A Systems Biology Approach Identifies Molecular Networks Defining Skeletal Muscle Abnormalities in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an inflammatory process of the lung inducing persistent airflow limitation. Extensive systemic effects, such as skeletal muscle dysfunction, often characterize these patients and severely limit life expectancy. Despite considerable research efforts, the molecular basis of muscle degeneration in COPD is still a matter of intense debate. In this study, we have applied a network biology approach to model the relationship between muscle molecular and physiological response to training and systemic inflammatory mediators. Our model shows that failure to co-ordinately activate expression of several tissue remodelling and bioenergetics pathways is a specific landmark of COPD diseased muscles. Our findings also suggest that this phenomenon may be linked to an abnormal expression of a number of histone modifiers, which we discovered correlate with oxygen utilization. These observations raised the interesting possibility that cell hypoxia may be a key factor driving skeletal muscle degeneration in COPD patients

Persistent systemic inflammation is associated with poor clinical outcomes in COPD: a novel phenotype.

Because chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a heterogeneous condition, the identification of specific clinical phenotypes is key to developing more effective therapies. To explore if the persistence of systemic inflammation is associated with poor clinical outcomes in COPD we assessed patients recruited to the well-characterized ECLIPSE cohort (NCT00292552)

Modeling the Past: The Paleoethnological Evidence

This chapter considers the earliest Paleolithic, Oldowan (Mode 1), and Acheulean (Mode 2) cultures of the Old Continent and the traces left by the earliest hominids since their departure from Africa. According to the most recent archaeological data, they seem to have followed two main dispersal routes across the Arabian Peninsula toward the Levant, to the north, and the Indian subcontinent, to the east. According to recent discoveries at Dmanisi in the Caucasus, the first Paleolithic settlement of Europe is dated to some 1.75 Myr ago, which indicates that the first “out of Africa” took place at least slightly before this date. The data available for Western Europe show that the first Paleolithic sites can be attributed to the period slightly before 1.0 Myr ago. The first well-defined “structural remains” so far discovered in Europe are those of Isernia La Pineta in Southern Italy, where a semicircular artificial platform made of stone boulders and animal bones has been excavated. The first hand-thrown hunting weapons come from the site of Scho¨ningen in north Germany, where the first occurrence of wooden spears, more than 2 m long, has been recorded from a site attributed to some 0.37 Myr ago. Slightly later began the regular control of fire. Although most of the archaeological finds of these ages consist of chipped stone artifacts, indications of art seem to be already present in the Acheulean of Africa and the Indian subcontinent

Crescimento de tangerinas 'Ponkan' em plantas submetidas ao raleio químico

Pesquisas comprovam que a relação entre o número de frutos e seu tamanho influencia o rendimento da produção e a qualidade dos frutos. Este trabalho foi conduzido com o objetivo de avaliar o desenvolvimento de tangerinas 'Ponkan', produzidas em plantas enxertadas sobre limoeiro 'Cravo', submetidas ao raleio químico com a aplicação de ethephon. As plantas foram pulverizadas com cinco concentrações de ethephon (0, 150, 300, 450, 600 mg L-1), aplicadas em dois estádios de desenvolvimento dos frutos (30 e 40 mm de diâmetro transversal). Em cada planta, foram selecionados quatro ramos, localizados nos quatro quadrantes, com apenas uma fruta, para avaliar seu desenvolvimento por meio do diâmetro transversal. O raleio químico com a aplicação de ethephon favoreceu a obtenção de tangerinas com maior tamanho. As concentrações a partir de 300 mg L-1 de ethephon foram as mais adequadas para promover o raleio da tangerina 'Ponkan', nas condições estudadas. O raleio realizado no estádio de 40 mm proporcionou a obtenção de frutos de maiores diâmetros

Comparison of clinical courses and mortality of connective tissue disease-associated interstitial pneumonias and chronic fibrosing idiopathic interstitial pneumonias

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a common pulmonary manifestation of connective tissue diseases (CTD). Prognostic effect of radiological usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) pattern in CTD-associated interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD) is unknown. This study aimed to investigate the disease progression and mortality of patients with CTD-ILD and idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIP) including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and idiopathic nonspecific interstitial pneumonia and the prognostic impact of the radiological UIP pattern on both disease groups. The medical records of 91 patients (55 with CTD-ILD and 36 with IIP) diagnosed with ILD at pulmonary medicine department, Faculty of Medicine, Gazi University from 2004 to 2014 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients included whose baseline high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scans showed either a UIP or non-UIP pattern. While 67.3% (n = 37) of CTD-ILD patients possessed UIP pattern, 38.9% (n = 14) of IIP patients had UIP pattern in HRCT. Respiratory functions including the forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1), functional vital capacity (FVC), and transfer coefficient for carbon monoxide (diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide [DLCO]) of IIP group at the time of diagnosis were significantly lower than CTD-ILD group (P = .007, P = .002, and P = .019, respectively). There was no significant survival difference between CTD-ILD and HP by using the log-rank test (P = .76). Multivariate analysis revealed that UIP pattern in HRCT (Hazard ratio: 1.85; 95% Confidence interval = 1.14-3; P = .013), annual FVC (Hazard ratio: 0.521; 95% Confidence interval = 0.32-0.84; P = .007), and annual DLCO declines (Hazard ratio: 0.943; 95% Confidence interval = 0.897-0.991; P = .02) were independent risk factors for mortality in both CTD-ILD and IIP groups. We found that UIP pattern in HRCT and annual losses in respiratory functions were the main determinants of prognosis of ILDs either idiopathic or CTD-associated