GH safety workshop position paper: A critical appraisal of recombinant human GH therapy in children and adults

Recombinant human GH (rhGH) has been in use for 30 years, and over that time its safety and efficacy in children and adults has been subject to considerable scrutiny. In 2001, a statement from the GH Research Society (GRS) concluded that 'for approved indications, GH is safe'; however, the statement highlighted a number of areas for on-going surveillance of long-Term safety, including cancer risk, impact on glucose homeostasis, and use of high dose pharmacological rhGH treatment. Over the intervening years, there have been a number of publications addressing the safety of rhGH with regard to mortality, cancer and cardiovascular risk, and the need for long-Term surveillance of the increasing number of adults who were treated with rhGH in childhood. Against this backdrop of interest in safety, the European Society of Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE), the GRS, and the Pediatric Endocrine Society (PES) convened a meeting to reappraise the safety of rhGH. The ouput of the meeting is a concise position statement

PTPA variants and impaired PP2A activity in early-onset parkinsonism with intellectual disability

The protein phosphatase 2A complex (PP2A), the major Ser/Thr phosphatase in the brain, is involved in a number of signalling pathways and functions, including the regulation of crucial proteins for neurodegeneration, such as alpha-synuclein, tau and LRRK2. Here, we report the identification of variants in the PTPA/PPP2R4 gene, encoding a major PP2A activator, in two families with early-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. We carried out clinical studies and genetic analyses, including genome-wide linkage analysis, whole-exome sequencing, and Sanger sequencing of candidate variants. We next performed functional studies on the disease-associated variants in cultured cells and knock-down of ptpa in Drosophila melanogaster. We first identified a homozygous PTPA variant, c.893T&gt;G (p.Met298Arg), in patients from a South African family with early-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. Screening of a large series of additional families yielded a second homozygous variant, c.512C&gt;A (p.Ala171Asp), in a Libyan family with a similar phenotype. Both variants co-segregate with disease in the respective families. The affected subjects display juvenile-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. The motor symptoms were responsive to treatment with levodopa and deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus. In overexpression studies, both the PTPA p.Ala171Asp and p.Met298Arg variants were associated with decreased PTPA RNA stability and decreased PTPA protein levels; the p.Ala171Asp variant additionally displayed decreased PTPA protein stability. Crucially, expression of both variants was associated with decreased PP2A complex levels and impaired PP2A phosphatase activation. PTPA orthologue knock-down in Drosophila neurons induced a significant impairment of locomotion in the climbing test. This defect was age-dependent and fully reversed by L-DOPA treatment. We conclude that bi-allelic missense PTPA variants associated with impaired activation of the PP2A phosphatase cause autosomal recessive early-onset parkinsonism with intellectual disability. Our findings might also provide new insights for understanding the role of the PP2A complex in the pathogenesis of more common forms of neurodegeneration.</p

Discovery and functional prioritization of Parkinson's disease candidate genes from large-scale whole exome sequencing.

BACKGROUND: Whole-exome sequencing (WES) has been successful in identifying genes that cause familial Parkinson's disease (PD). However, until now this approach has not been deployed to study large cohorts of unrelated participants. To discover rare PD susceptibility variants, we performed WES in 1148 unrelated cases and 503 control participants. Candidate genes were subsequently validated for functions relevant to PD based on parallel RNA-interference (RNAi) screens in human cell culture and Drosophila and C. elegans models. RESULTS: Assuming autosomal recessive inheritance, we identify 27 genes that have homozygous or compound heterozygous loss-of-function variants in PD cases. Definitive replication and confirmation of these findings were hindered by potential heterogeneity and by the rarity of the implicated alleles. We therefore looked for potential genetic interactions with established PD mechanisms. Following RNAi-mediated knockdown, 15 of the genes modulated mitochondrial dynamics in human neuronal cultures and four candidates enhanced α-synuclein-induced neurodegeneration in Drosophila. Based on complementary analyses in independent human datasets, five functionally validated genes-GPATCH2L, UHRF1BP1L, PTPRH, ARSB, and VPS13C-also showed evidence consistent with genetic replication. CONCLUSIONS: By integrating human genetic and functional evidence, we identify several PD susceptibility gene candidates for further investigation. Our approach highlights a powerful experimental strategy with broad applicability for future studies of disorders with complex genetic etiologies

Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely

Potential Applications for Circulating Tumor Cells expressing the Insulin Growth Factor-I Receptor

Purpose: To detect insulin-like growth factor-IR (IGF-IR) on circulating tumor cells (CTC) as a biomarker in the clinical development of a monoclonal human antibody, CP-751,871, targeting IGF-IR. Experimental Design: An automated sample preparation and analysis system for enumerating CTCs (CellTracks) was adapted for detecting IGF-IR–positive CTCs with a diagnostic antibody targeting a different IGF-IR epitope to CP-751,871. This assay was used in three phase I trials of CP-751,871 as a single agent or with chemotherapy and was validated using cell lines and blood samples from healthy volunteers and patients with metastatic carcinoma. Results: There was no interference between the analytic and therapeutic antibodies. Eighty patients were enrolled on phase I studies of CP-751,871, with 47 (59%) patients having CTCs detected during the study. Before treatment, 26 patients (33%) had CTCs, with 23 having detectable IGF-IR–positive CTCs. CP-751,871 alone, and CP-751,871 with cytotoxic chemotherapy, decreased CTCs and IGF-IR–positive CTCs; these increased toward the end of the 21-day cycle in some patients, falling again with retreatment. CTCs were commonest in advanced hormone refractory prostate cancer (11 of 20). Detectable IGF-IR expression on CTCs before treatment with CP-751,871 and docetaxel was associated with a higher frequency of prostate-specific antigen decline by >50% (6 of 10 versus 2 of 8 patients). A relationship was observed between sustained decreases in CTC counts and prostate-specific antigen declines by >50%. Conclusions: IGF-IR expression is detectable by immunofluorescence on CTCs. These data support the further evaluation of CTCs in pharmacodynamic studies and patient selection, particularly in advanced prostate cancer

Amplitude and bandwidth of the frontalis surface EMG:effects of electrode parameters

In the present investigation, the frontalis surface EMG was differentially recorded during static voluntary submaximal contractions. First, mean rectified EMG (MREMG) and EMG signal bandwidth were examined for two different bilateral EMG derivations (superior and inferior) with the electrodes placed in horizontal direction and two unilateral derivations (left and right) with the electrodes placed in vertical direction. MREMG was significantly different between the four derivations but absolute differences were small. Bandwidth also varied significantly with derivation. Second, the influence of inter‐electrode distance and electrode size was examined for unilateral derivations. The influence of inter‐electrode distance on MREMG was significant but the absolute effect was marginal. We suggest that a clear effect is to be expected only within the range of small distances (smaller than 10 mm). The significant effect disappeared when MREMG was expressed as proportion of the MREMG during maximal contraction. This normalization seems to allow better intra‐individual or inter‐individual comparisons of integrated EMG, especially when different recording methods are used. The influence of inter‐electrode distance on bandwidth was not significant. Electrode size had no significant influence on MREMG and bandwidth. EMG power spectra indicated that integrated frontalis EMG can be validly measured only when using recording equipment with a frequency response of 5–500 Hz

Urban Households’ Cooking Oil and Fat Consumption Patterns in Turkey: Quality Vs. Quantity

cooking oil, fats, olive oil, consumption, quality adjusted price, AIDS model, Turkey,