Cildb: a knowledgebase for centrosomes and cilia

Ciliopathies, pleiotropic diseases provoked by defects in the structure or function of cilia or flagella, reflect the multiple roles of cilia during development, in stem cells, in somatic organs and germ cells. High throughput studies have revealed several hundred proteins that are involved in the composition, function or biogenesis of cilia. The corresponding genes are potential candidates for orphan ciliopathies. To study ciliary genes, model organisms are used in which particular questions on motility, sensory or developmental functions can be approached by genetics. In the course of high throughput studies of cilia in Paramecium tetraurelia, we were confronted with the problem of comparing our results with those obtained in other model organisms. We therefore developed a novel knowledgebase, Cildb, that integrates ciliary data from heterogeneous sources. Cildb links orthology relationships among 18 species to high throughput ciliary studies, and to OMIM data on human hereditary diseases. The web interface of Cildb comprises three tools, BioMart for complex queries, BLAST for sequence homology searches and GBrowse for browsing the human genome in relation to OMIM information for human diseases. Cildb can be used for interspecies comparisons, building candidate ciliary proteomes in any species, or identifying candidate ciliopathy genes

The Electroencephalogram as a Biomarker Based on Signal Processing Using Nonlinear Techniques to Detect Dementia

Dementia being a syndrome caused by a brain disease of a chronic or progressive nature, in which the irreversible loss of intellectual abilities, learning, expressions arises; including memory, thinking, orientation, understanding and adequate communication, of organizing daily life and of leading a family, work and autonomous social life; leads to a state of total dependence; therefore, its early detection and classification is of vital importance in order to serve as clinical support for physicians in the personalization of treatment programs. The use of the electroencephalogram as a tool for obtaining information on the detection of changes in brain activities. This article reviews the types of cognitive spectrum dementia, biomarkers for the detection of dementia, analysis of mental states based on electromagnetic oscillations, signal processing given by the electroencephalogram, review of processing techniques, results obtained where it is proposed the mathematical model about neural networks, discussion and finally the conclusions

The Potential of microRNAs for Stem Cell-based Therapy for Degenerative Skeletal Diseases

Purpose of review: degenerative skeletal disorders including osteoarthritis (OA) and osteoporosis (OP) are the result of attenuation of tissue regeneration and lead to painful conditions with limited treatment options. Preventative measures to limit the onset of OA and OP remain a significant unmet clinical need. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are known to be involved in the differentiation of stem cells, and in combination with stem cell therapy could induce skeletal regeneration and potentially prevent OA and OP onset.Recent findings: the combination of stem cells and miRNA has been successful at regenerating the bone and cartilage in vivo. MiRNAs, including miR-146b known to be involved in chondrogenic differentiation, could provide innovative targets for stem cell-based therapy, for the repair of articular cartilage defects forestalling the onset of OA or in the generation of a stem cell-based therapy for OP.Summary: this review discusses the combination of skeletal stem cells (SSCs) and candidate miRNAs for application in a cell-based therapy approach for skeletal regenerative medicine

Auditory event-related potentials

Auditory event related potentials are electric potentials (AERP, AEP) and magnetic fields (AEF) generated by the synchronous activity of large neural populations in the brain, which are time-locked to some actual or expected sound event

Abstracts from the 20th International Symposium on Signal Transduction at the Blood-Brain Barriers

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138963/1/12987_2017_Article_71.pd

Identification of PLZF as an osteochondrogenic transcription factor in mesenchymal stem cells

International audienceMesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are suitable sources for cell-based therapies in cartilage engineering. However, their potential to regenerate a fully functional tissue relies on the presence of a differentiation factor. The identification of such a specific factor represents the major issue of this study.Bone marrow-derived human MSC were induced to differentiate towards chondrocytes using the micropellet culture technique in presence of chondrogenic medium containing hBMP-2 for 21 days. Total RNA were hybridised on DNA microarrays (Affymetrix U133A). Quantitative RT-PCR was performed on RNA extracted at various time points during chondrogenesis. The C3H10T1/2 murine MSC line was stably transfected with a plasmid expressing PLZFand cultured in chondro-, osteo-, adipogenic conditions.Among the 1354 differentially regulated genes during chondrogenesis, 705 genes were up regulated in MSC-derived chondrocytes. The authors first focused our attention on transcription factors and in particular, on PLZF which was shown to be significantly increased compared to undifferentiated MSC using real time PCR, as soon as day 2 of chondrogenesis. The authors thus derived stable clones of C3H10T1/2 cells over-expressing PLZF (C3-PLZF). After 21 days of culture in micropellet in presence of tumour growth factor-β3, the authors could observe a significantly higher level of aggrecan, collagen IIB and the downregulation of collagen I in C3-PLZF compared to naïve MSC. In parallel, the authors demonstrated that PLZF over-expression increased, in a dose-dependent manner, the expression level of Sox9, the master chondrogenic regulator. Moreover, the engineered cells show a higher osteogenic potential than naïve C3H10T1/2 cells while displaying a lower adipogenic potential when cultured in specific inducing conditions.Our results suggest that PLZF is one essential transcription factor involved in the early steps of chondrogenesis acting upstream of Sox9. Further studies will aim at determining the mechanism underlining the activation of chondrocyte-specific markers