Comment letters to the National Commission on Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting, 1987 (Treadway Commission) Vol. 2

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_sop/1662/thumbnail.jp

Association of NIPA1 repeat expansions with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in a large international cohort

NIPA1 (nonimprinted in Prader-Willi/Angelman syndrome 1) mutations are known to cause hereditary spastic paraplegia type 6, a neurodegenerative disease that phenotypically overlaps to some extent with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Previously, a genomewide screen for copy number variants found an association with rare deletions in NIPA1 and ALS, and subsequent genetic analyses revealed that long (or expanded) polyalanine repeats in NIPA1 convey increased ALS susceptibility. We set out to perform a large-scale replication study to further investigate the role of NIPA1 polyalanine expansions with ALS, in which we characterized NIPA1 repeat size in an independent international cohort of 3955 patients with ALS and 2276 unaffected controls and combined our results with previous reports. Meta-analysis on a total of 6245 patients with ALS and 5051 controls showed an overall increased risk of ALS in those with expanded (>8) GCG repeat length (odds ratio = 1.50, p = 3.8×10-5). Together with previous reports, these findings provide evidence for an association of an expanded polyalanine repeat in NIPA1 and ALS

Polymorphisms in MMP-14 and MMP-2 genes and ovarian cancer survival

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L-citrulline protects from kidney damage in type 1 diabetic mice.

Rationale. Diabetic nephropathy is a major cause of end-stage renal disease, associated with endothelial dysfunction. Chronic supplementation of L-arginine (L-arg), the substrate for endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), failed to improve vascular function. L-citrulline (L-cit) supplementation not only increases L-arg synthesis, but also inhibits cytosolic arginase I (Arg I), a competitor of eNOS for the use of L-arg, in the vasculature. Aims. To investigate whether L-cit treatment reduces diabetic nephropathy in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced type 1 diabetes in mice and rats and to study its effects on arginase II (ArgII) function, the main renal isoform. Methods. STZ-C57BL6 mice received L-cit or vehicle supplemented in the drinking water. For comparative analysis, diabetic ArgII knock out mice and L-cit-treated STZ-rats were evaluated. Results. L-cit exerted protective effects in kidneys of STZ-rats, and markedly reduced urinary albumin excretion, tubulo-interstitial fibrosis and kidney hypertrophy, observed in untreated diabetic mice. Intriguingly, L-cit treatment was accompanied by a sustained elevation of tubular ArgII at 16 wks and significantly enhanced plasma levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10. Diabetic ArgII knock out mice showed greater BUN levels, hypertrophy, and dilated tubules than diabetic wild type mice. Despite a marked reduction in collagen deposition in ArgII knock out mice, their albuminuria was not significantly different from diabetic wild type animals. L-cit also restored NO/ROS balance and barrier function in high glucose-treated monolayers of human glomerular endothelial cells. Moreover, L-cit also has the ability to establish an anti-inflammatory profile, characterized by increased IL-10 and reduced IL-1beta and IL-12(p70) generation in the human proximal tubular cells. Conclusions. L-cit supplementation established an anti-inflammatory profile and significantly preserved the nephron function during type 1 diabetes. <br/

Globalization and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime

No abstract availabl

The role of rare compound heterozygous events in autism spectrum disorder

The identification of genetic variants underlying autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) may contribute to a better understanding of their underlying biology. To examine the possible role of a specific type of compound heterozygosity in ASD, namely, the occurrence of a deletion together with a functional nucleotide variant on the remaining allele, we sequenced 550 genes in 149 individuals with ASD and their deletion-transmitting parents. This approach allowed us to identify additional sequence variants occurring in the remaining allele of the deletion. Our main goal was to compare the rate of sequence variants in remaining alleles of deleted regions between probands and the deletion-transmitting parents. We also examined the predicted functional effect of the identified variants using Combined Annotation-Dependent Depletion (CADD) scores. The single nucleotide variant-deletion co-occurrence was observed in 13.4% of probands, compared with 8.1% of parents. The cumulative burden of sequence variants (n = 68) in pooled proband sequences was higher than the burden in pooled sequences from the deletion-transmitting parents (n = 41, X2 = 6.69, p = 0.0097). After filtering for those variants predicted to be most deleterious, we observed 21 of such variants in probands versus 8 in their deletion-transmitting parents (X2 = 5.82, p = 0.016). Finally, cumulative CADD scores conferred by these variants were significantly higher in probands than in deletion-transmitting parents (burden test, β = 0.13; p = 1.0 × 10-5). Our findings suggest that the compound heterozygosity described in the current study may be one of several mechanisms explaining variable penetrance of CNVs with known pathogenicity for ASD.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio