Pathogenesis of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis in girls - a double neuro-osseous theory involving disharmony between two nervous systems, somatic and autonomic expressed in the spine and trunk: possible dependency on sympathetic nervous system and hormones with implications for medical therapy

Anthropometric data from three groups of adolescent girls - preoperative adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), screened for scoliosis and normals were analysed by comparing skeletal data between higher and lower body mass index subsets. Unexpected findings for each of skeletal maturation, asymmetries and overgrowth are not explained by prevailing theories of AIS pathogenesis. A speculative pathogenetic theory for girls is formulated after surveying evidence including: (1) the thoracospinal concept for right thoracic AIS in girls; (2) the new neuroskeletal biology relating the sympathetic nervous system to bone formation/resorption and bone growth; (3) white adipose tissue storing triglycerides and the adiposity hormone leptin which functions as satiety hormone and sentinel of energy balance to the hypothalamus for long-term adiposity; and (4) central leptin resistance in obesity and possibly in healthy females. The new theory states that AIS in girls results from developmental disharmony expressed in spine and trunk between autonomic and somatic nervous systems. The autonomic component of this double neuro-osseous theory for AIS pathogenesis in girls involves selectively increased sensitivity of the hypothalamus to circulating leptin (genetically-determined up-regulation possibly involving inhibitory or sensitizing intracellular molecules, such as SOC3, PTP-1B and SH2B1 respectively), with asymmetry as an adverse response (hormesis); this asymmetry is routed bilaterally via the sympathetic nervous system to the growing axial skeleton where it may initiate the scoliosis deformity (leptin-hypothalamic-sympathetic nervous system concept = LHS concept). In some younger preoperative AIS girls, the hypothalamic up-regulation to circulating leptin also involves the somatotropic (growth hormone/IGF) axis which exaggerates the sympathetically-induced asymmetric skeletal effects and contributes to curve progression, a concept with therapeutic implications. In the somatic nervous system, dysfunction of a postural mechanism involving the CNS body schema fails to control, or may induce, the spinal deformity of AIS in girls (escalator concept). Biomechanical factors affecting ribs and/or vertebrae and spinal cord during growth may localize AIS to the thoracic spine and contribute to sagittal spinal shape alterations. The developmental disharmony in spine and trunk is compounded by any osteopenia, biomechanical spinal growth modulation, disc degeneration and platelet calmodulin dysfunction. Methods for testing the theory are outlined. Implications are discussed for neuroendocrine dysfunctions, osteopontin, sympathoactivation, medical therapy, Rett and Prader-Willi syndromes, infantile idiopathic scoliosis, and human evolution. AIS pathogenesis in girls is predicated on two putative normal mechanisms involved in trunk growth, each acquired in evolution and unique to humans

Longitudinal copy number, whole exome and targeted deep sequencing of 'good risk' IGHV-mutated CLL patients with progressive disease

Disease progression in IGHV-M CLL with 'good-risk' cytogenetics is frequently associated with co-evolution of 'poor risk' driver mutations and DNA methylation changes.Drug resistance in IGHV-M CLL may be consequent upon the emergence of an IGHV-U cloneThe biological features of IGHV-M CLL responsible for disease progression are still poorly understood. We undertook a longitudinal study close to diagnosis, pre-treatment and post relapse in thirteen patients presenting with cMBL or Stage A disease and good risk biomarkers (IGHV-M genes, no del(17p) or del(11q) and low CD38 expression) who nevertheless developed progressive disease, of whom ten have required therapy. Using cytogenetics, FISH, genome-wide DNA methylation and copy number analysis together with whole exome, targeted deep- and Sanger sequencing, at diagnosis we identified mutations in established CLL driver genes in nine (69%), non-coding mutations (PAX5 enhancer region) in three, and genomic complexity in two patients. Branching evolutionary trajectories predominated (n=9/13), revealing intra-tumoural epi- and genetic heterogeneity and sub-clonal competition prior to therapy. Of the patients subsequently requiring treatment, two had sub-clonal TP53 mutations that would not be detected by standard methodologies, three qualified for the very-low risk category defined by integrated mutational and cytogenetic analysis and yet had established or putative driver mutations and one patient developed progressive, therapy-refractory disease associated with the emergence of an IGHV-U clone. These data suggest that extended genomic and immunogenetic screening may have clinical utility in patients with apparent good risk disease.Leukemia accepted article preview online, 05 February 2016. doi:10.1038/leu.2016.10