Exercise training alters the genomic response to acute exercise in human adipose tissue

Aim: To determine the genomic mechanisms by which adipose tissue responds to acute and chronic exercise. Methods:We profiled the transcriptomic and epigenetic response to acute exercise in human adiposetissue collected before and after endurance training. Results: Although acute exercises were performed at same relative intensities, themagnitude of transcriptomic changes after acute exercise was reduced by endurancetraining. DNA methylation remodeling induced by acute exercise was more prominent in trained versus untrained state. We found an overlap between gene expression and DNA methylation changes after acute exercise for 32 genes pre-training and six post-training, notably at adipocyte-specific genes. Conclusion: Training status differentially affects the epigenetic and transcriptomic response to acute exercise in human adipose tissue

T-cell epigenetic remodeling and accelerated epigenetic aging are linked to long-term immune alterations in childhood cancer survivors

Background: Cancer treatments have substantially improved childhood cancer survival but are accompanied by long-term complications, notably chronic inflammatory diseases. We hypothesize that cancer treatments could lead to long-term epigenetic changes in immune cells, resulting in increased prevalence of inflammatory diseases in cancer survivors.Results: To test this hypothesis, we established the epigenetic and transcriptomic profiles of immune cells from 44 childhood cancer survivors (CCS, >16yo) on full remission (>5yrs) who had received chemotherapy alone or in combination with total body irradiation (TBI) and haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). We found that more than 10 years post-treatment, CCS treated with TBI/HSCT showed an altered DNA methylation signature in T-cell, particularly at genes controlling immune and inflammatory processes and oxidative stress. DNA methylation remodeling in T-cell was partially associated with chronic expression changes of nearby genes, increased frequency of type 1 cytokines-producing T-cell, elevated systemic levels of these cytokines and over-activation of related signaling pathways. Survivors exposed to TBI/HSCT were further characterized by an Epigenetic-Aging-Signature of T-cell consistent with accelerated epigenetic aging. To investigate the potential contribution of irradiation to these changes, we established two cell culture models. We identified that radiation partially recapitulated the immune changes observed in survivors through a bystander effect that could be mediated by circulating factors. Conclusion: Cancer treatments, in particular TBI/HSCT, are associated with long-term immune disturbances. We propose that epigenetic remodeling of immune cells following cancer therapy augments inflammatory-and age-related diseases, including metabolic complications, in childhood cancer survivors

Multiple dimensions of embodiment in medical practices

In this paper I explore the various meanings of embodiment from a patient's perspective. Resorting to phenomenology of health and medicine, I take the idea of 'lived experience' as starting point. On the basis of an analysis of phenomenology's call for bracketing the natural attitude and its reduction to the transcendental, I will explain, however, that in medical phenomenological literature 'lived experience' is commonly one-sidedly interpreted. In my paper, I clarify in what way the idea of 'lived experience' should be revisited and, subsequently, what this reconsideration means for phenomenological research on embodiment in health and medicine. The insight that the body is a condition of possibility for world-disclosing yet, at the same time, itself conditioned by this world forces us to not only zoom in on the body's subject-side, but also on its object-side. I argue that in order to render account for this double body ontology, phenomenology should include empirical sociological analyses as well. I thus argue in favor of the idea of a socio-phenomenology. Drawing on material from my own research project on embodied self-experiences after breast surgery, I show how this approach can be fruitful in interpreting the impact of disfigurements on a person's embodied agency, or a person's 'I can'