Digital Commons Network^™

Pancreatitis Pain Quality Changes At Year 1 Follow-Up, But Gp130 Remains A Biomarker For Pain, Jami L Saloman, Kristofer Jennings, Kimberly Stello, Shuang Li, Anna Evans Phillips, Kristen Hall, Evan L Fogel, Santhi Swaroop Vege, Dana K Andersen, William E Fisher, Christopher E Forsmark, Phil A Hart, Stephen J Pandol, Walter G Park, Mark D Topazian, Stephen K Van Den Eeden, Jose Serrano, Darwin L Conwell, Liang Li, Dhiraj Yadav

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Background/objectives: Debilitating abdominal pain is a common symptom affecting patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP). CP pain is dynamic due to multiple underlying mechanisms. The objective of this study was to 1) evaluate changes in pain phenotype at one year follow-up and 2) validate putative pain biomarkers in a prospective cohort study.

Methods: The Neuropathic and Nociceptive PROMIS-PQ questionnaires were used to classify pain for participants with in the PROCEED study. Putative serum biomarkers were measured via immunoassay.

Results: At enrollment, 17.6 % (120/681) subjects with CP reported no pain in the previous year. Of those, 29 % experienced pain during …

Trends And Disparities In Coronary Artery Disease And Obesity-Related Mortality In The United States From 1999-2022, Mushood Ahmed, Hira Javaid, Aimen Shafiq, Zain Ali Nadeem, Areeba Ahsan, Abdullah Nofal, Raheel Ahmed, Mahboob Alam, Marat Fudim, Gregg C Fonarow, Mamas A Mamas

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Almost half of the US adult population has obesity, which predisposes to atherosclerosis and can lead to poor prognosis in coronary artery disease (CAD). We aim to identify CAD and obesity-related mortality trends among adults in the United States stratified by age, sex, race and geographical location.

METHODS: The CDC-WONDER database was used to extract death certificate data for adults aged ≥ 25 years. Crude mortality rates (CMR) and age-adjusted mortality rates (AAMRs) per 100,000 persons were calculated, and temporal trends were described by calculating annual percent change (APC) and the average APC (AAPC) in the rates using Joinpoint …

Xenomake: A Pipeline For Processing And Sorting Xenograft Reads From Spatial Transcriptomic Experiments, Benjamin S Strope, Katherine E Pendleton, William Z Bowie, Gloria V Echeverria, Qian Zhu

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

SUMMARY: Xenograft models are attractive models that mimic human tumor biology and permit one to perturb the tumor microenvironment and study its drug response. Spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT) provides a powerful way to study the organization of xenograft models, but currently there is a lack of specialized pipeline for processing xenograft reads originated from SRT experiments. Xenomake is a standalone pipeline for the automated handling of spatial xenograft reads. Xenomake handles read processing, alignment, xenograft read sorting, and connects well with downstream spatial analysis packages. We additionally show that Xenomake can correctly assign organism-specific reads, reduce sparsity of data by …

Perivascular Epithelioid Cell-Family Tumors In Children, Adolescents, And Young Adults: Clinicopathologic Features In 70 Cases, Phoebe M Hammer, Angus Toland, Muhammad Shaheen, Archana Shenoy, Ashwini Esnakula, M John Hicks, Mikako Warran, Alyaa Al-Ibraheemi, Jessica L Davis, Serena Y Tan

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Context.—: Perivascular epithelioid cell tumors (PEComas) are rare mesenchymal tumors of uncertain histogenesis expressing smooth muscle and melanocytic markers. The clinicopathologic spectrum in young patients is not well documented.

Objective.—: To describe a multi-institutional series of PEComas in children, adolescents, and young adults.

Design.—: PEComas, not otherwise specified (NOS); angiomyolipomas (AMLs); lymphangioleiomyomatosis; and clear cell sugar tumors were retrospectively identified from 6 institutions and the authors' files.

Results.—: Seventy PEComas in 64 patients (median age, 15 years) were identified. They were more common in females (45 of 64 patients), occurring predominantly in the kidney (53 of 70), followed by the …

A Cross-Systems Primer For Synthetic Microbial Communities, Elijah C Mehlferber, Gontran Arnault, Bishnu Joshi, Laila P Partida-Martinez, Kathryn A Patras, Marie Simonin, Britt Koskella

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The design and use of synthetic communities, or SynComs, is one of the most promising strategies for disentangling the complex interactions within microbial communities, and between these communities and their hosts. Compared to natural communities, these simplified consortia provide the opportunity to study ecological interactions at tractable scales, as well as facilitating reproducibility and fostering interdisciplinary science. However, the effective implementation of the SynCom approach requires several important considerations regarding the development and application of these model systems. There are also emerging ethical considerations when both designing and deploying SynComs in clinical, agricultural or environmental settings. Here we outline current …

Asn Kidney Health Guidance On The Management Of Obesity In Persons Living With Kidney Diseases, T Alp Ikizler, Holly J Kramer, Srinivasan Beddhu, Alex R Chang, Allon N Friedman, Meera N Harhay, Elizabeth Yakes Jimenez, Brandon Kistler, Aleksandra Kukla, Kristin Larson, Lindamarie U Lavenburg, Sankar Dass Navaneethan, John Ortiz, Rocio I Pereira, David B Sarwer, Philip R Schauer, Evan M Zeitler

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

Burden Re-Analysis Of Neurodevelopmental Disorder Cohorts For Prioritization Of Candidate Genes, Noor Smal, Fatma Majdoub, Katrien Janssens, Edwin Reyniers, Marije E C Meuwissen, Berten Ceulemans, Hope Northrup, Jeremy B Hill, Lingying Liu, Edoardo Errichiello, Simone Gana, Alanna Strong, Luis Rohena, Rachel Franciskovich, Chaya N Murali, An Huybrechs, Telma Sulem, Run Fridriksdottir, Patrick Sulem, Kari Stefansson, Yan Bai, Jill A Rosenfeld, Seema R Lalani, Haley Streff, Undiagnosed Diseases Network, R Frank Kooy, Sarah Weckhuysen

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

This study aimed to uncover novel genes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) by leveraging recent large-scale de novo burden analysis studies to enhance a virtual gene panel used in a diagnostic setting. We re-analyzed historical trio-exome sequencing data from 745 individuals with NDD according to the most recent diagnostic standards, resulting in a cohort of 567 unsolved individuals. Next, we designed a virtual gene panel containing candidate genes from three large de novo burden analysis studies in NDD and prioritized candidate genes by stringent filtering for ultra-rare de novo variants with high pathogenicity scores. Our analysis revealed an increased burden …

Secondary Acmg And Non-Acmg Genetic Findings In A Multiethnic Cohort Of 16,713 Pediatric Participants, Amir Hossein Saeidian, Michael E March, Leila Youssefian, Deborah J Watson, Esha Bhandari, Xiang Wang, Xiaonan Zhao, Nichole Marie Owen, Alanna Strong, Margaret H Harr, Elizabeth Bhoj, Elaine Zackai, Hassan Vahidnezhad, Johann E Gudjonsson, Stephen D Cederbaum, Joshua L Deignan, Joseph Glessner, Wayne W Grody, Hakon Hakonarson

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Purpose: Clinical next-generation sequencing is an effective approach for identifying pathogenic sequence variants that are medically actionable for participants and families but are not associated with the participant's primary diagnosis. These variants are called secondary findings (SFs). According to the literature, there is no report of the types and frequencies of SFs in a large pediatric cohort that includes substantial African-American participants. We sought to investigate the types (including American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics [ACMG] and non-ACMG-recommended gene lists), frequencies, and rates of SFs, as well as the effects of SF disclosure on the participants and families of …

Ga2len Anacare Consensus Statement: Potential Of Omalizumab In Food Allergy Management, Torsten Zuberbier, Antonella Muraro, Ulugbek Nurmatov, Stefania Arasi, Katarina Stevanovic, Aikaterini Anagnostou, Roberta Bonaguro, Sharon Chinthrajah, Gideon Lack, Alessandro Fiocchi, Thuy-My Le, Paul Turner, Montserrat Alvaro Lozano, Elizabeth Angier, Simona Barni, Phillippe Bégin, Barbara Ballmer-Weber, Victoria Cardona, Carsten Bindslev-Jensen, Antonella Cianferoni, Nicolette De Jong, Debra De Silva, Antoine Deschildre, Audrey Dunn Galvin, Motohiro Ebisawa, David M Fleischer, Jennifer Gerdts, Mattia Giovannini, Josefine Gradman, Susanne Halken, Syed Hasan Arshad, Ekaterina Khaleva, Susanne Lau, Richard Loh, Mika J Mäkelä, Mary Jane Marchisotto, Laura Morandini, Charlotte G Mortz, Caroline Nilsson, Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn, Marcia Podestà, Lars K Poulsen, Graham Roberts, Pablo Rodríguez Del Río, Hugh A Sampson, Angel Sánchez, Sabine Schnadt, Peter K Smith, Hania Szajewska, Natasa Teovska Mitrevska, Alice Toniolo, Carina Venter, Amena Warner, Gary W K Wong, Robert Wood, Margitta Worm

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Immunoglobulin E (IgE)‐mediated food allergies are the most common type of food allergy, often causing rapid symptoms after exposure to allergens posing a serious health risk and a high impact on patient's and caregiver's quality of life. Omalizumab, a humanized anti‐IgE monoclonal antibody, reduces allergic reactions by binding to circulating IgE. Omalizumab has been successfully used in allergic asthma, chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps, and chronic urticaria, and was recently approved for treating IgE‐mediated food allergies by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This GA2LEN ANACARE Consensus Statement presents our position on the use of omalizumab for treating IgE‐mediated …

Biallelic Loss-Of-Function Variants In Ubap1l And Nonsyndromic Retinal Dystrophies, Ehsan Ullah, Siying Lin, Jiaxiong Lu, Chelsea Bender, Andrew R Webster, Samantha Malka, Savita Madhusudhan, Emma Rees, Denise Williams, Aime R Agather, Catherine A Cukras, Robert B Hufnagel, Rui Chen, Laryssa A Huryn, Gavin Arno, Bin Guan

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Importance: Inherited retinal dystrophies (IRDs) present a challenge in clinical diagnostics due to their pronounced genetic heterogeneity. Despite advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, a substantial portion of the genetic basis underlying IRDs remains elusive. Addressing this gap seems important for gaining insights into the genetic landscape of IRDs, which may help improve diagnosis and prognosis and develop targeted therapies in the future.

Objective: To provide a clinical and molecular characterization of 6 patients with IRDs with biallelic disease-causing variants in a novel candidate IRD disease gene.

Design, setting, and participants: This multicenter case series study included 6 patients with …

Prognostic Stratification In Dlbcl Patients With Aberrant Myc Gene, Jian-Rong Li, Vikram R Shaw, Abi Parthasarathy, Yong Li, Christopher I Amos, Chao Cheng

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is a heterogeneous disease characterized by a subset of patients who exhibit treatment resistance and poor prognoses. Genomic assays have been widely employed to identify high-risk individuals characterized by rearrangements in the MYC, BCL2 and BCL6 genes. These patients typically undergo more aggressive therapeutic treatments; however, there remains a significant variation in their treatment outcomes. This study introduces an MYC signature score (MYCSS) derived from gene expression profiles, specifically designed to evaluate MYC overactivation in DLBCL patients. MYCSS was validated across several independent cohorts to assess its ability to stratify patients based on MYC-related genetic …

Identifying High-Risk Multiple Myeloma Patients: A Novel Approach Using A Clonal Gene Signature, Jian-Rong Li, Christiana Wang, Chao Cheng

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a heterogeneous disease with a small subset of high-risk patients having poor prognoses. Identifying these patients is crucial for treatment management and strategic decisions. In this study, we developed a novel computational framework to define prognostic gene signatures by selecting genes with expression driven by clonal copy number alterations. We applied this framework to MM and developed a clonal gene signature (CGS) consisting of 22 genes and evaluated in five independent datasets. The CGS provided significant prognostic values after adjusting for well-established factors including cytogenetic abnormalities, International Staging System (ISS), and Revised ISS (R-ISS). Importantly, CGS …

Covid-19 Breakthrough Infection After Vaccination And Substance Use Disorders: A Longitudinal Cohort Of People With And Without Hiv Receiving Care In The United States Veterans Health Administration, Elena M Soyer, Kathleen A Mcginnis, Amy C Justice, Evelyn Hsieh, Maria C Rodriguez-Barradas, Emily C Williams, Lesley S Park

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Research regarding HIV, substance use disorders (SUD), and SARS-CoV-2 infections after COVID-19 vaccination is limited. In the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS)-HIV cohort, we followed vaccinated persons with HIV (PWH) and without HIV (PWoH) from 12/2020 to 3/2022 and linked SARS-CoV-2 test results for laboratory-confirmed breakthrough infection through 9/2022. We examined associations of substance use (alcohol use disorder [AUD], other SUD, smoking status) and HIV status and severity with breakthrough infections, using Cox proportional hazards regression hazard ratios (HR). To test for potential interactions between substance use and HIV, we fit survival models with a multiplicative interaction term. Among 24,253 …

Synaptic Plasticity In The Injured Brain Depends On The Temporal Pattern Of Stimulation, Quentin S Fischer, Djanenkhodja Kalikulov, Gonzalo Viana Di Prisco, Carrie A Williams, Philip R Baldwin, Michael J Friedlander

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Neurostimulation protocols are increasingly used as therapeutic interventions, including for brain injury. In addition to the direct activation of neurons, these stimulation protocols are also likely to have downstream effects on those neurons' synaptic outputs. It is well known that alterations in the strength of synaptic connections (long-term potentiation, LTP; long-term depression, LTD) are sensitive to the frequency of stimulation used for induction; however, little is known about the contribution of the temporal pattern of stimulation to the downstream synaptic plasticity that may be induced by neurostimulation in the injured brain. We explored interactions of the temporal pattern and frequency …

Associations Between Epilepsy, Respiratory Impairment, And Minor Ecg Abnormalities In Children, See Wai Chan, Angela Chun, Linh Nguyen, Beth Bubolz, Anne E Anderson, Yi-Chen Lai

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objective: We sought to examine the effects of acute seizures and respiratory derangement on the cardiac electrical properties reflected on the electrocardiogram (ECG); and to analyze their potential interactions with a diagnosis of epilepsy in children.

Methods: Emergency center (EC) visits with seizure or epilepsy diagnostic codes from 1/2011-12/2013 were included if they had ECG within 24 h of EC visit. Patients were excluded if they had pre-existing cardiac conditions, ion channelopathy, or were taking specific cardiac medications. Control subjects were 1:1 age and gender matched. Abnormal ECG was defined as changes in rhythm, PR, QRS, or corrected QT intervals; …

Shear Stress Induces A Time-Dependent Inflammatory Response In Human Monocyte-Derived Macrophages, Elysa Jui, Griffin Kingsley, Hong Kim T Phan, Kavya L Singampalli, Ravi K Birla, Jennifer P Connell, Sundeep G Keswani, K Jane Grande-Allen

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Macrophages are innate immune cells that are known for their extreme plasticity, enabling diverse phenotypes that lie on a continuum. In a simplified model, they switch between pro-inflammatory (M1) and anti-inflammatory (M2) phenotypes depending on surrounding microenvironmental cues, which have been implicated in disease outcomes. Although considerable research has been focused on macrophage response to biochemical cues and mechanical signals, there is a scarcity of knowledge surrounding their behavior in response to shear stress. In this study, we applied varying magnitudes of shear stress on human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) using a cone-and-plate viscometer and evaluated changes in morphology, gene expression, …

Suppression Of Matrigel-Induced Choroidal Neovascularization By Aav Delivery Of A Novel Anti-Scg3 Antibody, Chengchi Huang, Avinash Kaur, Liyang Ji, Hong Tian, Keith A Webster, Wei Li

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Efforts to develop gene therapy for long-term treatment of neovascular disease are hampered by ongoing concerns that biologics against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibit both physiological and pathological angiogenesis and are therefore at elevated risk of adverse side effects. A potential solution is to develop disease-targeted gene therapy. Secretogranin III (Scg3), a unique disease-restricted angiogenic factor described by our group, contributes significantly to ocular neovascular disease. We have shown that Scg3 blockade with a monoclonal antibody Fab fragment (Fab) stringently inhibits pathological angiogenesis without affecting healthy vessels. Here we tested the therapeutic efficacy of adeno-associated virus (AAV)-anti-Scg3Fab to block …

Diffuse Glioneuronal Tumor With Oligodendroglioma-Like Features And Nuclear Clusters Relapse In A Seven-Year-Old Boy: An Unusual Case Exhibiting Near-Tetraploidy And Chromosome 14 Diploidy, Francis M Torres, Thomas Denapoli, Ping-Sun Chen, Carrie Mohila, Kevin E Fisher, Kenneth Aldape, Mark R Lee, Timothy C Griffin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Diffuse glioneuronal tumor with oligodendroglioma-like features and nuclear clusters (DGONC) is a rare brain tumor of the central nervous system (CNS). Although only a few cases of DGONC have been reported following the initial description of the tumor, they have a distinct DNA methylation pattern and share a recurrent chromosomal finding of monosomy 14. We encountered a seven-year-old boy who presented with seizures and was found to have a left frontal and suprasellar mass. The tumor was grossly totally resected; histopathologic evaluation showed a cellular glioneuronal tumor with brisk mitotic activity. A near-tetraploid chromosome complement was detected, with associated diploidy …

Promis Fatigue Scores Are Moderately Correlated With Heart Failure Severity In Pediatrics, Lindsay J May, Josef Stehlik, Zhining Ou, Linda M Lambert, Chiu-Yu Chen, David N Rosenthal, Desiree S Machado, Dalia Lopez-Colon, Renata Shih, Taylor Gibbons, Brian Madden, Kae Watanabe, Angela P Presson, Amy M Cizik, Heather T Keenan

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) correlate with heart failure (HF) severity among adults and are adjunct tools in clinical care. Limited data exist regarding the validity of PROMs in pediatric HF. Hypothesis: Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Pediatric Fatigue correlates with HF severity, measured by the New York University Pediatric Heart Failure Index (NYU PHFI).

Methods: Children ≥8 and < 18 years old were enrolled prospectively at 4 hospitals, from September 2019 to February 2023, while receiving inpatient HF care. NYU PHFI and pediatric self-report PROMIS measures were administered to inpatient and outpatient patients. PROMIS measures: Mobility, Anxiety, Depressive symptoms, Peer relationships, and Fatigue (primary outcome). Paired t-tests compared PROMIS and NYU PHFI scores across time. A mixed-effects model generated correlation coefficients.

Results: In the 41-patient cohort, 20 (48.8%) were discharged without ventricular assist device/transplant, 18 completed inpatient and outpatient assessments. Mean PROMIS Fatigue t-scores …

Bcl-Xl Is Translocated To The Nucleus Via Ctbp2 To Epigenetically Promote Metastasis, Tiantian Zhang, Sha Li, Yingcai Adrian Tan, Xiang Chen, Cheryl Zhang, Zhengming Chen, Bikash Mishra, Joseph Hyungjoon Na, Soyoung Choi, Sandra J Shin, Priyadarshan Damle, Kranthi Kumar Chougoni, Steven R Grossman, Dunrui Wang, Xuejun Jiang, Yi Li, Erika Hissong, Yao-Tseng Chen, Jenny Z Xiang, Yi-Chieh Nancy Du

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Nuclear Bcl-xL is found to promote cancer metastasis independently of its mitochondria-based anti-apoptotic activity. How Bcl-xL is translocated into the nucleus and how nuclear Bcl-xL regulates histone H3 trimethyl Lys4 (H3K4me3) modification have yet to be understood. Here, we report that C-terminal Binding Protein 2 (CtBP2) binds to Bcl-xL via its N-terminus and translocates Bcl-xL into the nucleus. Knockdown of CtBP2 by shRNA decreases the nuclear portion of Bcl-xL and reverses Bcl-xL-induced invasion and metastasis in mouse models. Furthermore, knockout of CtBP2 not only reduces the nuclear portion of Bcl-xL but also suppresses Bcl-xL transcription. The binding between Bcl-xL and …

Solid Tumour-Induced Systemic Immunosuppression Involves Dichotomous Myeloid-B Cell Interactions, Xiaoxin Hao, Yichao Shen, Jun Liu, Angela Alexander, Ling Wu, Zhan Xu, Liqun Yu, Yang Gao, Fengshuo Liu, Hilda L Chan, Che-Hsing Li, Yunfeng Ding, Weijie Zhang, David G Edwards, Nan Chen, Azadeh Nasrazadani, Naoto T Ueno, Bora Lim, Xiang H-F Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Solid tumours induce systemic immunosuppression that involves myeloid and T cells. B cell-related mechanisms remain relatively understudied. Here we discover two distinct patterns of tumour-induced B cell abnormality (TiBA; TiBA-1 and TiBA-2), both associated with abnormal myelopoiesis in the bone marrow. TiBA-1 probably results from the niche competition between pre-progenitor-B cells and myeloid progenitors, leading to a global reduction in downstream B cells. TiBA-2 is characterized by systemic accumulation of a unique early B cell population, driven by interaction with excessive neutrophils. Importantly, TiBA-2-associated early B cells foster the systemic accumulation of exhaustion-like T cells. Myeloid and B cells from …

Factors Associated With Head And Neck Cancer Postoperative Radiotherapy Delays: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Kelsey A Duckett, Mohamed Faisal Kassir, Shaun A Nguyen, Emily A Brennan, Bhisham S Chera, Katherine R Sterba, Chanita Hughes Halbert, Elizabeth G Hill, Jessica Mccay, Sidharth V Puram, Ryan S Jackson, Vlad C Sandulache, Russel Kahmke, Nosayaba Osazuwa-Peters, Salma Ramadan, Brian Nussenbaum, Anthony J Alberg, Evan M Graboyes

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objective: Initiating postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) within 6 weeks of surgery for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is included in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Clincal Practice Guidelines and is a Commission on Cancer quality metric. Factors associated with delays in starting PORT have not been systematically described nor synthesized.

Data sources: PubMed, Scopus, and CINAHL.

Review methods: We included studies describing demographic characteristics, clinical factors, or social determinants of health associated with PORT delay (>6 weeks) in patients with HNSCC treated in the United States after 2003. Meta-analysis of odds ratios (ORs) was performed on nonoverlapping datasets. …

Senescence Biomarkers And Trajectories Of Frailty And Physical Function After Kidney Transplantation, Elizabeth C Lorenz, Byron H Smith, Hani M Wadei, Girish Mour, Cassie C Kennedy, Carrie A Schinstock, Walter K Kremers, Andrea L Cheville, Latonya J Hickson, Elizabeth J Atkinson, Thomas A White, Andrew D Rule, Nathan K Lebrasseur

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Cellular senescence is a biological mechanism of aging and age-related diseases. The aim of this study was to examine whether senescence biomarkers are associated with frailty and physical function trajectories in patients undergoing kidney transplantation (KT). We also discussed the relationship between senescence biomarkers and KT function. In this multicenter study, we prospectively assessed plasma levels of senescence biomarkers, frailty as measured by the Physical Frailty Phenotype, and physical function as measured by the Short Physical Performance Battery prior to KT. Frailty, physical function, and KT function were also measured 1 year after KT. Variable associations were assessed using Cox …

Family Lore, A Variant Of Uncertain Significance, And Cadasil, Rhys Duarte, Liesbeth Vossaert, Sandra A Darilek, Chelsi Rose, Evan Schauer, Christian Parobek, Emily Bland, Keren Machol, Elizabeth Mizerik, Chaya N Murali

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

An infant presents in extremis. After the medical team stabilizes him, the race is on to figure out why he got so sick in the first place. The consulting genetics team thinks that it is unlikely his problems are due to a genetic cause, but his extreme, confounding presentation is enough to justify trio exome sequencing. When the results reveal an unexpected, paternally inherited variant of uncertain significance (VUS) in NOTCH3, fresh questions arise. The infant's presenting symptoms and descriptive diagnoses, including hematemesis, epistaxis, and gastric ulcers, certainly do not fit the mold of CADASIL. However, closer inspection of his …

Metabolites Link Intake Of A Healthy Diet To Better Insulin And Glucose Homeostasis In The Microbiome And Insulin Longitudinal Evaluation Study (Miles), Alexis C Wood, Danielle J Lee, Patricia A Sheridan, Elizabeth T Jensen, Gautam Ramesh, Alain G Bertoni, Stephen S Rich, Yii-Der I Chen, David M Herrington, Jerome I Rotter, Mark O Goodarzi

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Dietary quality has been linked to better glycemic control, but the precise molecular mechanisms giving rise to these associations are not fully understood.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the association of metabolites associated with the intake of a healthy diet with measures of insulin/glucose homeostasis.

METHODS: Using cross-sectional data from 295 United States adults, the associations between 3 diet pattern scores and metabolome-wide metabolites were estimated via linear regression models, which controlled for demographic factors and health behaviors. Subsequently, the associations between the diet-related metabolites with 6 measures of glucose/insulin homeostasis were examined in similar models. A Bonferroni correction was applied …

Identification Of Single-Cell Blasts In Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia Using An Autoencoder, Alice Driessen, Susanne Unger, An-Phi Nguyen, Rhonda E Ries, Soheil Meshinchi, Stefanie Kreutmair, Chiara Alberti, Pavel Sumazin, Richard Aplenc, Michele S Redell, Burkhard Becher, María Rodríguez Martínez

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is an aggressive blood cancer with a poor prognosis and high relapse rate. Current challenges in the identification of immunotherapy targets arise from patient-specific blast immunophenotypes and their change during disease progression. To overcome this, we present a new computational research tool to rapidly identify malignant cells. We generated single-cell flow cytometry profiles of 21 pediatric AML patients with matched samples at diagnosis, remission, and relapse. We coupled a classifier to an autoencoder for anomaly detection and classified malignant blasts with 90% accuracy. Moreover, our method assigns a developmental stage to blasts at the single-cell …

Omnidirectional Wireless Power Transfer For Millimetric Magnetoelectric Biomedical Implants, Wei Wang, Zhanghao Yu, Yiwei Zou, Joshua E Woods, Prahalad Chari, Yumin Su, Jacob T Robinson, Kaiyuan Yang

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Miniature bioelectronic implants promise revolutionary therapies for cardiovascular and neurological disorders. Wireless power transfer (WPT) is a significant method for miniaturization, eliminating the need for bulky batteries in today’s devices. Despite successful demonstrations of millimetric battery-free implants in animal models, the robustness and efficiency of WPT are known to degrade significantly under misalignment incurred by body movements, respiration, heart beating, and limited control of implant orientation during surgery. This paper presents an omnidirectional WPT platform for millimetric bioelectronic implants, employing the emerging magnetoelectric (ME) WPT modality, and “magnetic field steering” technique based on multiple transmitter (TX) coils. To accurately sense …

Car-Redirected Natural Killer T Cells Demonstrate Superior Antitumor Activity To Car-T Cells Through Multimodal Cd1d-Dependent Mechanisms, Xin Zhou, Ying Wang, Zhangqi Dou, Gloria Delfanti, Ourania Tsahouridis, Caroline Marnata Pellegry, Manuela Zingarelli, Gatphan Atassi, Mark G Woodcock, Giulia Casorati, Paolo Dellabona, William Y Kim, Linjie Guo, Barbara Savoldo, Ageliki Tsagaratou, J Justin Milner, Leonid S Metelitsa, Gianpietro Dotti

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Human natural killer T (NKT) cells have been proposed as a promising cell platform for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) therapy in solid tumors. Here we generated murine CAR-NKT cells and compared them with CAR-T cells in immune-competent mice. Both CAR-NKT cells and CAR-T cells showed similar antitumor effects in vitro, but CAR-NKT cells showed superior antitumor activity in vivo via CD1d-dependent immune responses in the tumor microenvironment. Specifically, we show that CAR-NKT cells eliminate CD1d-expressing M2-like macrophages. In addition, CAR-NKT cells promote epitope spreading and activation of endogenous T cell responses against tumor-associated neoantigens. Finally, we observed that CAR-NKT cells …

Genetic Risk Factors In Isolated Dystonia Escape Genome-Wide Association Studies, Björn-Hergen Laabs, Katja Lohmann, Eva-Juliane Vollstedt, Tobias Reinberger, Lisa-Marie Nuxoll, Gamze Kilic-Berkmen, Joel S Perlmutter, Sebastian Loens, Carlos Cruchaga, Andre Franke, Valerija Dobricic, Frauke Hinrichs, Anne Grözinger, Eckart Altenmüller, Steven Bellows, Sylvia Boesch, Susan B Bressman, Kevin R Duque, Alberto J Espay, Andreas Ferbert, Jeanne S Feuerstein, Samuel Frank, Thomas Gasser, Bernhard Haslinger, Robert Jech, Frank Kaiser, Christoph Kamm, Katja Kollewe, Andrea A Kühn, Mark S Ledoux, Ebba Lohmann, Abhimanyu Mahajan, Alexander Münchau, Trisha Multhaupt-Buell, Alexander Pantelyat, Sarah E Pirio Richardson, Deborah Raymond, Stephen G Reich, Rachel Saunders Pullman, Barbara Schormair, Nutan Sharma, Azadeh Hamzehei Sichani, Kristina Simonyan, Jens Volkmann, Aparna Wagle Shukla, Juliane Winkelmann, Laura J Wright, Michael Zech, Kirsten E Zeuner, Simone Zittel, Meike Kasten, Yan V Sun, Tobias Bäumer, Norbert Brüggemann, Laurie J Ozelius, Hyder A Jinnah, Christine Klein, Inke R König

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Despite considerable heritability, previous smaller genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have not identified any robust genetic risk factors for isolated dystonia.

Objective: The objective of this study was to perform a large-scale GWAS in a well-characterized, multicenter sample of >6000 individuals to identify genetic risk factors for isolated dystonia.

Methods: Array-based GWASs were performed on autosomes for 4303 dystonia participants and 2362 healthy control subjects of European ancestry with subgroup analysis based on age at onset, affected body regions, and a newly developed clinical score. Another 736 individuals were used for validation.

Results: This GWAS identified no common genome-wide significant …

National Liver Cancer Screening Trial (Tracer) Study Protocol, Amit G Singal, Neehar D Parikh, Fasiha Kanwal, Jorge A Marrero, Sneha Deodhar, Stephanie Page-Lester, Camden Lopez, Ziding Feng, Nabihah Tayob

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Professional guidelines recommend HCC screening in at-risk patients using semi-annual ultrasound with or without alpha-fetoprotein (AFP); however, this strategy has limited effectiveness due to low adherence and sensitivity. Increasing data support the potential role of blood-based biomarker panels, which could improve both aspects. The biomarker panel GALAD, comprised of sex, age, and 3 blood biomarkers (AFP, AFP-L3, and des-carboxy prothrombin des-carboxy prothrombin), has shown high sensitivity and specificity in biomarker phase II (case-control) and phase III (retrospective cohort) validation studies. However, prospective validation in a large phase IV biomarker clinical utility trial is necessary before its adoption in practice. …