1 million bases. With The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cancer samples and mutation profiles, we fixed regressions on WES-TMBs and panel-TMBs to assess the performance of a given targeted panel. Panel size was found as one of the major effective factors of TMB estimation. Meanwhile, by investigating the well-performing small panels that reported TMB values similar to those of WES, we demonstrated the evidence of the cancer type–specific impacts of genes on TMB estimation and identified high-impact gene sets for different cancer types based on the TCGA data. This study revealed the quantitative correlations between TMB variance and panel size, and the potential impacts of individual genes on TMB estimation. Our results suggested that for cancer patients diagnosed using targeted panels, it would be highly beneficial to have the capability to directly measure TMB from the targeted sequencing data. This would greatly assist in making decisions regarding the use of immunotherapies.","PeriodicalId":12163,"journal":{"name":"Experimental Biology and Medicine","volume":"54 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138587146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}