Evaluation of 15 Functional Candidate Genes for Association with Chronic Otitis Media with Effusion and/or Recurrent Otitis Media (COME/ROM)

DNA sequence variants in genes involved in the innate immune response and secondary response to infection may confer susceptibility to chronic otitis media with effusion and/or recurrent otitis media (COME/ROM). We evaluated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 15 functional candidate genes. A total of 99 SNPs were successfully genotyped on the Sequenom platform in 142 families (618 subjects) from the Minnesota COME/ROM Family Study. Data were analyzed for association with COME/ROM using the Generalized Disequilibrium Test (GDT). Sex and age at exam were adjusted as covariates, relatedness was accounted for, and genotype differences from all phenotypically discordant relative pairs were utilized to measure the evidence of association between COME/ROM and each SNP. SNP rs2735733 in the region of the mucin 5, subtypes A/C gene (MUC5AC) exhibited nominal evidence for association with COME/ROM (P = 0.002). Two additional SNPs from this region had P values<0.05. Other variants exhibiting associations with COME/ROM at P<0.05 included the SCN1B SNP rs8100085 (P = 0.013), SFTPD SNP rs1051246 (P = 0.039) and TLR4 SNP rs2770146 (P = 0.038). However, none of these associations replicated in an independent sample of COME/ROM families. The candidate gene variants examined do not appear to make a major contribution to COME/ROM susceptibility, despite a priori evidence from functional or animal model studies for a role in COME/ROM pathology

Feedback-mediated neuronal competition for survival cues regulates innervation of a target tissue

Proper wiring of the nervous system requires tight control of the number of nerve terminals that innervate a target tissue. Recent work by Deppmann et al., now suggests that this is achieved by feedback-mediated neuronal competition for target-derived survival cues. The authors' model is inspired by the theory for pattern formation based on self-activation and lateral inhibition, proposed by Meinhardt and Gierer more than 30 years ago

An Improved Method to Produce Clinical-Scale Natural Killer Cells from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells.

Human natural killer (NK) cell-based adoptive anticancer immunotherapy has gained intense interest with many clinical trials actively recruiting patients to treat a variety of both hematological malignancies and solid tumors. Most of these trials use primary NK cells isolated either from peripheral blood (PB-NK cells) or umbilical cord blood (UCB-NK cells), though these sources require NK cell collection for each patient leading to donor variability and heterogeneity in the NK cell populations. In contrast, NK cells derived human embryonic stem cells (hESC-NK cells) or induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC-NK cells) provide more homogeneous cell populations that can be grown at clinical scale, and genetically engineered if needed. These characteristics make hESC-/iPSC-derived NK cells an ideal cell population for developing standardized, "off-the-shelf" immunotherapy products. Additionally, production of NK cells from undifferentiated human pluripotent stem cells enables studies to better define pathways that regulate human NK cell development and function. Our group previously has established a stromal-free, two-stage culture system to derive NK cells from hESC/hiPSC in vitro followed by clinical-scale expansion of these cells using interleukin (IL)-21 expressing artificial antigen-presenting cells. However, prior to differentiation, this method requires single-cell adaptation of hESCs/hiPSCs which takes months. Recently we optimized this method by adapting the mouse embryonic fibroblast-dependent hESC/hiPSC to feeder-free culture conditions. These feeder-free hESCs/hiPSCs are directly used to form embryoid body (EB) to generate hemato-endothelial precursor cells. This new method produces mature, functional NK cells with higher efficiency to enable rapid production of an essentially unlimited number of homogenous NK cells that can be used for standardized, targeted immunotherapy for the treatment of refractory cancers and infectious diseases

Sensitivity and specificity of the Mini-Mental State Examination in the Mexican population

Mini-Mental State Examination, Mexican population, Standardization,

The total quasi-steady-state approximation for fully competitive enzyme reactions

none3The validity of the Michaelis-Menten-Briggs-Haldane approximation for single enzyme reactions has recently been improved by the formalism of the total quasi-steady-state approximation. This approach is here extended to fully competitive systems, and a criterion for its validity is provided. We show that it extends the Michaelis-Menten-Briggs-Haldane approximation for such systems for a wide range of parameters very convincingly, and investigate special cases. It is demonstrated that our method is at least roughly valid in the case of identical affinities. The results presented should be useful for numerical simulations of many in vivo reactions.noneM. PEDERSEN; BERSANI AM; BERSANI EPedersen, MORTEN GRAM; Bersani, Am; Bersani, E