Hormonal an inflammatory biomarkers in a group of overweight and obese women

Introducción y Objetivos: Recientemente se ha descubierto que la obesidad es una patología caracterizada por un estado crónico de inflamación leve. El objetivo de este estudio fue describir la situación hormonal e inflamatoria de un colectivo de mujeres con sobrepeso/obesidad. Pacientes y métodos: se incluyeron mujeres > 18 años, con IMC ≥ 25 < 40 kg/m2. Se recogieron datos socio-sanitarios, presión arterial, parámetros antropométricos, de actividad física, estudio bioquímico, hormonal e inflamatorio para determinar la situación hormonal e inflamatoria de un colectivo de mujeres antes del inicio de un tratamiento para el control de peso corporal. Resultados: participaron 104 mujeres con edad media de 48,4 ± 9 años y un IMC de 29,8 ± 3,5 kg/m2. Un 48% de las mujeres estudiadas se encontraba en etapa de menopausia. Un 8,9% presentó hiperinsulinemia. El valor medio obtenido de grhelina fue 38,8 ± 33,6 pg/ml, no se encontró correlación entre sus concentraciones y las variables antropométricas y bioquímicas estudiadas. Los valores medios de PCR, leptina, adiponectina, resistina, IL 6, IL 10 y PAI 1 fueron 3,0 ± 2,7 mg/dl, 36,3 ± 19,5 ng/ml, 8,3 ± 4,5 μg/ml, 24,3 ± 23,2 ng/ml, 51,6 ± 93,6 pg/ml, 10,0 ± 34,2 pg/ml y 22,3 ± 30,6 ng/ml, respectivamente. Estas concentraciones correlacionaron significativamente con diferentes variables antropométricas y bioquímicas, sin embargo, estas correlaciones fueron débiles. Variables como la edad y presencia o no de menopausia o la práctica de actividad física de forma regular no influyeron en los valores medios obtenidos. Las pacientes con obesidad tuvieron valores medios significativamente más elevados que aquellas con sobrepeso, aunque sólo en el caso de la resistina y PAI 1. Conclusión: El grupo de mujeres estudiadas presentó cifras de adipoquinas alteradas en relación a otros estudios realizados en población con situación nutricional normal. Esto pone en evidencia la situación inflamatoria presente en estos pacientes y los valores obtenidos pueden contribuir a establecer unos rangos normalizados de estos marcadores para el colectivo de personas con sobrepeso y obesidadBackground and objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the hormonal and inflammatory status of a group of overweight/obese women. Patients and methods: The sample studied was a crosssectional cohort of women > 18 years of age, BMI ≥ 25 < 40 kg/m2, prior to starting a weight control program. Data collected were: demographic characteristics, blood pressure, anthropometric parameters, physical activity data, and biochemical, hormonal and inflammatory biomarkers. Results: The study involved 104 women with a mean age of 48.4 ± 9 years and a BMI of 29.8 ± 3.5 kg/m2. Some 48% of the women studied were in menopause. Some 8.9% had hyperinsulinemia. The mean ghrelin value was 38.8 ± 33.6 pg/ml; there was no correlation between ghrelin levels and anthropometric and biochemical variables. CRP, leptin, adiponectin, resistin, IL6, IL10, and PAI1 were 3.0 ± 2.7 mg/dl, 36.3 ± 19.5 ng/ml, 8.3 ± 4.5 mg/ml, 24.3 ± 23.2 ng/ml, 51.6 ± 93.6 pg/ml, 10.0 ± 34.2 pg/ml and 22.3 ± 30.6 ng/ml, respectively. Obese patients had significantly higher mean values of resistin and PAI 1 than those who were overweight. These levels correlated significantly with anthropometric and biochemical variables; however, the correlations were weak. Age, menopause or the regular practice of physical activity had no effect on mean values. Conclusions: The group of women studied had altered inflammatory biomarkers in relation to people of normal weight. The study shows the inflammatory status of overweight/ obese individuals, and the values obtained may help to establish standard ranges for these markersEste trabajo ha sido posible gracias a un proyecto de investigación obtenido por concurso y subvencionado por la campaña “Pan cada día” promovida por el Comité Científico del Pan y el Incerhpan (Interprofesional Agroalimentaria de la cadena Cereales-Harina- Pan

Serum interleukin-15 levels in cancer patients with cachexia

Interleukin-15 (IL-15) has important anabolic effects on muscle protein metabolism through a decrease in the ATP-ubiquitin-dependent proteolytic pathway. The role of IL-15 in human cancer cachexia is unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between interleukin-15 (IL-15) in cancer patients with cachexia at diagnosis of malignancy and 8 weeks later. An observational study of 21 cancer patients (with and without cachexia) and 8 healthy subjects was conducted. Body composition was measured by leg-to-leg impedance. Serum IL-15 levels were assessed at baseline and after 4 and 8 weeks. Baseline IL-15 values were similar in cancer patients and in healthy subjects. Cancer patients with lower baseline levels of IL-15 (<2 pg/ml) had significantly higher fat mass (%) along the study. Eighteen patients completed the study: five patients showed an increase of 3.7 kg at the end of the study (5.4% of body weight) and showed a mean increase of IL-15 of 1.32 pg/ml (121%) at 4 weeks and 2.32 pg/ml (197%) at 8 weeks, as compared with mean decrease of -4.1 kg (-5.3%) and -0.09 pg/ml (-2.5%) and 0.6 pg/ml (40.8%) in the 13 patients who lost weight (P=0.001 and P=0.022, respectively). Changes of IL-15 at 4 and 8 weeks were directly associated with changes in body weight, body mass index (BMI), fat-free mass and muscle mass (P<0.05), and indirectly associated with percentage of weight loss (P<0.05). In summary, although the results indicate that IL-15 does not have a role in cancer cachexia pathogenesis, the association during evolution between serum IL-15 and changes in weight and muscle mass suggests a possible role of IL-15 as a marker of the body composition response in cancer patients who are losing weight at the time of diagnosisThis study was partially supported by a grant from the Fundación Mutua Madrileñ

Occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 viremia is associated with genetic variants of genes related to COVID-19 pathogenesis

IntroductionSARS-CoV-2 viral load has been related to COVID-19 severity. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between SARS-CoV-2 viremia and SNPs in genes previously studied by our group as predictors of COVID-19 severity.Materials and methodsRetrospective observational study including 340 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in the University Hospital La Princesa between March 2020 and December 2021, with at least one viremia determination. Positive viremia was considered when viral load was above the quantifiable threshold (20 copies/ml). A total of 38 SNPs were genotyped. To study their association with viremia a multivariate logistic regression was performed.ResultsThe mean age of the studied population was 64.5 years (SD 16.6), 60.9% patients were male and 79.4% white non-Hispanic. Only 126 patients (37.1%) had at least one positive viremia. After adjustment by confounders, the presence of the minor alleles of rs2071746 (HMOX1; T/T genotype OR 9.9 p &lt; 0.0001), rs78958998 (probably associated with SERPING1 expression; A/T genotype OR 2.3, p = 0.04 and T/T genotype OR 12.9, p &lt; 0.0001), and rs713400 (eQTL for TMPRSS2; C/T + T/T genotype OR 1.86, p = 0.10) were associated with higher risk of viremia, whereas the minor alleles of rs11052877 (CD69; A/G genotype OR 0.5, p = 0.04 and G/G genotype OR 0.3, p = 0.01), rs2660 (OAS1; A/G genotype OR 0.6, p = 0.08), rs896 (VIPR1; T/T genotype OR 0.4, p = 0.02) and rs33980500 (TRAF3IP2; C/T + T/T genotype OR 0.3, p = 0.01) were associated with lower risk of viremia.ConclusionGenetic variants in HMOX1 (rs2071746), SERPING1 (rs78958998), TMPRSS2 (rs713400), CD69 (rs11052877), TRAF3IP2 (rs33980500), OAS1 (rs2660) and VIPR1 (rs896) could explain heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 viremia in our population

Genetic landscape of 6089 inherited retinal dystrophies affected cases in Spain and their therapeutic and extended epidemiological implications

Inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), defined by dysfunction or progressive loss of photoreceptors, are disorders characterized by elevated heterogeneity, both at the clinical and genetic levels. Our main goal was to address the genetic landscape of IRD in the largest cohort of Spanish patients reported to date. A retrospective hospital-based cross-sectional study was carried out on 6089 IRD affected individuals (from 4403 unrelated families), referred for genetic testing from all the Spanish autonomous communities. Clinical, demographic and familiar data were collected from each patient, including family pedigree, age of appearance of visual symptoms, presence of any systemic findings and geographical origin. Genetic studies were performed to the 3951 families with available DNA using different molecular techniques. Overall, 53.2% (2100/3951) of the studied families were genetically characterized, and 1549 different likely causative variants in 142 genes were identified. The most common phenotype encountered is retinitis pigmentosa (RP) (55.6% of families, 2447/4403). The most recurrently mutated genes were PRPH2, ABCA4 and RS1 in autosomal dominant (AD), autosomal recessive (AR) and X-linked (XL) NON-RP cases, respectively; RHO, USH2A and RPGR in AD, AR and XL for non-syndromic RP; and USH2A and MYO7A in syndromic IRD. Pathogenic variants c.3386G > T (p.Arg1129Leu) in ABCA4 and c.2276G > T (p.Cys759Phe) in USH2A were the most frequent variants identified. Our study provides the general landscape for IRD in Spain, reporting the largest cohort ever presented. Our results have important implications for genetic diagnosis, counselling and new therapeutic strategies to both the Spanish population and other related populations.This work was supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) of the Spanish Ministry of Health (FIS; PI16/00425 and PI19/00321), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Enfermedades Raras (CIBERER, 06/07/0036), IIS-FJD BioBank (PT13/0010/0012), Comunidad de Madrid (CAM, RAREGenomics Project, B2017/BMD-3721), European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), the Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles (ONCE), Fundación Ramón Areces, Fundación Conchita Rábago and the University Chair UAM-IIS-FJD of Genomic Medicine. Irene Perea-Romero is supported by a PhD fellowship from the predoctoral Program from ISCIII (FI17/00192). Ionut F. Iancu is supported by a grant from the Comunidad de Madrid (CAM, PEJ-2017-AI/BMD7256). Marta del Pozo-Valero is supported by a PhD grant from the Fundación Conchita Rábago. Berta Almoguera is supported by a Juan Rodes program from ISCIII (JR17/00020). Pablo Minguez is supported by a Miguel Servet program from ISCIII (CP16/00116). Marta Corton is supported by a Miguel Servet program from ISCIII (CPII17/00006). The funders played no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, manuscript preparation and/or publication decisions

Towards a Muon Collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work.Comment: 118 pages, 103 figure

Towards a muon collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work

The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE : survey design, overview, and simulated implementation

Funding for the WEAVE facility has been provided by UKRI STFC, the University of Oxford, NOVA, NWO, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the Isaac Newton Group partners (STFC, NWO, and Spain, led by the IAC), INAF, CNRS-INSU, the Observatoire de Paris, Région Île-de-France, CONCYT through INAOE, Konkoly Observatory (CSFK), Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA Heidelberg), Lund University, the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), the Swedish Research Council, the European Commission, and the University of Pennsylvania.WEAVE, the new wide-field, massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility for the William Herschel Telescope, will see first light in late 2022. WEAVE comprises a new 2-degree field-of-view prime-focus corrector system, a nearly 1000-multiplex fibre positioner, 20 individually deployable 'mini' integral field units (IFUs), and a single large IFU. These fibre systems feed a dual-beam spectrograph covering the wavelength range 366-959 nm at R ∼ 5000, or two shorter ranges at R ∼ 20,000. After summarising the design and implementation of WEAVE and its data systems, we present the organisation, science drivers and design of a five- to seven-year programme of eight individual surveys to: (i) study our Galaxy's origins by completing Gaia's phase-space information, providing metallicities to its limiting magnitude for ∼ 3 million stars and detailed abundances for ∼ 1.5 million brighter field and open-cluster stars; (ii) survey ∼ 0.4 million Galactic-plane OBA stars, young stellar objects and nearby gas to understand the evolution of young stars and their environments; (iii) perform an extensive spectral survey of white dwarfs; (iv) survey  ∼ 400 neutral-hydrogen-selected galaxies with the IFUs; (v) study properties and kinematics of stellar populations and ionised gas in z 1 million spectra of LOFAR-selected radio sources; (viii) trace structures using intergalactic/circumgalactic gas at z > 2. Finally, we describe the WEAVE Operational Rehearsals using the WEAVE Simulator.PostprintPeer reviewe

The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation

WEAVE, the new wide-field, massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility for the William Herschel Telescope, will see first light in late 2022. WEAVE comprises a new 2-degree field-of-view prime-focus corrector system, a nearly 1000-multiplex fibre positioner, 20 individually deployable 'mini' integral field units (IFUs), and a single large IFU. These fibre systems feed a dual-beam spectrograph covering the wavelength range 366$-$959\,nm at $R\sim5000$, or two shorter ranges at $R\sim20\,000$. After summarising the design and implementation of WEAVE and its data systems, we present the organisation, science drivers and design of a five- to seven-year programme of eight individual surveys to: (i) study our Galaxy's origins by completing Gaia's phase-space information, providing metallicities to its limiting magnitude for $\sim$3 million stars and detailed abundances for $\sim1.5$ million brighter field and open-cluster stars; (ii) survey $\sim0.4$ million Galactic-plane OBA stars, young stellar objects and nearby gas to understand the evolution of young stars and their environments; (iii) perform an extensive spectral survey of white dwarfs; (iv) survey $\sim400$ neutral-hydrogen-selected galaxies with the IFUs; (v) study properties and kinematics of stellar populations and ionised gas in $z<0.5$ cluster galaxies; (vi) survey stellar populations and kinematics in $\sim25\,000$ field galaxies at $0.3\lesssim z \lesssim 0.7$; (vii) study the cosmic evolution of accretion and star formation using $>1$ million spectra of LOFAR-selected radio sources; (viii) trace structures using intergalactic/circumgalactic gas at $z>2$. Finally, we describe the WEAVE Operational Rehearsals using the WEAVE Simulator.Comment: 41 pages, 27 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA

CIBERER : Spanish national network for research on rare diseases: A highly productive collaborative initiative

Altres ajuts: Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.CIBER (Center for Biomedical Network Research; Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red) is a public national consortium created in 2006 under the umbrella of the Spanish National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). This innovative research structure comprises 11 different specific areas dedicated to the main public health priorities in the National Health System. CIBERER, the thematic area of CIBER focused on rare diseases (RDs) currently consists of 75 research groups belonging to universities, research centers, and hospitals of the entire country. CIBERER's mission is to be a center prioritizing and favoring collaboration and cooperation between biomedical and clinical research groups, with special emphasis on the aspects of genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular research of RDs. This research is the basis for providing new tools for the diagnosis and therapy of low-prevalence diseases, in line with the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) objectives, thus favoring translational research between the scientific environment of the laboratory and the clinical setting of health centers. In this article, we intend to review CIBERER's 15-year journey and summarize the main results obtained in terms of internationalization, scientific production, contributions toward the discovery of new therapies and novel genes associated to diseases, cooperation with patients' associations and many other topics related to RD research