Progranulin Gene Variability and Plasma Levels in Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia

Basing on the assumption that frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BPD) might share common aetiological mechanisms, we analyzed genetic variation in the FTLD risk gene progranulin (GRN) in a German population of patients with schizophrenia (n = 271) or BPD (n = 237) as compared with 574 age-, gender- and ethnicity-matched controls. Furthermore, we measured plasma progranulin levels in 26 German BPD patients as well as in 61 Italian BPD patients and 29 matched controls

Unity through truth

Renewed worries about the unity of the proposition have been taken as a crucial stumbling block for any traditional conception of propositions. These worries are often framed in terms of how entities independent of mind and language can have truth conditions: why is the proposition that Desdemona loves Cassio true if and only if she loves him? I argue that the best understanding of these worries shows that they should be solved by our theory of truth and not our theory of content. Specifically, I propose a version of the redundancy theory according to which ‘it is true that Desdemona loves Cassio’ expresses the same proposition as ‘Desdemona loves Cassio’. Surprisingly, this variant of the redundancy theory treats ‘is true’ as an ordinary predicate of the language, thereby defusing many standard criticisms of the redundancy theory

Classification and Regression Tree and Spatial Analyses Reveal Geographic Heterogeneity in Genome Wide Linkage Study of Indian Visceral Leishmaniasis

Genome wide linkage studies (GWLS) have provided evidence for loci controlling visceral leishmaniasis on Chromosomes 1p22, 6q27, 22q12 in Sudan and 6q27, 9p21, 17q11-q21 in Brazil. Genome wide studies from the major focus of disease in India have not previously been reported.We undertook a GWLS in India in which a primary ∼10 cM (515 microsatellites) scan was carried out in 58 multicase pedigrees (74 nuclear families; 176 affected, 353 total individuals) and replication sought in 79 pedigrees (102 nuclear families; 218 affected, 473 total individuals). The primary scan provided evidence (≥2 adjacent markers allele-sharing LOD≥0.59; nominal P≤0.05) for linkage on Chromosomes 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 20 and X, with peaks at 6p25.3-p24.3 and 8p23.1-p21.3 contributed to largely by 31 Hindu families and at Xq21.1-q26.1 by 27 Muslim families. Refined mapping confirmed linkage across all primary scan families at 2q12.2-q14.1 and 11q13.2-q23.3, but only 11q13.2-q23.3 replicated (combined LOD = 1.59; P = 0.0034). Linkage at 6p25.3-p24.3 and 8p23.1-p21.3, and at Xq21.1-q26.1, was confirmed by refined mapping for primary Hindu and Muslim families, respectively, but only Xq21.1-q26.1 replicated across all Muslim families (combined LOD 1.49; P = 0.0045). STRUCTURE and SMARTPCA did not identify population genetic substructure related to religious group. Classification and regression tree, and spatial interpolation, analyses confirm geographical heterogeneity for linkages at 6p25.3-p24.3, 8p23.1-p21.3 and Xq21.1-q26.1, with specific clusters of families contributing LOD scores of 2.13 (P = 0.0009), 1.75 (P = 0.002) and 1.84 (P = 0.001), respectively.GWLS has identified novel loci that show geographical heterogeneity in their influence on susceptibility to VL in India

Outer membrane protein folding from an energy landscape perspective

The cell envelope is essential for the survival of Gram-negative bacteria. This specialised membrane is densely packed with outer membrane proteins (OMPs), which perform a variety of functions. How OMPs fold into this crowded environment remains an open question. Here, we review current knowledge about OFMP folding mechanisms in vitro and discuss how the need to fold to a stable native state has shaped their folding energy landscapes. We also highlight the role of chaperones and the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) in assisting OMP folding in vivo and discuss proposed mechanisms by which this fascinating machinery may catalyse OMP folding

A statistical framework for cross-tissue transcriptome-wide association analysis

Transcriptome-wide association analysis is a powerful approach to studying the genetic architecture of complex traits. A key component of this approach is to build a model to impute gene expression levels from genotypes by using samples with matched genotypes and gene expression data in a given tissue. However, it is challenging to develop robust and accurate imputation models with a limited sample size for any single tissue. Here, we first introduce a multi-task learning method to jointly impute gene expression in 44 human tissues. Compared with single-tissue methods, our approach achieved an average of 39% improvement in imputation accuracy and generated effective imputation models for an average of 120% more genes. We describe a summary-statistic-based testing framework that combines multiple single-tissue associations into a powerful metric to quantify the overall gene–trait association. We applied our method, called UTMOST (unified test for molecular signatures), to multiple genome-wide-association results and demonstrate its advantages over single-tissue strategies

Meta-analysis of genetic association with diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease identifies novel risk loci and implicates Abeta, Tau, immunity and lipid processing

Introduction Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD, onset age > 60 years) is the most prevalent dementia in the elderly 1 , and risk is partially driven by genetics 2 . Many of the loci responsible for this genetic risk were identified by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) 3–8 . To identify additional LOAD risk loci, the we performed the largest GWAS to date (89,769 individuals), analyzing both common and rare variants. We confirm 20 previous LOAD risk loci and identify four new genome-wide loci ( IQCK , ACE , ADAM10 , and ADAMTS1 ). Pathway analysis of these data implicates the immune system and lipid metabolism, and for the first time tau binding proteins and APP metabolism. These findings show that genetic variants affecting APP and Aβ processing are not only associated with early-onset autosomal dominant AD but also with LOAD. Analysis of AD risk genes and pathways show enrichment for rare variants ( P = 1.32 × 10 −7 ) indicating that additional rare variants remain to be identified.ADGC. The National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging (NIH-NIA) supported this work through the following grants: ADGC, U01 AG032984, RC2 AG036528; Samples from the National Cell Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease (NCRAD), which receives government support under a cooperative agreement grant (U24 AG21886) awarded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), were used in this study. We thank contributors who collected samples used in this study, as well as patients and their families, whose help and participation made this work possible; Data for this study were prepared, archived, and distributed by the National Institute on Aging Alzheimer’s Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS) at the University of Pennsylvania (U24-AG041689-01); NACC, U01 AG016976; NIA LOAD (Columbia University), U24 AG026395, U24 AG026390, R01AG041797; Banner Sun Health Research Institute P30 AG019610; Boston University, P30 AG013846, U01 AG10483, R01 CA129769, R01 MH080295, R01 AG017173, R01 AG025259, R01 AG048927, R01AG33193, R01 AG009029; Columbia University, P50 AG008702, R37 AG015473, R01 AG037212, R01 AG028786; Duke University, P30 AG028377, AG05128; Emory University, AG025688; Group Health Research Institute, UO1 AG006781, UO1 HG004610, UO1 HG006375, U01 HG008657; Indiana University, P30 AG10133, R01 AG009956, RC2 AG036650; Johns Hopkins University, P50 AG005146, R01 AG020688; Massachusetts General Hospital, P50 AG005134; Mayo Clinic, P50 AG016574, R01 AG032990, KL2 RR024151; Mount Sinai School of Medicine, P50 AG005138, P01 AG002219; New York University, P30 AG08051, UL1 RR029893, 5R01AG012101, 5R01AG022374, 5R01AG013616, 1RC2AG036502, 1R01AG035137; North Carolina A&T University, P20 MD000546, R01 AG28786-01A1; Northwestern University, P30 AG013854; Oregon Health & Science University, P30 AG008017, R01 AG026916; Rush University, P30 AG010161, R01 AG019085, R01 AG15819, R01 AG17917, R01 AG030146, R01 AG01101, RC2 AG036650, R01 AG22018; TGen, R01 NS059873; University of Alabama at Birmingham, P50 AG016582; University of Arizona, R01 AG031581; University of California, Davis, P30 AG010129; University of California, Irvine, P50 AG016573; University of California, Los Angeles, P50 AG016570; University of California, San Diego, P50 AG005131; University of California, San Francisco, P50 AG023501, P01 AG019724; University of Kentucky, P30 AG028383, AG05144; University of Michigan, P50 AG008671; University of Pennsylvania, P30 AG010124; University of Pittsburgh, P50 AG005133, AG030653, AG041718, AG07562, AG02365; University of Southern California, P50 AG005142; University of Texas Southwestern, P30 AG012300; University of Miami, R01 AG027944, AG010491, AG027944, AG021547, AG019757; University of Washington, P50 AG005136, R01 AG042437; University of Wisconsin, P50 AG033514; Vanderbilt University, R01 AG019085; and Washington University, P50 AG005681, P01 AG03991, P01 AG026276. The Kathleen Price Bryan Brain Bank at Duke University Medical Center is funded by NINDS grant # NS39764, NIMH MH60451 and by Glaxo Smith Kline. Support was also from the Alzheimer’s Association (LAF, IIRG-08-89720; MP-V, IIRG-05-14147), the US Department of Veterans Affairs Administration, Office of Research and Development, Biomedical Laboratory Research Program, and BrightFocus Foundation (MP-V, A2111048). P.S.G.-H. is supported by Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Canadian Institute of Health Research. Genotyping of the TGEN2 cohort was supported by Kronos Science. The TGen series was also funded by NIA grant AG041232 to AJM and MJH, The Banner Alzheimer’s Foundation, The Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer’s Institute, the Medical Research Council, and the state of Arizona and also includes samples from the following sites: Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource (funding via the Medical Research Council, local NHS trusts and Newcastle University), MRC London Brain Bank for Neurodegenerative Diseases (funding via the Medical Research Council),South West Dementia Brain Bank (funding via numerous sources including the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Alzheimer’s Research Trust (ART), BRACE as well as North Bristol NHS Trust Research and Innovation Department and DeNDRoN), The Netherlands Brain Bank (funding via numerous sources including Stichting MS Research, Brain Net Europe, Hersenstichting Nederland Breinbrekend Werk, International Parkinson Fonds, Internationale Stiching Alzheimer Onderzoek), Institut de Neuropatologia, Servei Anatomia Patologica, Universitat de Barcelona. ADNI data collection and sharing was funded by the National Institutes of Health Grant U01 AG024904 and Department of Defense award number W81XWH-12-2-0012. ADNI is funded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and through generous contributions from the following: AbbVie, Alzheimer’s Association; Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation; Araclon Biotech; BioClinica, Inc.; Biogen; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; CereSpir, Inc.; Eisai Inc.; Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Eli Lilly and Company; EuroImmun; F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd and its affiliated company Genentech, Inc.; Fujirebio; GE Healthcare; IXICO Ltd.; Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research & Development, LLC.; Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development LLC.; Lumosity; Lundbeck; Merck & Co., Inc.; Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC.; NeuroRx Research; Neurotrack Technologies; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Pfizer Inc.; Piramal Imaging; Servier; Takeda Pharmaceutical Company; and Transition Therapeutics. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is providing funds to support ADNI clinical sites in Canada. Private sector contributions are facilitated by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (www.fnih.org). The grantee organization is the Northern California Institute for Research and Education, and the study is coordinated by the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California, San Diego. ADNI data are disseminated by the Laboratory for Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California. We thank Drs. D. Stephen Snyder and Marilyn Miller from NIA who are ex-officio ADGC members. EADI. This work has been developed and supported by the LABEX (laboratory of excellence program investment for the future) DISTALZ grant (Development of Innovative Strategies for a Transdisciplinary approach to ALZheimer’s disease) including funding from MEL (Metropole européenne de Lille), ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) and Conseil Régional Nord Pas de Calais. This work was supported by INSERM, the National Foundation for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, the Institut Pasteur de Lille and the Centre National de Génotypage, the JPND PERADES, GENMED, and the FP7 AgedBrainSysBio. The Three-City Study was performed as part of collaboration between the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm), the Victor Segalen Bordeaux II University and Sanofi- Synthélabo. The Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale funded the preparation and initiation of the study. The 3C Study was also funded by the Caisse Nationale Maladie des Travailleurs Salariés, Direction Générale de la Santé, MGEN, Institut de la Longévité, Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits de Santé, the Aquitaine and Bourgogne Regional Councils, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR supported the COGINUT and COVADIS projects. Fondation de France and the joint French Ministry of Research/INSERM “Cohortes et collections de données biologiques” programme. Lille Génopôle received an unconditional grant from Eisai. The Three-city biological bank was developed and maintained by the laboratory for genomic analysis LAG-BRC - Institut Pasteur de Lille. This work was further supported by the CoSTREAM project (http://www.costream.eu/) and funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement 667375. Belgium samples: Research at the Antwerp site is funded in part by the Belgian Science Policy Office Interuniversity Attraction Poles program, the Belgian Alzheimer Research Foundation, the Flemish government-initiated Flanders Impulse Program on Networks for Dementia Research (VIND) and the Methusalem excellence program, the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), and the University of Antwerp Research Fund, Belgium. The Antwerp site authors thank the personnel of the VIB Neuromics Support Facility, the Biobank of the Institute Born-Bunge and neurology departments at the contributing hospitals. The authors acknowledge the members of the BELNEU consortium for their contributions to the clinical and pathological characterization of Belgium patients and the personnel of the Diagnostic Service Facility for the genetic testing. Finish sample collection: Financial support for this project was provided by Academy of Finland (grant number 307866), Sigrid Jusélius Foundation and the Strategic Neuroscience Funding of the University of Eastern Finland. Swedish sample collection: Financially supported in part by the Swedish Brain Power network, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council (521-2010-3134, 2015-02926), the King Gustaf V and Queen Victoria’s Foundation of Freemasons, the Regional Agreement on Medical Training and Clinical Research (ALF) between Stockholm County Council and the Karolinska Institutet, the Swedish Brain Foundation and the Swedish Alzheimer Foundation”. CHARGE. Infrastructure for the CHARGE Consortium is supported in part by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant HL105756 (Psaty) and RC2HL102419 (Boerwinkle) and the neurology working group by grants from the National Institute on Aging, R01 AG033193, U01 AG049505 and U01AG52409. Rotterdam (RS). This study was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMW) as part of the Joint Programming for Neurological Disease (JPND)as part of the PERADES Program (Defining Genetic Polygenic, and Environmental Risk for Alzheimer’s disease using multiple powerful cohorts, focused Epigenetics and Stem cell metabolomics), Project number 733051021. This work was funded also by the European Union Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) programme under grant agreement No. 115975 as part of the Alzheimer’s Disease Apolipoprotein Pathology for Treatment Elucidation and Development (ADAPTED, https://www.imi-adapted.eu);and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme as part of the Common mechanisms and pathways in Stroke and Alzheimer’s disease CoSTREAM project (www.costream.eu, grant agreement No. 667375). The current study is supported by the Deltaplan Dementie and Memorabel supported by ZonMW (Project number 733050814) and Alzheimer Nederland. The Rotterdam Study is funded by Erasmus Medical Center and Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw), the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (RIDE), the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports, the European Commission (DG XII), and the Municipality of Rotterdam. The authors are grateful to the study participants, the staff from the Rotterdam Study and the participating general practitioners and pharmacists. The generation and management of GWAS genotype data for the Rotterdam Study (RS-I, RS-II, RS-III) was executed by the Human Genotyping Facility of the Genetic Laboratory of the Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The GWAS datasets are supported by the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research NWO Investments (Project number 175.010.2005.011, 911-03-012), the Genetic Laboratory of the Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (014-93-015; RIDE2), the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI)/Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging (NCHA), project number 050-060-810. We thank Pascal Arp, Mila Jhamai, Marijn Verkerk, Lizbeth Herrera and Marjolein Peters, MSc, and Carolina Medina-Gomez, MSc, for their help in creating the GWAS database, and Karol Estrada, PhD, Yurii Aulchenko, PhD, and Carolina Medina-Gomez, MSc, for the creation and analysis of imputed data. AGES. The AGES study has been funded by NIA contracts N01-AG-12100 and HHSN271201200022C with contributions from NEI, NIDCD, and NHLBI, the NIA Intramural Research Program, Hjartavernd (the Icelandic Heart Association), and the Althingi (the Icelandic Parliament). Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS). This research was supported by contracts HHSN268201200036C, HHSN268200800007C, N01HC55222, N01HC85079, N01HC85080, N01HC85081, N01HC85082, N01HC85083, and N01HC85086 and grant U01HL080295 and U01HL130114 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), with additional contribution from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Additional support was provided by R01AG033193, R01AG023629, R01AG15928, and R01AG20098 and by U01AG049505 from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). The provision of genotyping data was supported in part by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, CTSI grant UL1TR000124, and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease Diabetes Research Center (DRC) grant DK063491 to the Southern California Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center. A full list of CHS principal investigators and institutions can be found at https://chs-nhlbi.org/. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the US National Institutes of Health. Framingham Heart Study. This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study (contracts N01-HC-25195 and HHSN268201500001I). This study was also supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging: R01AG033193, U01AG049505, U01AG52409, R01AG054076 (S. Seshadri). S. Seshadri and A.L.D. were also supported by additional grants from the National Institute on Aging (R01AG049607, R01AG033040) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01- NS017950, NS100605). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the US National Institutes of Health. GR@ACE cohort. Fundació ACE We would like to thank patients and controls who participated in this project. Genome Resesarch @ Fundació ACE project (GR@ACE) is supported by Fundación bancaria “La Caixa”, Grifols SA, Fundació ACE and ISCIII. We also want to thank other private sponsors supporting the basic and clinical projects of our institution (Piramal AG, Laboratorios Echevarne, Araclon Biotech S.A. and Fundació ACE). We are indebted to Trinitat Port-Carbó legacy and her family for their support of Fundació ACE research programs. Fundació ACE collaborates with the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red sobreEnfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED, Spain) and is one of the participating centers of the Dementia Genetics Spanish Consortium (DEGESCO). A.R. and M.B. are receiving support from the European Union/EFPIA Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking ADAPTED and MOPEAD projects (Grants No. 115975 and 115985 respectively). M.B. and A.R. are also supported by national grants PI13/02434, PI16/01861 and PI17/01474. Acción Estratégica en Salud integrated in the Spanish National R + D + I Plan and funded by ISCIII (Instituto de Salud Carlos III)-Subdirección General de Evaluación and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER- “Una manera de Hacer Europa”). Control samples and data from patients included in this study were provided in part by the National DNA Bank Carlos III (www.bancoadn.org, University of Salamanca, Spain) and Hospital Universitario Virgen de Valme (Sevilla, Spain) and they were processed following standard operating procedures with the appropriate approval of the Ethical and Scientific Committee. GERAD/PERADES. We thank all individuals who participated in this study. Cardiff University was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Alzheimer’s Society (AS; grant RF014/164), the Medical Research Council (MRC; grants G0801418/1, MR/K013041/1, MR/L023784/1), the European Joint Programme for Neurodegenerative Disease (JPND, grant MR/L501517/1), Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK, grant ARUK-PG2014-1), Welsh Assembly Government (grant SGR544:CADR), a donation from the Moondance Charitable Foundation, and the UK Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff. Cambridge University acknowledges support from the MRC. ARUK supported sample collections at the Kings College London, the South West Dementia Bank, Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham, Manchester and Belfast. King’s College London was supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health and Biomedical Research Unit for Dementia at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Kings College London and the MRC. Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK) and the Big Lottery Fund provided support to Nottingham University. Ulster Garden Villages, AS, ARUK, American Federation for Aging Research, NI R&D Office and the Royal College of Physicians/Dunhill Medical Trust provided support for Queen’s University, Belfast. The University of Southampton acknowledges support from the AS. The MRC and Mercer’s Institute for Research on Ageing supported the Trinity College group. DCR is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research fellow. The South West Dementia Brain Bank acknowledges support from Bristol Research into Alzheimer’s and Care of the Elderly. The Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust supported the OPTIMA group. Washington University was funded by NIH grants, Barnes Jewish Foundation and the Charles and Joanne Knight Alzheimer’s Research Initiative. Patient recruitment for the MRC Prion Unit/UCL Department of Neurodegenerative Disease collection was supported by the UCLH/UCL Biomed- ical Centre and their work was supported by the NIHR Queen Square Dementia BRU. LASER-AD was funded by Lundbeck SA. The Bonn group would like to thank Dr. Heike Koelsch for her scientific support. The Bonn group was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): Competence Network Dementia (CND) grant number 01GI0102, 01GI0711, 01GI0420. The AgeCoDe study group was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research grants 01 GI 0710, 01 GI 0712, 01 GI 0713, 01 GI 0714, 01 GI 0715, 01 GI 0716, 01 GI 0717. Genotyping of the Bonn case-control sample was funded by the German centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Germany. The GERAD Consortium also used samples ascertained by the NIMH AD Genetics Initiative. HH was supported by a grant of the Katharina-Hardt-Foundation, Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany. The KORA F4 studies were financed by Helmholtz Zentrum München; German Research Center for Environmental Health; BMBF; German National Genome Research Network and the Munich Center of Health Sciences. The Heinz Nixdorf Recall cohort was funded by the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation (Dr. Jur. G.Schmidt, Chairman) and BMBF. Coriell Cell Repositories is supported by NINDS and the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging. We acknowledge use of genotype data from the 1958 Birth Cohort collection, funded by the MRC and the Wellcome Trust which was genotyped by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium and the Type-1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium, sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. The Bonn samples are part of the German Dementia Competance Network (DCN) and the German Research Network on Degenerative Dementia (KNDD), which are funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grants KND: 01G10102, 01GI0420, 01GI0422, 01GI0423, 01GI0429, 01GI0431, 01GI0433, 04GI0434; grants KNDD: 01GI1007A, 01GI0710, 01GI0711, 01GI0712, 01GI0713, 01GI0714, 01GI0715, 01GI0716, 01ET1006B). Markus M Nothen is a member of the German Research Foundation (DFG) cluster of excellence ImmunoSensation. Funding for Saarland University was provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), grant number 01GS08125 to Matthias Riemenschneider. The University of Washington was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01-NS085419 and R01-AG044546), the Alzheimer’s Association (NIRG-11-200110) and the American Federation for Aging Research (Carlos Cruchaga was recipient of a New Investigator Award in Alzhei

Pathogenic Huntingtin Repeat Expansions in Patients with Frontotemporal Dementia and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

We examined the role of repeat expansions in the pathogenesis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by analyzing whole-genome sequence data from 2,442 FTD/ALS patients, 2,599 Lewy body dementia (LBD) patients, and 3,158 neurologically healthy subjects. Pathogenic expansions (range, 40-64 CAG repeats) in the huntingtin (HTT) gene were found in three (0.12%) patients diagnosed with pure FTD/ALS syndromes but were not present in the LBD or healthy cohorts. We replicated our findings in an independent collection of 3,674 FTD/ALS patients. Postmortem evaluations of two patients revealed the classical TDP-43 pathology of FTD/ALS, as well as huntingtin-positive, ubiquitin-positive aggregates in the frontal cortex. The neostriatal atrophy that pathologically defines Huntington's disease was absent in both cases. Our findings reveal an etiological relationship between HTT repeat expansions and FTD/ALS syndromes and indicate that genetic screening of FTD/ALS patients for HTT repeat expansions should be considered

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700