Intron 4–5 hTERT DNA Hypermethylation in Merkel Cell Carcinoma: Frequency, Association with Other Clinico-pathological Features and Prognostic Relevance

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is an aggressive skin tumor with neuroendocrine differentiation, mainly affecting elderly population or immunocompromised individuals. As methylation of the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (mhTERT) has been shown to be a prognostic factor in different tumors, we investigated its role in MCC, in particular in intron 4–5 where rs10069690 has been mapped and recognized as a cancer susceptibility locus. DNA methylation analysis of hTERT gene was assessed retrospectively in a cohort of 69 MCC patients from the University of Bologna, University of Turin and University of Insubria. Overall mortality was evaluated with Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariable Royston-Parmar models. High levels of mhTERT (mhTERThigh) (HR = 2.500, p = 0.015) and p63 (HR = 2.659, p = 0.016) were the only two clinico-pathological features significantly associated with a higher overall mortality at the multivariate analysis. We did not find different levels of mhTERT between MCPyV (+) and (−) cases (21 vs 14, p = 0.554); furthermore, mhTERThigh was strongly associated with older age (80.5 vs 72 years, p = 0.026), no angioinvasion (40.7% vs 71.0%, p = 0.015), lower Ki67 (50 vs 70%, p = 0.005), and PD-L1 expressions in both tumor (0 vs 3%, p = 0.021) and immune cells (0 vs 10%, p = 0.002). mhTERT is a frequently involved epigenetic mechanism and a relevant prognostic factor in MCC. In addition, it belongs to the shared oncogenic pathways of MCC (MCPyV and UV-radiations) and it could be crucial, together with other epigenetic and genetic mechanisms as gene amplification, in determining the final levels of hTERT mRNA and telomerase activity in these patients

A crowd of BashTheBug volunteers reproducibly and accurately measure the minimum inhibitory concentrations of 13 antitubercular drugs from photographs of 96-well broth microdilution plates

Tuberculosis is a respiratory disease that is treatable with antibiotics. An increasing prevalence of resistance means that to ensure a good treatment outcome it is desirable to test the susceptibility of each infection to different antibiotics. Conventionally, this is done by culturing a clinical sample and then exposing aliquots to a panel of antibiotics, each being present at a pre-determined concentration, thereby determining if the sample isresistant or susceptible to each sample. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of a drug is the lowestconcentration that inhibits growth and is a more useful quantity but requires each sample to be tested at a range ofconcentrations for each drug. Using 96-well broth micro dilution plates with each well containing a lyophilised pre-determined amount of an antibiotic is a convenient and cost-effective way to measure the MICs of several drugs at once for a clinical sample. Although accurate, this is still an expensive and slow process that requires highly-skilled and experienced laboratory scientists. Here we show that, through the BashTheBug project hosted on the Zooniverse citizen science platform, a crowd of volunteers can reproducibly and accurately determine the MICs for 13 drugs and that simply taking the median or mode of 11-17 independent classifications is sufficient. There is therefore a potential role for crowds to support (but not supplant) the role of experts in antibiotic susceptibility testing

Species diversity, systematic revision and molecular phylogeny of Ganodermataceae (Polyporales, Basidiomycota) with an emphasis on Chinese collections

Ganodermataceae is one of the main families of macrofungi since species in the family are both ecologically and economically important. The double-walled basidiospores with ornamented endospore walls are the characteristic features of Ganodermataceae. It is a large and complex family; although many studies have focused on Ganodermataceae, the global diversity, geographic distribution, taxonomy and molecular phylogeny of Ganodermataceae still remained incompletely understood. In this work, taxonomic and phylogenetic studies on worldwide species of Ganodermataceae were carried out by morphological examination and molecular phylogenetic analyses inferred from six gene loci including the internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS), the large subunit of nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (nLSU), the second largest subunit of RNA polymerase II gene (rpb2), the translation elongation factor 1-α gene (tef1), the small subunit mitochondrial rRNA gene (mtSSU) and the small subunit nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (nSSU). A total of 1 382 sequences were used in the phylogenetic analyses, of which 817 were newly generated, including 132 sequences of ITS, 139 sequences of nLSU, 83 sequences of rpb2, 124 sequences of tef1, 150 sequences of mtSSU and 189 sequences of nSSU. The combined six-gene dataset included sequences from 391 specimens representing 146 taxa from Ganodermataceae. Based on morphological and phylogenetic analyses, 14 genera were confirmed in Ganodermataceae: Amauroderma, Amaurodermellus, Cristataspora, Foraminispora, Furtadoella, Ganoderma, Haddowia, Humphreya, Magoderna, Neoganoderma, Sanguinoderma, Sinoganoderma, Tomophagus and Trachydermella. Among these genera, Neoganoderma gen. nov. is proposed for Ganoderma neurosporum; Sinoganoderma gen. nov. is proposed for Ganoderma shandongense; Furtadoella gen. nov. is proposed to include taxa previously belonging to Furtadoa since Furtadoa is a homonym of a plant genus in the Araceae; Trachydermella gen. nov. is proposed to include Trachyderma tsunodae since Trachyderma is a homonym of a lichen genus in the Pannariaceae. Twenty-three new species, viz., Ganoderma acaciicola, G. acontextum, G. alpinum, G. bubalinomarginatum, G. castaneum, G. chuxiongense, G. cocoicola, G. fallax, G. guangxiense, G. puerense, G. subangustisporum, G. subellipsoideum, G. subflexipes, G. sublobatum, G. tongshanense, G. yunlingense, Haddowia macropora, Sanguinoderma guangdongense, Sa. infundibulare, Sa. longistipitum, Sa. melanocarpum, Sa. microsporum and Sa. tricolor are described. In addition, another 33 known species are also described in detail for comparison. Scanning electron micrographs of basidiospores of 10 genera in Ganodermataceae are provided. A key to the accepted genera of Ganodermataceae and keys to the accepted species of Ganoderma, Haddowia, Humphreya, Magoderna, Sanguinoderma and Tomophagus are also provided. In total, 278 species are accepted as members of Ganodermataceae including 59 species distributed in China

Progression and mortality in patients with CKD attending outpatient nephrology clinics across Europe: A novel analytic approach

The incidence of renal replacement therapy (RRT) varies across countries. Yet, little is known about the epidemiology of chronic kidney disease (CKD) outcomes. Our aim was to describe progression and mortality risk in CKD patients not on RRT attending outpatient nephrology clinics across Europe. We used individual data from nine CKD cohorts participating in the European CKD Burden Consortium. A joint model was used to estimate mean eGFR change and mortality risk simultaneously, thereby accounting for mortality risk when estimating eGFR decline and vice versa, while also correcting for the measurement error in eGFR. Results were adjusted for important risk factors (baseline eGFR, age, sex, albuminuria, primary renal disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and smoking). 27,771 patients from five countries were included. The adjusted mean annual eGFR decline varied from 0.77 (95%CI 0.45,1.08) ml/min/1.73m2 in the Belgium cohort to 2.43 (95%CI 2.11,2.75) ml/min/1.73m2 in the Spanish cohort. As compared to the Italian PIRP cohort, the adjusted mortality hazard ratio varied from 0.22 (95%CI 0.11,0.43) in the London LACKABO cohort to 1.30 (95%CI 1.13,1.49) in the English CRISIS cohort. Outcomes in CKD patients attending outpatient nephrology clinics varied markedly across European regions. Although eGFR decline showed minor variation, the most variation was observed in CKD mortality. Our results suggest that different healthcare organization systems are potentially associated with differences in outcome of CKD patients within Europe. These results can be used by policy makers to plan resources on a regional, national and European level

Familial aggregation of MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery scores in a large sample of outpatients with schizophrenia and their unaffected relatives

The increased use of the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) to investigate cognitive dysfunctions in schizophrenia fostered interest in its sensitivity in the context of family studies. As various measures of the same cognitive domains may have different power to distinguish between unaffected relatives of patients and controls, the relative sensitivity of MCCB tests for relative-control differences has to be established. We compared MCCB scores of 852 outpatients with schizophrenia (SCZ) with those of 342 unaffected relatives (REL) and a normative Italian sample of 774 healthy subjects (HCS). We examined familial aggregation of cognitive impairment by investigating within-family prediction of MCCB scores based on probands' scores

PsoBioVax: A multicentric Italian case–control study of the immunological response to anti‐SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccine among psoriatic patients under biological therapy

Dear Editor, The role of vaccination has been crucial in limiting COVID-19.1 The efficacy of vaccines among patients with immunemediated inflammatory disease has been investigated showing promising results.2 Patients with psoriasis under biological treatment had a valid response to the COVID-19 vaccine

Interplay Among Psychopathologic Variables, Personal Resources, Context-Related Factors, and Real-life Functioning in Individuals With Schizophrenia: A Network Analysis

Enhanced understanding of factors associated with symptomatic and functional recovery is instrumental to designing personalized treatment plans for people with schizophrenia. To date, this is the first study using network analysis to investigate the associations among cognitive, psychopathologic, and psychosocial variables in a large sample of community-dwelling individuals with schizophrenia

Social cognition in people with schizophrenia: A cluster-analytic approach

Background The study aimed to subtype patients with schizophrenia on the basis of social cognition (SC), and to identify cut-offs that best discriminate among subtypes in 809 out-patients recruited in the context of the Italian Network for Research on Psychoses. Method A two-step cluster analysis of The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT), the Facial Emotion Identification Test and Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test scores was performed. Classification and regression tree analysis was used to identify the cut-offs of variables that best discriminated among clusters. Results We identified three clusters, characterized by unimpaired (42%), impaired (50.4%) and very impaired (7.5%) SC. Three theory-of-mind domains were more important for the cluster definition as compared with emotion perception and emotional intelligence. Patients more able to understand simple sarcasm (14 for TASIT-SS) were very likely to belong to the unimpaired SC cluster. Compared with patients in the impaired SC cluster, those in the very impaired SC cluster performed significantly worse in lie scenes (TASIT-LI <10), but not in simple sarcasm. Moreover, functioning, neurocognition, disorganization and SC had a linear relationship across the three clusters, while positive symptoms were significantly lower in patients with unimpaired SC as compared with patients with impaired and very impaired SC. On the other hand, negative symptoms were highest in patients with impaired levels of SC. Conclusions If replicated, the identification of such subtypes in clinical practice may help in tailoring rehabilitation efforts to the person's strengths to gain more benefit to the person