Treatment of chronic hepatitis C in patients unresponsive to interferon. Interest of re-treatment combining interferon induction therapy and ribavirin (a multicenter pilot study)

Aim About 45% of patients with chronic hepatitis C are unresponsive to the present reference treatment combining pegelated interferon plus ribavirin; before pegylated interferon was available the non-response rate was around 60%. This open multicenter pilot study, initiated before pegylated interferon became available, was designed to evaluate, in patients unresponsive to interferon monotherapy, the rate of biological and virological response and side-effects of the ribivirin- alpha 2b interferon combination. Methods The combination protocol was ribavirin (1 to 1.2 g/d) plus alpha 2b interferon at induction doses (9 MU/d the first week; 4.5 MU/d the eleven following weeks; 3 MU/2 days the 36 following weeks). Results Among the 27 included patients, 17 (63%) were viremia-negative (PCR) after 12 weeks of treatment, 9 (33%) were complete responders (undetectable viremia and normal transaminases) at the end of treatment (48 weeks) and of follow-up (72 weeks). Patients with non-1, non-4 genotypes who derived full benefit from this therapeutic strategy (6/7 (86%) were complete responders: 4/5 with genotype 3 and 2/2 with genotype 5). Quality-of-life was impaired during treatment, especially during the first 12 weeks of high-dose interferon therapy. Conclusion While waiting for new therapeutic possibilities, these good results suggest interferon induction at the beginning of treatment remains a valid option

New Source of CP violation in B physics ?

In this talk we discuss how the down type left-right squark mixing in Supersymmetry can induce a new source of CP violation in the time dependent asymmtries in B --> phi K process. We use QCD improved factorization process to calculate the hadronic matrix element for the process and find the allowed parameter space for $\rho$ and $\phi$, the magnitude and phase of the down type LR(RL) squark mixing parameter $\delta^{bs}_{LR(RL)}$. In the same allowed regin we calculate the expected CP asymmtries in the $B \to \phi K^{*}$ process.Comment: 16 pages, Latex, 2 postscript figures, invited talk presented by N.G. Deshpande at the 9th Adriatic meeting, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 4-14 September, 2003. With updated reference

The high burden of hospitalizations for primary EBV infection: a 6-year prospective survey in a French hospital

AbstractPrimary Epstein-Barr virus infection (PEI) is acquired increasingly later in life in developed countries, involving a growing number of adults. No studies have examined the effect of age on PEI. We conducted a prospective, single-centre, noninterventional survey to assess the clinical and economic effects of PEI care according to age. We included all serology-confirmed cases observed in all departments of a large regional hospital. Clinical and biologic data, therapeutics and costs of care were examined. Over a 6-year period, we included 292 subjects (148 children and 144 adults) with a median age of 15.4 years (range 9 months to 79 years). Adults were hospitalized more often (83% vs. 60%) and for longer periods of time (median 4 days vs. 2 days) than children (p ≤ 0.0001 for both). Two adults required a secondary transfer into the intensive care unit, although no children did. Typically, adults showed higher levels of activated lymphocytes and liver abnormalities. They also required the use of systemic corticosteroids more often (45% vs. 23%, p < 0.0001) and for longer periods of time (median 7 days vs. 3 days, p 0.02) than children. Overall, the costs were significantly higher for adults than for children (median, €1940 vs. €1130, p < 0.0001), mainly because of the frequency and duration of hospitalizations. Age increases the immune response and clinical severity of PEI, resulting in substantial additional costs for the community. Better recognition of the disease in adults could shorten the average length of hospital stay

Resequencing

[ES] La revolución que supone la secuenciación de próxima generación está permitiendo la resecuenciación del genoma completo (WGRS) de cientos o incluso miles de ejemplares de cultivos básicos y especies modelo. Con el lanzamiento de su genoma de referencia, progresivamente se están emprendiendo proyectos WGRS también para otras especies de plantas en una amplia variedad de estudios. En berenjena común (Solanum melongena L.), aunque se ha publicado un primer borrador de la secuencia del genoma de referencia, hasta el momento no se han realizado estudios de resecuenciación. En este capítulo presentamos los primeros resultados de la resecuenciación de ocho accesiones, siete de berenjena común y una del pariente silvestre S. incanum L., que corresponden a los progenitores de un cruce multiparental de generación avanzada (MAGIC) población que se encuentra actualmente en desarrollo utilizando la secuencia del genoma de la berenjena recién desarrollada que se presenta en el Cap. 7 de este libro. Se identificaron más de diez millones de polimorfismos entre las accesiones, el 90% de ellos en el S. incanum silvestre relacionado, lo que confirma la erosión genética de la berenjena común cultivada. Entre los progenitores de la población MAGIC, el patrón de distribución de polimorfismos comunes a lo largo de los cromosomas ha revelado posibles huellas de introgresión ancestral de cruces interespecíficos. El conjunto de polimorfismos se ha anotado extensamente y actualmente se está utilizando para análisis adicionales con el fin de genotipar eficientemente la población MAGIC en curso y diseccionar rasgos agronómicos y morfológicos importantes. La información proporcionada en este primer estudio de resecuenciación en berenjena será extremadamente útil para ayudar al fitomejoramiento a desarrollar nuevas variedades mejoradas y resistentes para enfrentar futuras amenazas y desafíos.[EN] The next-generation sequencing revolution is allowing the whole-genome resequencing (WGRS) of hundreds or even thousands of accessions for staple crops and model species. With the release of their reference genome, progressively also other plants, species are undertaking WGRS projects for a broad variety of studies. In common eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), although a first draft of the reference genome sequence has been published, no resequencing studies have been performed so far. In this chapter, we present the first results of the resequencing of eight accessions, seven of common eggplant and one of the wild relative S. incanum L., that correspond to the parents of a multi-parent advanced generation inter-cross (MAGIC) population that is currently under develop- ment using the newly developed eggplant genome sequence presented in Chap. 7 of this book. Over ten million polymorphisms were identified among the accessions, 90% of them in the wild related S. incanum, confirming the genetic erosion of the cultivated common eggplant. Among the MAGIC population parents, the common polymorphism distribu- tion pattern along the chromosomes has revealed possible footprints of ancestral intro- gression from interspecific crosses. The set of polymorphisms has been extensively anno- tated and currently is being used for further analyses in order to efficiently genotype the ongoing MAGIC population and to dissect important agronomic and morphological traits. The information provided in this first resequencing study in eggplant will be extremely helpful to assist plant breeding to develop new improved and resilient varieties to face future threats and challenges.This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 677379 (G2P-SOL project: Linking genetic resources, genomes and phenotypes of Solanaceous crops) and from Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (grant AGL2015-64755-R from MINECO/FEDER).Prohens Tomás, J.; Vilanova Navarro, S.; Gramazio, P. (2019). Resequencing. En The Eggplant Genome. Springer. 81-89. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/181875S818

The Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model: Group Summary Report

CONTENTS: 1. Synopsis, 2. The MSSM Spectrum, 3. The Physical Parameters, 4. Higgs Boson Production and Decays, 5. SUSY Particle Production and Decays, 6. Experimental Bounds on SUSY Particle Masses, 7. References.Comment: 121 pages, latex + epsfig, graphicx, axodraw, Report of the MSSM working group for the Workshop "GDR-Supersym\'etrie",France. Rep. PM/98-4

Coupled dark energy: Towards a general description of the dynamics

In dark energy models of scalar-field coupled to a barotropic perfect fluid, the existence of cosmological scaling solutions restricts the Lagrangian of the field \vp to p=X g(Xe^{\lambda \vp}), where X=-g^{\mu\nu} \partial_\mu \vp \partial_\nu \vp /2, $\lambda$ is a constant and $g$ is an arbitrary function. We derive general evolution equations in an autonomous form for this Lagrangian and investigate the stability of fixed points for several different dark energy models--(i) ordinary (phantom) field, (ii) dilatonic ghost condensate, and (iii) (phantom) tachyon. We find the existence of scalar-field dominant fixed points (\Omega_\vp=1) with an accelerated expansion in all models irrespective of the presence of the coupling $Q$ between dark energy and dark matter. These fixed points are always classically stable for a phantom field, implying that the universe is eventually dominated by the energy density of a scalar field if phantom is responsible for dark energy. When the equation of state w_\vp for the field \vp is larger than -1, we find that scaling solutions are stable if the scalar-field dominant solution is unstable, and vice versa. Therefore in this case the final attractor is either a scaling solution with constant \Omega_\vp satisfying 0<\Omega_\vp<1 or a scalar-field dominant solution with \Omega_\vp=1.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures; minor clarifications added, typos corrected and references updated; final version to appear in JCA

Antiviral effect of ribavirin in early non-responders to interferon monotherapy assessed by kinetics of hepatitis C virus RNA and hepatitis C virus core antigen

BACKGROUND/AIMS: To evaluate the efficacy of ribavirin, given in second intention in non-responders to interferon alone, by studying viral kinetics. METHODS: We conducted a trial including 203 patients with chronic hepatitis C, naïve of treatment. Patients were treated with interferon three times a week with or without ribavirin and amantadine according to response. Viral kinetics were assessed by serial measurements of HCV RNA (bDNA 3.0 and Monitor 2.0) and a new assay, trak-C, able to quantify total Hepatitis C virus (HCV) core antigen. RESULTS: A significant initial drop in HCV RNA or HCV core antigen, under interferon alone, was associated with response to therapy, -4.85+/-1.33 log for HCV RNA in sustained responders versus -1.86+/-1.53 log for others groups, P&lt;0.001. In patients receiving ribavirin in second intention, we also observed a similar drop in HCV RNA and HCV core antigen, predictive of sustained response, -2.67+/-1.26 log for HCV RNA in sustained responders versus -0.44+/-0.49 log in non-responders, P&lt;0.001. CONCLUSIONS: Ribavirin has probably an additional antiviral effect in interferon treated patients. Kinetics of HCV RNA and HCV core antigen under treatment are highly predictive of a sustained virological response

Two loop electroweak corrections to Bˉ→Xsγ\bar B\rightarrow X_s\gamma and Bs0→μ+μ−B_s^0\rightarrow \mu^+\mu^- in the B-LSSM

The rare decays $\bar B\rightarrow X_s\gamma$ and $B_s^0\rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ are important to research new physics beyond standard model. In this work, we investigate two loop electroweak corrections to $\bar B\rightarrow X_s\gamma$ and $B_s^0\rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the SM with local $B-L$ gauge symmetry (B-LSSM), under a minimal flavor violating assumption for the soft breaking terms. In this framework, new particles and new definition of squarks can affect the theoretical predictions of these two processes, with respect to the MSSM. Considering the constraints from updated experimental data, the numerical results show that the B-LSSM can fit the experimental data for the branching ratios of $\bar B\rightarrow X_s\gamma$ and $B_s^0\rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$. The results of the rare decays also further constrain the parameter space of the B-LSSM.Comment: 33 pages, 9 figures, Published in EPJ

A Quintessentially Geometric Model

We consider string inspired cosmology on a solitary $D3$-brane moving in the background of a ring of branes located on a circle of radius $R$. The motion of the $D3$-brane transverse to the plane of the ring gives rise to a radion field which can be mapped to a massive non-BPS Born-Infeld type field with a cosh potential. For certain bounds of the brane tension we find an inflationary phase is possible, with the string scale relatively close to the Planck scale. The relevant perturbations and spectral indices are all well within the expected observational bounds. The evolution of the universe eventually comes to be dominated by dark energy, which we show is a late time attractor of the model. However we also find that the equation of state is time dependent, and will lead to late time Quintessence.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. References and comments adde