Servicio de Información Telefónica sobre Teratógenos Español (SITTE) y Servicio de Información Telefónica para la Embarazada (SITE): Resultados del año 2003

Resultados de otras actividades del ECEMCHere is presented a summary of inquiries made to our teratology information services, SITTE (for health professionals) and SITE (for the general population), during the year 2003. A total of 4,607 calls to the SITE and 1,257 to the SITTE were received during this year. As in previous years, most of these questions were about risk of pharmacological treatment on embrionary/fetal development. We show the evolution of calls along the time, by type of question, by Spanish regions and within the last five years, regarding the ethnicity of women who called to our TIS, considering the increase in the number of immigrants residents in Spain. Finally, we make a brief analysis to the evolution of number calls to de SITTE according to the medical specialityEste trabajo ha sido realizado gracias a las ayudas recibidas de las Comunidades Autónomas (Andalucía, Aragón, Principado de Asturias, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Valencia, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, Navarra), del Instituto de Salud Carlos III, de la Fundación 1000 y del Ministerio de Asuntos SocialesN

Chronic carbon monoxide poisoning during pregnancy: Presentation of a case

Epidemiología y Teratología: Resultados de estudios sobre los datos del ECEMCHere we present a case of chronic carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning during pregnancy. The pregnant women suffered from headache, vomiting, dizziness…since the very beginning, which were considered symptoms of her pregnancy. The sudden death of a couple of birds 24 hours after they were located in her kitchen, put the physician on the scent, and when the appropriate analyses were made the CO chronic intoxication was confirmed. We would like to call the attention that the symptoms of the carbon monoxide poisoning during pregnancy could be easily confused with the typical gestation symptoms. Thus, a deep analysis of the maternal characteristics and circumstances should be always done to disregard all the potential risk factors, even for those symptoms that could be attributed to the pregnancy, because the risk for the embryo and fetus could be highly different.N

Novel HIV-1 Knockdown Targets Identified by an Enriched Kinases/Phosphatases shRNA Library Using a Long-Term Iterative Screen in Jurkat T-Cells

HIV-1 is a complex retrovirus that uses host machinery to promote its replication. Understanding cellular proteins involved in the multistep process of HIV-1 infection may result in the discovery of more adapted and effective therapeutic targets. Kinases and phosphatases are a druggable class of proteins critically involved in regulation of signal pathways of eukaryotic cells. Here, we focused on the discovery of kinases and phosphatases that are essential for HIV-1 replication but dispensable for cell viability. We performed an iterative screen in Jurkat T-cells with a short-hairpin-RNA (shRNA) library highly enriched for human kinases and phosphatases. We identified 14 new proteins essential for HIV-1 replication that do not affect cell viability. These proteins are described to be involved in MAPK, JNK and ERK pathways, vesicular traffic and DNA repair. Moreover, we show that the proteins under study are important in an early step of HIV-1 infection before viral integration, whereas some of them affect viral transcription/translation. This study brings new insights for the complex interplay of HIV-1/host cell and opens new possibilities for antiviral strategies

FICD acts bifunctionally to AMPylate and de-AMPylate the endoplasmic reticulum chaperone BiP

Protein folding homeostasis in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is defended by an unfolded protein response that matches ER chaperone capacity to the burden of unfolded proteins. As levels of unfolded proteins decline, a metazoan-specific FIC-domain-containing ER-localized enzyme (FICD) rapidly inactivates the major ER chaperone BiP by AMPylating T518. Here we show that the single catalytic domain of FICD can also release the attached AMP, restoring functionality to BiP. Consistent with a role for endogenous FICD in de-AMPylating BiP, FICD$_{-/-}$ hamster cells are hypersensitive to introduction of a constitutively AMPylating, de-AMPylation-defective mutant FICD. These opposing activities hinge on a regulatory residue, E234, whose default state renders FICD a constitutive de-AMPylase $\textit{in vitro}$. The location of E234 on a conserved regulatory helix and the mutually antagonistic activities of FICD $\textit{in vivo}$, suggest a mechanism whereby fluctuating unfolded protein load actively switches FICD from a de-AMPylase to an AMPylase.Supported by Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship to D.R. (Wellcome 200848/Z/16/Z), a UK Medical Research Council PhD studentship to L.A.P. and a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award to the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (Wellcome 100140)

Resultados de las llamadas recibidas por el Servicio de Información Telefónica sobre Teratógenos Español (SITTE) y por el Servicio de Información Telefónica para la Embarazada (SITE) durante el año 2001

Resultados de otras actividades del ECEMCWe present the results of the calls received by the Spanish Teratology Information Services, (SITTE directed to health professionals and SITE directed to general population) during 2001. The total number of calling has been of 5.753, corresponding 1.438 of them to the SITTE and 4.315 to the SITE. This number has suffered an increasing in comparison with the year 2000. Calls from all the Spanish Regions (Comunidades Autonómas) have been received. The most frequent enquiry in both services was the drugs during pregnancy. Among them, the psycholeptics and psychoanaleptics are the more often type of drug consulted

Overweight in young males reduces in a half the normal pregnancy success in rabbit model

[EN] Semen quality has certainly declined over the past few decades, possibly owing to modern lifestyle factors. In this sense, the role of overweight and obesity in the development of subfertility in males has generated a considerable amount of interest in recent years. However, there is no consensus on whether overweight or obesity impaired sperm quality. Thus, based on the ongoing debate about risk factors for subfertility associated with overweight and obesity in men, this study was designed to investigate the effect of overweight on sperm quality parameters and fertility success in randomized controlled trial in a rabbit model. Fourteen male rabbits were randomly assigned to a control group in which nutritional requirements were satisfied or a group fed to satiety from 12 to 32 weeks of age. At 24 weeks of age, semen samples were analysed weekly by conventional semen analysis for 8 weeks. In addition, during the trial female rabbits were artificially inseminated by each male to assess the fertility success and the number of offspring. Young males fed to satiety were associated with a significant increase in body weight (13.6% overweight) and perirenal fat thickness (5%). Male overweight presented a significant decrease in sperm concentration. There were no differences in the remaining sperm parameters. However, male overweight showed a clear and significant decrease in fertility success (control group, 64±8.9% versus fed to satiety group, 35±9.2%), but not in the number of offspring. Taken together, our findings provide new evidence on the loss of fertility induced by overweight in males.This research was supported by the projects: Spanish Research project AGL2014-5 3405-C2-1-P Comision Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia (FMJ, JSV). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Marco-Jiménez, F.; Vicente Antón, JS. (2017). Overweight in young males reduces in a half the normal pregnancy success in rabbit model. PLoS ONE. 12(7):1-11. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0180679S11112