Medical Molecular Biology Commons^™

Poly(I:C) Induces Controlled Release Of Il-36gamma From Keratinocytes In The Absence Of Cell Death, A. A. Rana, A. V. Lucs, J. Devoti, L. Blanc, J. Papoin, R. Wu, C. J. Papayannakos, A. Abramson, V. R. Bonagura, B. M. Steinberg

Journal Articles

The epithelium is part of an integrated immune system where cytokines, toll-like receptors and their ligands, and extracellular vesicles play a crucial role in initiating an innate immune response. IL-36gamma is a pro-inflammatory member of the IL-1 family that is mainly expressed by epithelial cells, but regulation of its expression and release are only beginning to be understood. Previous studies reported that IL-36gamma is abundant in recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, a rare but devastating disease caused by human papillomaviruses (HPV) types 6 and 11, in which papillomas recurrently grow in and block the airway. Despite the overexpression of IL-36gamma, papilloma tissues …

Giant Cell Tumor Of The Larynx Treated By Surgery And Adjuvant Denosumab: Case Report And Review Of The Literature, A. E. Yancoskie, D. K. Frank, J. E. Fantasia, S. Savona, N. Eiseler, I. Reder, L. B. Kahn

Journal Articles

Giant cell tumor of the larynx (GCTL) is a rare entity; only 34 cases have been reported in the literature. We report a case of GCTL in a 46 year-old male presenting clinical, radiographic, histological and therapeutic features. Previously reported cases are also reviewed.

Cholinergic Anti-Inflammatory Pathway Activity In Dialysis Patients: A Role For Neuroimmunomodulation?, M. Hilderman, A. R. Qureshi, Y. Al-Abed, F. Abtahi, K. Lindecrantz, B. Anderstam, A. Bruchfeld

Journal Articles

BACKGROUND: The cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway (CAP) modulates inflammatory responses through the vagus nerve and the alpha-7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (alpha7nAChR) on macrophages and immune cells. Sympathetic/parasympathetic imbalance and chronic inflammation are both linked to poor outcome in dialysis patients. The aim of this study was to investigate CAP activity in these patients. METHODS: Twenty dialysis patients, 12 hemodialysis (HD) and 8 peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients (12 male, 8 female; age range 47-83 years) and 8 controls (5 male, 3 female; age range 31-52 years) were analyzed for C-reactive protein (CRP), tumor necrosis factor (TNF), interleukin-1b (IL-1b), IL-6 and IL-10 at baseline. …

Genome-Wide Association Study Of Late-Onset Myasthenia Gravis: Confirmation Of Tnfrsf11a, And Identification Of Zbtb10 And Three Distinct Hla Associations, M. F. Seldin, O. K. Alkhairy, A. T. Lee, J. A. Lamb, J. Sussman, R. Pirskanen-Matell, F. Piehl, J. J. Verschuuren, P. K. Gregersen, L. Hammarstrom, +9 Additional Authors

Journal Articles

To investigate the genetics of late-onset myasthenia gravis (LOMG), we conducted a genome-wide association study imputation of >6 million SNPs in 532 LOMG cases (anti-acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antibody positive, onset age >/=50 years) and 2,128 controls matched for sex and population substructure. The data confirm reported TNFRSF11A associations [rs4574025, P = 3.9x10-07, odds ratio (OR) = 1.42] and identify a novel candidate gene, ZBTB10, achieving genome-wide significance (rs6998967, P = 8.9x10-10, OR = 0.53). Several other SNPs showed suggestive significance including rs2476601 (P = 6.5x10-06, OR =1.62) encoding the PTPN22 R620W variant noted in early-onset MG (EOMG) and other autoimmune …

Genome-Wide Meta-Analysis In Alopecia Areata Resolves Hla Associations And Reveals Two New Susceptibility Loci, R. C. Betz, L. Petukhova, S. Ripke, H. Huang, A. Menelaou, S. Redler, A. Lee, P. K. Gregersen, A. M. Christiano, +23 Additional Authors

Journal Articles

Alopecia areata (AA) is a prevalent autoimmune disease with 10 known susceptibility loci. Here we perform the first meta-analysis of research on AA by combining data from two genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and replication with supplemented ImmunoChip data for a total of 3,253 cases and 7,543 controls. The strongest region of association is the major histocompatibility complex, where we fine-map four independent effects, all implicating human leukocyte antigen-DR as a key aetiologic driver. Outside the major histocompatibility complex, we identify two novel loci that exceed the threshold of statistical significance, containing ACOXL/BCL2L11(BIM) (2q13); GARP (LRRC32) (11q13.5), as well as a …

International Genome-Wide Meta-Analysis Identifies New Primary Biliary Cirrhosis Risk Loci And Targetable Pathogenic Pathways, H. J. Cordell, Y. Han, G. F. Mells, Y. Li, G. M. Hirschfield, C. S. Greene, G. Xie, B. D. Juran, K. A. Siminovitch, P. Gregersen, +14 Additional Authors

Journal Articles

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune liver disease for which effective immunomodulatory therapy is lacking. Here we perform meta-analyses of discovery data sets from genome-wide association studies of European subjects (n=2,764 cases and 10,475 controls) followed by validation genotyping in an independent cohort (n=3,716 cases and 4,261 controls). We discover and validate six previously unknown risk loci for PBC (Pcombined10(-8)) and used pathway analysis to identify JAK-STAT/IL12/IL27 signalling and cytokine-cytokine pathways, for which relevant therapies exist.

A Proteinuria Cut-Off Level Of 0.7 G/Day After 12 Months Of Treatment Best Predicts Long-Term Renal Outcome In Lupus Nephritis: Data From The Maintain Nephritis Trial, F. Tamirou, B. R. Lauwerys, M. Dall'era, M. Mackay, B. Rovin, R. Cervera, F. A. Houssiau, D. Abramowicz, L. De Bruxelles, R. Westhovens, +35 Additional Authors

Journal Articles

BACKGROUND: Although an early decrease in proteinuria has been correlated with good long-term renal outcome in lupus nephritis (LN), studies aimed at defining a cut-off proteinuria value are missing, except a recent analysis performed on patients randomised in the Euro-Lupus Nephritis Trial, demonstrating that a target value of 0.8 g/day at month 12 optimised sensitivity and specificity for the prediction of good renal outcome. The objective of the current work is to validate this target in another LN study, namely the MAINTAIN Nephritis Trial (MNT). METHODS: Long-term (at least 7 years) renal function data were available for 90 patients randomised …

Sustaining The Rheumatology Research Enterprise, A. Davidson, D. Polsky

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Tyk2 Protein-Coding Variants Protect Against Rheumatoid Arthritis And Autoimmunity, With No Evidence Of Major Pleiotropic Effects On Non-Autoimmune Complex Traits, D. Diogo, L. Bastarache, K. P. Liao, R. R. Graham, R. S. Fulton, J. D. Greenberg, S. Eyre, A. Lee, P. K. Gregersen, R. M. Plenge, +44 Additional Authors

Journal Articles

Despite the success of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in detecting a large number of loci for complex phenotypes such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) susceptibility, the lack of information on the causal genes leaves important challenges to interpret GWAS results in the context of the disease biology. Here, we genetically fine-map the RA risk locus at 19p13 to define causal variants, and explore the pleiotropic effects of these same variants in other complex traits. First, we combined Immunochip dense genotyping (n = 23,092 case/control samples), Exomechip genotyping (n = 18,409 case/control samples) and targeted exon-sequencing (n = 2,236 case/controls samples) to …

Widespread Non-Additive And Interaction Effects Within Hla Loci Modulate The Risk Of Autoimmune Diseases, T. Lencz, A. J. Deutsch, B. Han, X. Hu, Y. Okada, S. Eyre, M. Knapp, A. Zhernakova, P. K. Gregersen, S. Raychaudhuri, +27 Additional Authors

Journal Articles

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes confer substantial risk for autoimmune diseases on a log-additive scale. Here we speculated that differences in autoantigen-binding repertoires between a heterozygote's two expressed HLA variants might result in additional non-additive risk effects. We tested the non-additive disease contributions of classical HLA alleles in patients and matched controls for five common autoimmune diseases: rheumatoid arthritis (ncases = 5,337), type 1 diabetes (T1D; ncases = 5,567), psoriasis vulgaris (ncases = 3,089), idiopathic achalasia (ncases = 727) and celiac disease (ncases = 11,115). In four of the five diseases, we observed highly significant, non-additive dominance effects (rheumatoid arthritis, …

Pioglitazone In Early Parkinson's Disease: A Phase 2, Multicentre, Double-Blind, Randomised Trial, T. Simuni, K. Kieburtz, B. Tilley, J. J. Elm, B. Ravina, D. Babcock, M. Emborg, Andrew Feigin, R. Zweig, Parkinson Ninds Exploratory Trials, +38 Additinal Authoris

Journal Articles

Background A systematic assessment of potential disease-modifying compounds for Parkinson's disease concluded that pioglitazone could hold promise for the treatment of patients with this disease. We assessed the effect of pioglitazone on the progression of Parkinson's disease in a multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled, futility clinical trial. Methods Participants with the diagnosis of early Parkinson's disease on a stable regimen of 1 mg/day rasagiline or 10 mg/day selegiline were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 15 mg/day pioglitazone, 45 mg/day pioglitazone, or placebo. Investigators were masked to the treatment assignment. Only the statistical centre and the central pharmacy knew the treatment name associated with …

Immunological Function Of Blimp-1 In Dendritic Cells And Relevance To Autoimmune Diseases, S. J. Kim

Journal Articles

Previous studies have identified the immunological functions of transcription factor B lymphocyte-induced maturation protein-1 (Blimp-1) in various adaptive immune cell types such as T and B lymphocytes. More recently, it has been shown that Blimp-1 extends its functional roles to dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages, two cell types belonging to the innate immune system. The protein acts as a direct and indirect regulator of target genes by recruiting chromatin modification factors and by regulating microRNA expression, respectively. In DCs, Blimp-1 has been identified as one of the components involved in antigen presentation. Genome-wide association studies identified polymorphisms associated with multiple …

A Stationary Wavelet Entropy-Based Clustering Approach Accurately Predicts Gene Expression, N. Nguyen, A. Vo, I. Choi, K. J. Won

Journal Articles

Studying epigenetic landscapes is important to understand the condition for gene regulation. Clustering is a useful approach to study epigenetic landscapes by grouping genes based on their epigenetic conditions. However, classical clustering approaches that often use a representative value of the signals in a fixed-sized window do not fully use the information written in the epigenetic landscapes. Clustering approaches to maximize the information of the epigenetic signals are necessary for better understanding gene regulatory environments. For effective clustering of multidimensional epigenetic signals, we developed a method called Dewer, which uses the entropy of stationary wavelet of epigenetic signals inside enriched …

Studies On Ageing And The Severity Of Radiographic Joint Damage In Rheumatoid Arthritis, L. Mangnus, H. W. Van Steenbergen, E. Lindqvist, E. Brouwer, M. Reijnierse, T. W. Huizinga, P. K. Gregersen, E. Berglin, S. Rantapaa-Dahlqvist, A. H. Van Der Helm-Van Mil, +1 Additional Author

Journal Articles

INTRODUCTION: The western population is ageing. It is unknown whether age at diagnosis affects the severity of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), we therefore performed the present study. METHOD: 1,875 RA-patients (7,219 radiographs) included in five European and North-American cohorts (Leiden-EAC, Wichita, Umea, Groningen and Lund) were studied on associations between age at diagnosis and joint damage severity. In 698 Leiden RA-patients with 7-years follow-up it was explored if symptom duration, anti-citrullinated-peptide-antibodies (ACPA), swollen joint count (SJC) and C-reactive-protein (CRP) mediated the association of age with joint damage. Fifty-six other RA-patients of the EAC-cohort underwent baseline MRIs of wrist, MCP and MTP-joints; …

Child And Adolescent Psychiatrists' Reported Monitoring Behaviors For Second-Generation Antipsychotics, A. M. Rodday, S. K. Parsons, C. Mankiw, C. U. Correll, A. S. Robb, B. T. Zima, T. S. Saunders, L. K. Leslie

Journal Articles

Objective: The number of children and adolescents (hereafter referred to as "children") who have been prescribed second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) has increased over the last decade, but little is known about monitoring practices in pediatric patients who are vulnerable to adverse effects. We examined factors associated with psychiatrists' self-reported monitoring of children who were prescribed SGAs. Methods: A survey was mailed to a national, randomly selected sample of 1600 child and adolescent psychiatrists from the American Medical Association mailing list. Using logistic regression, we tested whether psychiatrist characteristics, attitudes, and practice characteristics were associated with monitoring (baseline and/or periodic) the following: …

A Retrospective Analysis On Quality Safety Outcomes In Patients Who Boarded In The Emergency Department With Syncope Or Near Syncope: Comparison Of Patient Bed Location And Admitting Service Area, Tamala S. Bradham

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Patients presenting with the primary complaint of syncope or near syncope (PSNS) in the emergency department (ED) represents 11.9 million annual visits nationally with an estimated annual cost of over $2.4 billion. With an increase in ED patient visits and limited inpatient bed availability, patients are "boarding" in the ED for extended periods of time. Our aim was to assess whether first available bed assignment, regardless of the admitting service area, would negatively affect major quality patient safety indicators for PSNS. We completed a retrospective cohort study of 659 patients who visited a US southeast academic medical center over a …

The Use Of Rna Interference To Mitigate Pulmonary Fibrosis In Response To Asbestos Exposure, Sarah Kinsey

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The adverse health effects of exposure to asbestos are widely known and have been well documented. When a person is diagnosed with asbestosis, a chronic lung disease caused by inhaling asbestos fibers, few treatment options exist, none of which halt or reverse the progression of the disease. The rapidly growing field of gene therapy offers new avenues for potential treatments worthy of investigation. The detrimental effects of asbestos exposure are due to the physiological response of the lungs to asbestos fibers in the form of fibrosis, a result of excess extracellular collagen deposition. A protein called SPARC (Secreted Protein Acidic …

Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Converting Enzyme Inhibition During Acute Colitis In Mice: A Regional Analysis, Brian Maddox

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Tumor Necrosis Factor-a Converting Enzyme (TACE) induces active TNFa and may contribute to the development of colitis in humans. I hypothesized that pharmacological blockade of TNFa production would improve colitis scoring through decreased expression of inflammatory biomarkers. Acute colitis was induced in wild type BALB/c mice using 5% dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) in drinking water for 7 days. TACE inhibition was accomplished through twice daily intraperitoneal injection of DPC- 333 (10mg/kg; BSM Inc.) To determine the effects of TACE blockade during colitis, the following experimental groups (n=6-7/group) were tested: 1) vehicle; 2) DPC-333; 3) 5% DSS and vehicle; and 4) …

Mechanisms Of Therapeutic Resistance In Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer, Sarah Katherine Martin

Theses and Dissertations--Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

Taxane based chemotherapy is an effective treatment for castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) via stabilization of microtubules. Progression to castration-resistant prostate cancer is characterized by increased androgen receptor (AR), elevated intra-prostatic androgens and activated AR signaling despite castrate levels of androgens.

Previous studies identified that the inhibitory effect of microtubule targeting chemotherapy on AR activity was conferred by interfering with AR intracellular trafficking. The N-terminal domain (NTD) of AR was identified as a tubulin interacting domain that can be effectively targeted by the novel small molecular inhibitor, EPI. Taken together, this evidence provided the rationale that targeting AR nuclear translocation and …

Gene Expression And Alzheimer's Disease: Evaluation Of Gene Expression Patterns In Brain And Blood For An Alzheimer's Disease Mouse Model, Amanda Hazy

Senior Honors Theses

Previous studies have established a causative role for altered gene expression in development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). These changes can be affected by methylation and miRNA regulation. In this study, expression of miRNA known to change methylation status in AD was assessed by qPCR. Genome-wide expression changes were determined by RNA-sequencing of mRNA from hippocampus and blood of control and AD mice. The qPCR data showed significantly increased expression of Mir 17 in AD, and sequencing data revealed 230 genes in hippocampus, 58 genes in blood, and 8 overlapping genes showing significant differential expression (p value ≤ 0.05). Expression data …