Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection are often non-specific, and there is no definitive test for the accurate diagnosis of infection. The 'omics' approaches to identifying biomarkers from the host-response to bacterial infection are promising. In this study, lipidomic analysis was carried out with plasma samples obtained from febrile children with confirmed bacterial infection (n = 20) and confirmed viral infection (n = 20). We show for the first time that bacterial and viral infection produces distinct profile in the host lipidome. Some species of glycerophosphoinositol, sphingomyelin, lysophosphatidylcholine and cholesterol sulfate were higher in the confirmed virus infected group, while some species of fatty acids, glycerophosphocholine, glycerophosphoserine, lactosylceramide and bilirubin were lower in the confirmed virus infected group when compared with confirmed bacterial infected group. A combination of three lipids achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.911 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.98). This pilot study demonstrates the potential of metabolic biomarkers to assist clinicians in distinguishing bacterial from viral infection in febrile children, to facilitate effective clinical management and to the limit inappropriate use of antibiotics

Identification of regulatory variants associated with genetic susceptibility to meningococcal disease.

Non-coding genetic variants play an important role in driving susceptibility to complex diseases but their characterization remains challenging. Here, we employed a novel approach to interrogate the genetic risk of such polymorphisms in a more systematic way by targeting specific regulatory regions relevant for the phenotype studied. We applied this method to meningococcal disease susceptibility, using the DNA binding pattern of RELA - a NF-kB subunit, master regulator of the response to infection - under bacterial stimuli in nasopharyngeal epithelial cells. We designed a custom panel to cover these RELA binding sites and used it for targeted sequencing in cases and controls. Variant calling and association analysis were performed followed by validation of candidate polymorphisms by genotyping in three independent cohorts. We identified two new polymorphisms, rs4823231 and rs11913168, showing signs of association with meningococcal disease susceptibility. In addition, using our genomic data as well as publicly available resources, we found evidences for these SNPs to have potential regulatory effects on ATXN10 and LIF genes respectively. The variants and related candidate genes are relevant for infectious diseases and may have important contribution for meningococcal disease pathology. Finally, we described a novel genetic association approach that could be applied to other phenotypes

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection ar

La théorie de la structure sociale

230 p., ref. bib. : 3 p.3/4Au moment où Nadel écrivait La théorie de la structure sociale, ses collègues britanniques ignoraient Lévi-Strauss et considéraient Leach comme un sorcier maladroit qui rend les étudiants fous en les faisant douter du fonctionnalisme, mais ne les guérit pas en refusant de fonder un nouveau culte. Nadel a le premier perçu l'existence de la pensée structuraliste comme un défi. Son ouvrage constitue la formulation la plus rigoureuse - et, pour une fois, inquiète - des thèses fonctionnalistes. Faut-il rappeler que celles-ci constituent aujourd'hui encore l'essentiel du credo scientifique des anthropologues, et qu'elles survivent jusque dans les cercles structuralistes à titre de retour du refoulé ? L'objet de sa réflexion, ce sont les rôles et les relations sociales. Le mérite de Nadel est grand d'avoir tenté de donner une organisation logique à des notions qui sont constamment utilisées dans la littérature ethnographique sans être jamais pensées. Les lecteurs français devraient y être particulièrement sensibles : la pensée structuraliste, qui s'est préoccupée des termes de parenté et des catégories de la pensée sauvage, a laissé ce domaine en friche. Sans doute parce qu'il débouchait sur ce qui est resté le point aveugle du structuralisme : la politique. Treize ans après la parution de l'ouvrage de Nadel en Grande-Bretagne, il n'existe encore aucun équivalent de sa réflexion dans la littérature anthropologique