THE ROLE OF THE ECONOMY IN CHANGING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP BETWEEN DIFFERENT RACIAL AND ETHNIC 8th GRADE STUDENTS’ ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS TEST SCORES

There is a large achievement gap in literacy between Black and White students in the United States that has been found to be mostly due to both differing learning opportunities as well as to income levels. Meanwhile, much of the research on academic performance has focused on race with less attention on the income of the school neighborhood zip code as a mediating factor in test outcomes for racial/ethnic students. This research investigated trends in English Language Arts test scores compared to income in the surrounding communities among New York City schools’ racial/ethnic groups of middle school students; also, whether income discrepancies predict a gap in test scores of these groups. This study looked at ELA test scores for 8th grade middle school students from 2013 through 2019, grouped by demographics such as race/ethnicity, and income status. Disability status, English language skills, and gender were also described. The method employed was a non-experimental quantitative design with the generalized estimating equations (GEE) models. Sample size includes approximately 403 New York City schools per year. Publicly available data from the New York State Education Department were used for Grade 8 English Language Arts Assessment Data for seven years. GEE was utilized to test the relationships and hypothesis. Generalized estimating equations were fit with the mean scores as the dependent variable, and test year, student race, an indicator variable to distinguish between the 2013-2017 and 2018-2019 periods and a race by test year interaction term as covariates. The findings showed that all three variables were significantly associated with the 8th grade classroom ELA test score means. A generalized estimating equation approach was also used to capture the effect of schools on ELA test scores. These analyses showed that race/ethnicity, year, income, and the indicator variable described above are significantly associated with the ELA test scores

Generation of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line from a patient with triple negative breast cancer with hereditary exon 17 deletion of BRCA1 gene

BRCA1 germline mutation confers hereditary predisposition for breast and ovarian cancer. To understand the physiopathology of mammary and ovarian epithelial cancer transformation, and to identify early driver molecular events, we have generated an iPSC line from a patient carrying a germline exon 17 deletion in BRCA1 gene (BRAC1Ex17 iPSC) in a high-risk family context. Blood cells were reprogrammed used non-integrative virus of Sendaï. The BRCA1-deleted iPSC had normal karyotype, harboured a deletion in the exon 17 of the BRCA1 gene, expressed pluripotent hallmarks and had the differentiation capacity into the three germ layers

Transcriptional landscape of a RETC634Y-mutated iPSC and its CRISPR-corrected isogenic control reveals the putative role of EGR1 transcriptional program in the development of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2A-associated cancers

Summary: MEN2A is a hereditary cancer-predisposing syndrome that affects patients with germline RET mutations. The effects of this oncogenic tyrosine kinase in the context of primitive stem cells are not known. In order to study these events, we generated a MEN2A induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) line from a patient with RET mutation and an isogenic counterpart by CRISPR-Cas9 correction of the mutation. Whole exome sequencing of iPSC before and after CRISPR-Cas9 genome edition revealed no major exonic off target effect of the CRISPR correction. However, an integrative differential gene expression analysis of iPSC with oncogenic RETC634Y and its gene-corrected iPSC with RETY634C as well as RETwt iPSCs revealed activation of the Early Growth Response 1 (EGR1) transcriptional program in RET-mutated iPSC, a pathway shown to be involved in RET-induced oncogenesis. These data constitute the first proof of concept of the feasibility of the use of an iPSC and its genome-corrected counterpart to unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying the development of the hereditary MEN2A cancer predisposing syndrome

Donor Dependent Variations in Hematopoietic Differentiation among Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines

International audienceHematopoiesis generated from human embryonic stem cells (ES) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) are unprecedented resources for cell therapy. We compared hematopoietic differentiation potentials from ES and iPS cell lines originated from various donors and derived them using integrative and non-integrative vectors. Significant differences in differentiation toward hematopoietic lineage were observed among ES and iPS. The ability of engraftment of iPS or ES-derived cells in NOG mice varied among the lines with low levels of chimerism. iPS generated from ES cell-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) reproduce a similar hematopoietic outcome compared to their parental ES cell line. We were not able to identify any specific hematopoietic transcription factors that allow to distinguish between good versus poor hematopoiesis in undifferentiated ES or iPS cell lines. There is a relatively unpredictable variation in hematopoietic differentiation between ES and iPS cell lines that could not be predicted based on phenotype or gene expression of the undifferentiated cells. These results demonstrate the influence of genetic background in variation of hematopoietic potential rather than the reprogramming process

Generation of Multipotent Early Lymphoid Progenitors from Human Embryonic Stem Cells

International audienceDuring human embryonic stem cell (ESC) hematopoietic differentiation, the description of the initial steps of lymphopoiesis remains elusive. Using a two-step culture procedure, we identified two original populations of ESC-derived hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) with CD34+CD45RA+CD7- and CD34+CD45RA+CD7+ phenotypes. Bulk cultures and limiting dilution assays, culture with MS5 cells in the presence of Notch ligand Delta-like-1 (DL-1), and ex vivo colonization tests using fetal thymic organ cultures showed that although CD34+CD45RA+CD7- HPCs could generate cells of the three lymphoid lineages, their potential was skewed toward the B cell lineages. In contrast, CD34+CD45RA+CD7+ HPCs predominantly exhibited a T/natural killer (NK) cell differentiation potential. Furthermore these cells could differentiate equivalently into cells of the granulo-macrophagic lineage and dendritic cells and lacked erythroid potential. Expression profiling of 18 markers by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) revealed that CD34+CD45RA+CD7- and CD34+CD45RA+CD7+ HPCs express genes of the lymphoid specification and that CD34+CD45RA+CD7- cells express B-cell-Associated genes, while CD34+CD45RA+CD7+ HPCs display a T-cell molecular profile. Altogether, these findings indicate that CD34+CD45RA+CD7- and CD34+CD45RA+CD7+ HPCs correspond to candidate multipotent early lymphoid progenitors polarized toward either the B or T/NK lineage, respectively. This work should improve our understanding of the early steps of lymphopoiesis from pluripotent stem cells and pave the way for the production of lymphocytes for cell-based immunotherapy and lymphoid development studies. © Copyright 2014, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2014

Human engraftment of NOG mice transplanted with ES or iPS cells.

<p>Human engraftment of NOG mice transplanted with ES or iPS cells.</p