Management of a South African family with retinitis pigmentosa—should potential therapy influence translational research protocols?

Mutation analysis of retinal candidate genes is performed as part of an ongoing research to identify the causative genetic defect in South African families with retinal degenerative disorders (RDDs). A translational research protocol has been established whereby probands are counseled and given their molecular genetic results to take back to other family members, who can then request individual diagnostic testing. A Thr17Met mutation of the rhodopsin gene was identified in a Caucasian South African family with autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa. Patients with this mutation appear to benefit from treatment using oral vitamin A supplementation. This family has been informed that a molecular diagnosis is available; however, one individual has refused testing and none of the younger generation has shown interest in receiving molecular results or genetic counseling. Adapting the established protocol for the translation of RDD research results and contacting mutation positive individuals may be justifiable in light of the potential benefit of therapy

Phosphatidylserine Increases IKBKAP Levels in Familial Dysautonomia Cells

Familial Dysautonomia (FD) is an autosomal recessive congenital neuropathy that results from abnormal development and progressive degeneration of the sensory and autonomic nervous system. The mutation observed in almost all FD patients is a point mutation at position 6 of intron 20 of the IKBKAP gene; this gene encodes the IκB kinase complex-associated protein (IKAP). The mutation results in a tissue-specific splicing defect: Exon 20 is skipped, leading to reduced IKAP protein expression. Here we show that phosphatidylserine (PS), an FDA-approved food supplement, increased IKAP mRNA levels in cells derived from FD patients. Long-term treatment with PS led to a significant increase in IKAP protein levels in these cells. A conjugate of PS and an omega-3 fatty acid also increased IKAP mRNA levels. Furthermore, PS treatment released FD cells from cell cycle arrest and up-regulated a significant number of genes involved in cell cycle regulation. Our results suggest that PS has potential for use as a therapeutic agent for FD. Understanding its mechanism of action may reveal the mechanism underlying the FD disease

Olfactory Stem Cells, a New Cellular Model for Studying Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Familial Dysautonomia

International audienceBackground: Familial dysautonomia (FD) is a hereditary neuropathy caused by mutations in the IKBKAP gene, the most common of which results in variable tissue-specific mRNA splicing with skipping of exon 20. Defective splicing is especially severe in nervous tissue, leading to incomplete development and progressive degeneration of sensory and autonomic neurons. The specificity of neuron loss in FD is poorly understood due to the lack of an appropriate model system. To better understand and modelize the molecular mechanisms of IKBKAP mRNA splicing, we collected human olfactory ecto-mesenchymal stem cells (hOE-MSC) from FD patients. hOE-MSCs have a pluripotent ability to differentiate into various cell lineages, including neurons and glial cells.Methodology/Principal Findings: We confirmed IKBKAP mRNA alternative splicing in FD hOE-MSCs and identified 2 novel spliced isoforms also present in control cells. We observed a significant lower expression of both IKBKAP transcript and IKAP/hELP1 protein in FD cells resulting from the degradation of the transcript isoform skipping exon 20. We localized IKAP/hELP1 in different cell compartments, including the nucleus, which supports multiple roles for that protein. We also investigated cellular pathways altered in FD, at the genome-wide level, and confirmed that cell migration and cytoskeleton reorganization were among the processes altered in FD. Indeed, FD hOE-MSCs exhibit impaired migration compared to control cells. Moreover, we showed that kinetin improved exon 20 inclusion and restores a normal level of IKAP/hELP1 in FD hOE-MSCs. Furthermore, we were able to modify the IKBKAP splicing ratio in FD hOE-MSCs, increasing or reducing the WT (exon 20 inclusion):MU (exon 20 skipping) ratio respectively, either by producing free-floating spheres, or by inducing cells into neural differentiation.Conclusions/Significance: hOE-MSCs isolated from FD patients represent a new approach for modeling FD to better understand genetic expression and possible therapeutic approaches. This model could also be applied to other neurological genetic diseases

The NORMAN Suspect List Exchange (NORMAN-SLE): facilitating European and worldwide collaboration on suspect screening in high resolution mass spectrometry

The NORMAN Association (https://www.norman-network.com/) initiated the NORMAN Suspect List Exchange (NORMAN-SLE; https://www.norman-network.com/nds/SLE/) in 2015, following the NORMAN collaborative trial on non-target screening of environmental water samples by mass spectrometry. Since then, this exchange of information on chemicals that are expected to occur in the environment, along with the accompanying expert knowledge and references, has become a valuable knowledge base for "suspect screening" lists. The NORMAN-SLE now serves as a FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) chemical information resource worldwide.The NORMAN-SLE project has received funding from the NORMAN Association via its joint proposal of activities. HMT and ELS are supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) for project A18/BM/12341006. ELS, PC, SEH, HPHA, ZW acknowledge funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101036756, project ZeroPM: Zero pollution of persistent, mobile substances. The work of EEB, TC, QL, BAS, PAT, and JZ was supported by the National Center for Biotechnology Information of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH). JOB is the recipient of an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellowship (EL1 2009209). KVT and JOB acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council (DP190102476). The Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences, The University of Queensland, gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Queensland Department of Health. NR is supported by a Miguel Servet contract (CP19/00060) from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, co-financed by the European Union through Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER). MM and TR gratefully acknowledge financial support by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF, Bonn) through the project “Persistente mobile organische Chemikalien in der aquatischen Umwelt (PROTECT)” (FKz: 02WRS1495 A/B/E). LiB acknowledges funding through a Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) fellowship (11G1821N). JAP and JMcL acknowledge financial support from the NIH for CCSCompendium (S50 CCSCOMPEND) via grants NIH NIGMS R01GM092218 and NIH NCI 1R03CA222452-01, as well as the Vanderbilt Chemical Biology Interface training program (5T32GM065086-16), plus use of resources of the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) at Vanderbilt University. TJ was (partly) supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), project number 15747. UFZ (TS, MaK, WB) received funding from SOLUTIONS project (European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under Grant Agreement No. 603437). TS, MaK, WB, JPA, RCHV, JJV, JeM and MHL acknowledge HBM4EU (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement no. 733032). TS acknowledges funding from NFDI4Chem—Chemistry Consortium in the NFDI (supported by the DFG under project number 441958208). TS, MaK, WB and EMLJ acknowledge NaToxAq (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 722493). S36 and S63 (HPHA, SEH, MN, IS) were funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) Project No. (FKZ) 3716 67 416 0, updates to S36 (HPHA, SEH, MN, IS) by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) Project No. (FKZ) 3719 65 408 0. MiK acknowledges financial support from the EU Cohesion Funds within the project Monitoring and assessment of water body status (No. 310011A366 Phase III). The work related to S60 and S82 was funded by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), KK and JH acknowledge the input of Kathrin Fenner’s group (Eawag) in compiling transformation products from European pesticides registration dossiers. DSW and YDF were supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Genome Canada. The work related to S49, S48 and S77 was funded by the MAVA foundation; for S77 also the Valery Foundation (KG, JaM, BG). DML acknowledges National Science Foundation Grant RUI-1306074. YL acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 22193051 and 21906177), and the Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2019M650863). WLC acknowledges research project 108C002871 supported by the Environmental Protection Administration, Executive Yuan, R.O.C. Taiwan (Taiwan EPA). JG acknowledges funding from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment. AJW was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. LuB, AC and FH acknowledge the financial support of the Generalitat Valenciana (Research Group of Excellence, Prometeo 2019/040). KN (S89) acknowledges the PhD fellowship through Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 859891 (MSCA-ETN). Exposome-Explorer (S34) was funded by the European Commission projects EXPOsOMICS FP7-KBBE-2012 [308610]; NutriTech FP7-KBBE-2011-5 [289511]; Joint Programming Initiative FOODBALL 2014–17. CP acknowledges grant RYC2020-028901-I funded by MCIN/AEI/1.0.13039/501100011033 and “ESF investing in your future”, and August T Larsson Guest Researcher Programme from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The work of ML, MaSe, SG, TL and WS creating and filling the STOFF-IDENT database (S2) mostly sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the RiSKWa program (funding codes 02WRS1273 and 02WRS1354). XT acknowledges The National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark. MaSch acknowledges funding by the RECETOX research infrastructure (the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, LM2018121), the CETOCOEN PLUS project (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000469), and the CETOCOEN EXCELLENCE Teaming 2 project supported by the Czech ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (No CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_043/0009632).Peer reviewe

CCDC 2262950: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination

DIZNEJ : (3-[η2-4-(dimethylamino)phenyl]-2-(methylcarbamoyl)bicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-2-yl)-(2-methyl-2-[(pentafluorophenyl)sulfanyl]propanoate)-palladium(ii) ethyl acetate solvate Space Group: P 21/c (14), Cell: a 11.7287(5)Å b 12.3288(5)Å c 21.6407(10)Å, α 90° β 99.261(3)° γ 90° An entry from the Cambridge Structural Database, the world’s repository for small molecule crystal structures. The entry contains experimental data from a crystal diffraction study. The deposited dataset for this entry is freely available from the CCDC and typically includes 3D coordinates, cell parameters, space group, experimental conditions and quality measures

CCDC 1990004: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination

NELHIZ : 10-(4-bromophenyl)-2,2-dimethyl-2,3-dihydroporphyrin Space Group: P 21/n (14), Cell: a 15.2041(9)Å b 9.8625(5)Å c 31.7167(18)Å, α 90° β 97.607(4)° γ 90° An entry from the Cambridge Structural Database, the world’s repository for small molecule crystal structures. The entry contains experimental data from a crystal diffraction study. The deposited dataset for this entry is freely available from the CCDC and typically includes 3D coordinates, cell parameters, space group, experimental conditions and quality measures

Monitoring sensitivity to the DMI group of fungicides in net blotch (Pyrenophora teres) of winter barley

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:4303.4478(HGCA-PR--80) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Monitoring sensitivity of the DMI group of fungicides in populations of the leaf blotch pathogen (Septoria tritici) and the glume blotch pathogen (S. nodorum) of winter wheat

SIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

CCDC 2262951: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination

DIZNIN : dimethyl 4-cyclohexyl-12b-(methylcarbamoyl)-1,2,3,4,4a,12b-hexahydro-1,4-methanotriphenylene-5,9-dicarboxylate Space Group: P 1 (2), Cell: a 9.6859(10)Å b 15.9741(17)Å c 18.728(2)Å, α 65.695(5)° β 81.444(5)° γ 88.363(5)° An entry from the Cambridge Structural Database, the world’s repository for small molecule crystal structures. The entry contains experimental data from a crystal diffraction study. The deposited dataset for this entry is freely available from the CCDC and typically includes 3D coordinates, cell parameters, space group, experimental conditions and quality measures