Patient and physician perspectives on biological treatment in severe asthma: a Severe Asthma Network Italy survey

: Patients with severe asthma perceive beneficial effects of biologics and good self-reported adherence to treatment, even when self-administered at home https://bit.ly/48vP70w

Identifying and Treating COPD in Cardiac Patients

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Corticosteroid and immunomodulatory agents in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive pulmonary disease leading to death within a few years of diagnosis despite medical therapy. On the basis of methodologies of the Cochrane collaboration, this overview discusses the evidence for IPF therapy. Good-quality studies on oral corticosteroids, the most common medical therapy in use for IPF, are lacking. A few small studies have been carried out on the efficacy of many non-steroid immunosuppressive agents, and the results have been generally disappointing. The most extensively studied medical therapy, gamma interferon, showed a significant effect in a small randomized study, but its efficacy was not confirmed in a larger randomized-controlled trial. The long-awaited good news for patients affected by this deadly disease, and for their physicians, could come in the near future from large randomized-controlled trials with gamma interferon or other immunomodulatory agent

Paternity tests support a diallelic self‐incompatibility system in a wild olive (Olea europaea subsp. laperrinei, Oleaceae)

International audienc

APOBEC3B regulates R-loops and promotes transcription-associated mutagenesis in cancer

The single-stranded DNA cytosine-to-uracil deaminase APOBEC3B is an antiviral protein implicated in cancer. However, its substrates in cells are not fully delineated. Here APOBEC3B proteomics reveal interactions with a surprising number of R-loop factors. Biochemical experiments show APOBEC3B binding to R-loops in cells and in vitro. Genetic experiments demonstrate R-loop increases in cells lacking APOBEC3B and decreases in cells overexpressing APOBEC3B. Genome-wide analyses show major changes in the overall landscape of physiological and stimulus-induced R-loops with thousands of differentially altered regions, as well as binding of APOBEC3B to many of these sites. APOBEC3 mutagenesis impacts genes overexpressed in tumors and splice factor mutant tumors preferentially, and APOBEC3-attributed kataegis are enriched in RTCW motifs consistent with APOBEC3B deamination. Taken together with the fact that APOBEC3B binds single-stranded DNA and RNA and preferentially deaminates DNA, these results support a mechanism in which APOBEC3B regulates R-loops and contributes to R-loop mutagenesis in cancer. </p

Circadian rhythm of COPD symptoms in clinically based phenotypes. Results from the STORICO Italian observational study

Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) encompasses various phenotypes that severely limit the applicability of precision respiratory medicine. The present investigation is aimed to assess the circadian rhythm of symptoms in pre-defined clinical COPD phenotypes and its association with health-related quality of life (HR-QoL), the quality of sleep and the level of depression/anxiety in each clinical phenotype. Methods: The STORICO (NCT03105999) Italian observational prospective cohort study enrolled COPD subjects. A clinical diagnosis of either chronic bronchitis (CB), emphysema (EM) or mixed COPD-asthma (MCA) phenotype was made by clinicians at enrollment. Baseline early-morning, day-time and nocturnal symptoms (gathered via the Night-time, Morning and Day-time Symptoms of COPD questionnaire), HR-QoL (via the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire), anxiety and depression levels (via the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), quality of sleep (via COPD and Asthma Sleep Impact Scale), physical activity (via the International Physical Activity Questionnaire) as well as lung function were recorded. Results: 606 COPD subjects (age 71.4 ± 8.2 years, male 75.1%) were studied. 57.9, 35.5 5.3 and 1.3% of the sample belonged to the CB, EM, MCA and EM + CB phenotypes respectively. The vast majority of subjects reported early-morning and day-time symptoms (79.5 and 79.2% in the CB and 75.8 and 77.7% in the EM groups); the proportion suffering from night-time symptoms was higher in the CB than in the EM group (53.6% vs. 39.5%, p = 0.0016). In both CB and EM, indiscriminately, the presence of symptoms during the 24-h day was associated with poorer HR-QoL, worse quality of sleep and higher levels of anxiety/depression. Conclusions: The findings highlight the primary classificatory role of nocturnal symptoms in COPD. Trial registration: Trial registration number: NCT03105999, date of registration: 10th April 2017