Comparison of Hemorrhagic Risk between Prasugrel and Clopidogrel : a Retrospective Study using Adverse Drug Event Reporting Databases

Background: Prasugrel inhibits platelet aggregation more potently and exerts therapeutic action faster than clopidogrel. In the global phase III trial conducted in Western and South American countries that excluded Asian countries, prasugrel reduced ischemic events but increased hemorrhagic risk compared with clopidogrel in patients with acute coronary syndrome scheduled for percutaneous coronary intervention. In the Japanese phase III trial for similar patients, the efficacy of prasugrel compared with clopidogrel was comparable to the global trial, but the safety could not be confirmed because of an insufficient number of patients. Furthermore, given the strict enrollment criteria, the results of these trials may not be applicable to routine clinical practice. Accordingly, we compared the hemorrhagic risk of prasugrel and clopidogrel in real-world settings by analyzing adverse drug event reports in post-marketing stages provided by the Japanese regulatory authorities and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Methods: We analyzed a total of 3,970 reports for prasugrel (n = 518) or clopidogrel (n = 3,452) between 2014 and 2017 in the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report (JADER) and a total of 91,914 reports for either prasugrel (n = 5,992) or clopidogrel (n = 85,922) between 2009 and 2019 in the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). Results: In JADER and FAERS, prasugrel was more frequently and significantly associated with hemorrhagic event reports than clopidogrel. After adjustment for known confounders including age, sex, and concomitant medications (aspirin, anticoagulants, and proton pump inhibitors), the hemorrhagic risk of prasugrel compared with clopidogrel remained significant (adjusted reporting odds ratios [95% CI] for total, intracranial, and gastrointestinal hemorrhagic events = 2.42 [1.97-2.96], 2.45 [1.85-3.24], and 2.27 [1.73-2.97] in JADER, and 2.21 [2.09-2.34], 1.21 [1.09-1.33], and 1.41 [1.29-1.54] in FAERS). Conclusions: The hemorrhagic risk was found to be greater with prasugrel than clopidogrel in real-world patients, including Japanese patients

SUMOylation of DISC1: a potential role in neural progenitor proliferation in the developing cortex

DISC1 is a multifunctional, intracellular scaffold protein. At the cellular level, DISC1 plays a pivotal role in neural progenitor proliferation, migration, and synaptic maturation. Perturbation of the biological pathways involving DISC1 is known to lead to behavioral changes in rodents, which supports a clinical report of a Scottish pedigree in which the majority of family members with disruption of the DISC1 gene manifest depression, schizophrenia, and related mental conditions. The discrepancy between modest evidence in genetics and strong biological support for the role of DISC1 in mental conditions suggests a working hypothesis that regulation of DISC1 at the protein level, such as posttranslational modification, may play a role in the pathology of mental conditions. In this study, we report on the SUMOylation of DISC1. This posttranslational modification occurs on lysine residues where the small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) and its homologs are conjugated to a large number of cellular proteins, which in turn regulates their subcellular distribution and protein stability. By using in silico, biochemical, and cell-biological approaches, we now demonstrate that human DISC1 is SUMOylated at one specific lysine 643 (K643). We also show that this residue is crucial for proper neural progenitor proliferation in the developing cortex

Self-assembly of Ni-NTA-modified β-Annulus Peptides into Artificial Viral Capsids and Encapsulation of His-tagged Proteins

β-Annulus peptide bearing Cys at the N-terminal from tomato bushy stunt virus was synthesised using a standard Fmoc-protected solid-phase method, and the petide was modified with Ni-NTA at the N-terminal. The Ni-NTA-modified β-annulus peptide self-assembled into virus-like nanocapsules of approximately 40 nm in diameter. The critical aggregation concentration of these nanocapsules in 10 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7.3) at 25°C was 0.053 μM, which is 470 times lower than that of unmodified β-annulus peptides. Moreover, size exclusion chromatography of the peptide assembly indicated encapsulation of His-tagged green fluorescent protein in the Ni-NTA-modified artificial viral capsid

STRAD Project for Systematic Treatments of Radioactive Liquid Wastes Generated in Nuclear Facilities

A new collaborative research project for systematic treatments of radioactive liquid wastes containing various reagents generating in nuclear facilities was started from 2018 initiated by Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The project was named as STRAD (Systematic Treatments of RAdioactive liquid wastes for Decommissioning) project. Tentative targets to be studied under the project are aqueous and organic liquid wastes which have been generated by experiments and analyses in a reprocessing experimental laboratory of JAEA. Currently fundamental studies for treatments of the liquid wastes with complicated compositions are underway. In the STRAD project, process flow for treatment of ammonium ion involved in aqueous waste was designed though the inactive experiments, and decomposition of ammonium ion using catalysis will be carried out soon. Adsorbents for recovery of U and Pu from spent solvent were also developed. Demonstration experiments on genuine spent solvent is under planning

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target