Migration due to sexual orientation and gender identity

The concept of the term refugee is set out in Art. 1, item I of the Law 9.474 / 97 of the Foreign Statute of Brazil, which defines a refugee as any individual with a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or social group. The Convention of 1951 does not establish a specific category for persecution related to sexual orientation or gender identity. In many countries homosexuality is punished by imprisonment, or the death penalty (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Mauritania and Sudan, as well as in regions of Nigeria and Somalia), among other penalties that deny full citizenship, segregate, discriminate and deny rights to this group. Due to the persecution these individuals suffer in their home countries, it is possible to ask: were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals included in the social group category due to its flexible criteria? The United States, Canada and several European countries have been accepting refugee applications for individuals with well-founded fear of persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. By employing this criterion, the CONARE (National Committee for Refugees of Brazil) has granted refuge to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals who are persecuted in their home countries due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. This article explores the concept of the term refugee and its expansion over the past years, focusing especially on the basis of the refugee criterion related to social group. The aim is therefore to analyze the category of social group in the concept of refugee. It also aims to examine the possibility of framing said populations in the category of social group in order to facilitate their obtainment of a Refugee status

Low Penetrance, Broad Resistance, and Favorable Outcome of Interleukin 12 Receptor β1 Deficiency: Medical and Immunological Implications

The clinical phenotype of interleukin 12 receptor β1 chain (IL-12Rβ1) deficiency and the function of human IL-12 in host defense remain largely unknown, due to the small number of patients reported. We now report 41 patients with complete IL-12Rβ1 deficiency from 17 countries. The only opportunistic infections observed, in 34 patients, were of childhood onset and caused by weakly virulent Salmonella or Mycobacteria (Bacille Calmette-Guérin -BCG- and environmental Mycobacteria). Three patients had clinical tuberculosis, one of whom also had salmonellosis. Unlike salmonellosis, mycobacterial infections did not recur. BCG inoculation and BCG disease were both effective against subsequent environmental mycobacteriosis, but not against salmonellosis. Excluding the probands, seven of the 12 affected siblings have remained free of case-definition opportunistic infection. Finally, only five deaths occurred in childhood, and the remaining 36 patients are alive and well. Thus, a diagnosis of IL-12Rβ1 deficiency should be considered in children with opportunistic mycobacteriosis or salmonellosis; healthy siblings of probands and selected cases of tuberculosis should also be investigated. The overall prognosis is good due to broad resistance to infection and the low penetrance and favorable outcome of infections. Unexpectedly, human IL-12 is redundant in protective immunity against most microorganisms other than Mycobacteria and Salmonella. Moreover, IL-12 is redundant for primary immunity to Mycobacteria and Salmonella in many individuals and for secondary immunity to Mycobacteria but not to Salmonella in most

Interferon-Alpha Administration Enhances CD8+ T Cell Activation in HIV Infection

Type I interferons play important roles in innate immune defense. In HIV infection, type I interferons may delay disease progression by inhibiting viral replication while at the same time accelerating disease progression by contributing to chronic immune activation.To investigate the effects of type I interferons in HIV-infection, we obtained cryopreserved peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from 10 subjects who participated in AIDS Clinical Trials Group Study 5192, a trial investigating the activity of systemic administration of IFNα for twelve weeks to patients with untreated HIV infection. Using flow cytometry, we examined changes in cell cycle status and expression of activation antigens by circulating T cells and their maturation subsets before, during and after IFNα treatment.The proportion of CD38+HLA-DR+CD8+ T cells increased from a mean of 11.7% at baseline to 24.1% after twelve weeks of interferon treatment (p = 0.006). These frequencies dropped to an average of 20.1% six weeks after the end of treatment. In contrast to CD8+ T cells, the frequencies of activated CD4+ T cells did not change with administration of type I interferon (mean percentage of CD38+DR+ cells = 2.62% at baseline and 2.17% after 12 weeks of interferon therapy). As plasma HIV levels fell with interferon therapy, this was correlated with a "paradoxical" increase in CD8+ T cell activation (p<0.001).Administration of type I interferon increased expression of the activation markers CD38 and HLA DR on CD8+ T cells but not on CD4+ T cells of HIV+ persons. These observations suggest that type I interferons may contribute to the high levels of CD8+ T cell activation that occur during HIV infection

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Human CD45 is an F-component-specific receptor for the staphylococcal toxin Panton-Valentine leukocidin

International audienceThe staphylococcal bi-component leukocidins Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) and γ-haemolysin CB (HlgCB) target human phagocytes. Binding of the toxins' S-components to human complement C5a receptor 1 (C5aR1) contributes to cellular tropism and human specificity of PVL and HlgCB. To investigate the role of both leukocidins during infection, we developed a human C5aR1 knock-in (hC5aR1KI) mouse model. HlgCB, but unexpectedly not PVL, contributed to increased bacterial loads in tissues of hC5aR1KI mice. Compared to humans, murine hC5aR1KI neutrophils showed a reduced sensitivity to PVL, which was mediated by the toxin's F-component LukF-PV. By performing a genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 screen, we identified CD45 as a receptor for LukF-PV. The human-specific interaction between LukF-PV and CD45 provides a molecular explanation for resistance of hC5aR1KI mouse neutrophils to PVL and probably contributes to the lack of a PVL-mediated phenotype during infection in these mice. This study demonstrates an unsuspected role of the F-component in driving the sensitivity of human phagocytes to PVL

Effects of interferon-α on gene expression of chemokines and members of the tumour necrosis factor superfamily in HIV-infected patients

We examined the effect of interferon (IFN)-α on the expression of 375 genes relevant to inflammatory and immunological reactions in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from HIV-infected patients by cDNA expression array and real-time quantitative RT-PCR. Our main findings were: (i) IFN-α induced up-regulation of several genes in the tumour necrosis factor (TNF) superfamily including the ligands APRIL, FasL, TNF-α and TRAIL, with particularly enhancing effects on the latter in HIV-infected patients. (ii) While IFN-α markedly up-regulated the expression of anti-angionetic ELR– CXC-chemokines (e.g. MIG and IP-10), it suppressed the expression of angiogenic ELR+ CXC-chemokines (e.g. GRO-α, IL-8 and ENA-78), with similar patterns in both patients and controls. (iii) IFN-α induced a marked increase in gene expression of the HIV co-receptor CCR5 in both patients and controls. We suggest that these effects may contribute to both the therapeutic and toxic effects of IFN-α. Moreover, our findings underscore that the biological effects of IFN-α in HIV infection are complex and that the clinical net effects of IFN-α treatment may be difficult to predict. However, the potent enhancing effect of IFN-α on several pro-apoptotic genes in the TNF superfamily and the enhancing effect on CCR5 expression suggest a possible pathogenic role of IFN-α in the progression of HIV-related immunodeficiency and suggests caution in the therapeutic use of IFN-α in HIV-infected individuals