Wegener’s Disease Presenting with Occipital Condyle Syndrome

Tumors or chronic inflammatory lesions of the occipital condyle may cause occipital pain associated with an ipsilateral hypoglossal nerve injury (occipital condyle syndrome). We describe a young woman with recurrent otitis media and occipital condyle syndrome associated with a limited form of Wegener’s disease

Selection of substances for the 5th Watch List under the Water Framework Directive

The surface water Watch List (WL) under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is a mechanism for collecting high-quality Union-wide monitoring data on emerging pollutants and substances that may pose a significant risk at Union level to or via the aquatic environment, but for which available monitoring data are insufficient to draw conclusions on the actual risk posed. According to Article 8b of the Environmental Quality Standards Directive (EQSD Directive 2008/105/EC as amended by Directive 2013/39/EU), the WL should be updated every two years. Seven new substances could be added to the 5th WL if it is to contain the maximum allowed number of fourteen substances or groups of substances. The JRC defined three criteria for identifying substances for the 5th WL, and based on these criteria, seven substances or groups of substances were selected as most suitable candidates for the 5th WL. They include the industrial product 6PPD and its transformation product 6PPD-quinone; a group of ten azole fungicides, among them three pharmaceuticals (climbazole, itraconazole and ketoconazole), one biocidal product (propiconazole) and five Plant Protection Products (PPP) (bromuconazole, cyazofamid, difenoconazole, mefentrifluconazole, and triticonazole), and epoxiconazole which is not anymore approved as PPP; two other PPPs used as insecticides (abamectin and etoxazole); a group of tetracycline-class antibiotics (tetracycline and oxytetracycline) and two other pharmaceuticals (fluoxetine and propranolol). An additional substance (ethylhexyl salicylate or octisalate) is proposed to be included in the group of sunscreen agents already included in the 4th WL update (EU/2022/1307).JRC.D.2 - Ocean and Wate

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) of possible concern in the aquatic environment

For decades per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been employed in a variety of products intended for everyday use, such as cosmetics, food packaging, textiles and household products, as well as for specialised applications including mechanical components, electronics, medical devises, fire-fighting foams and biocides, which require unique chemical properties conferred by the extremely stable carbon-fluorine bond. They became a ubiquitous contaminant in different environmental matrices due mainly to intensive industrial production and inappropriate disposal. Chemical stability and mobility of PFAS has lead to their accumulation in soil, sediment, groundwater, surface water and atmosphere worldwide heavily impacting living organisms. In the EU legislation, the recast of the Drinking Water Directive (DWD) included for the first time 20 PFAS to be analysed as two chemical parameters: the “sum of PFASs” intended as a sum of PFAS considered in the recast with the parametric (limit) value of 0.10 μg/L, and “PFASs - total” meaning the “totality of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances” with the threshold concentration of 0.50 μg/L. The monitoring of environmental waterbodies for PFAS under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is only based on the concentrations of PFOS and its derivatives included among the Priority Substances (PS). In future perspective, Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability towards toxic-free environments under the EU Green Deal will address PFAS and some of the related knowledge gaps. In particular, revisions of the current regulatory documents are aimed to reduce the emissions of PFAS to the environment and to establish their safety limits from dietary sources. Extending the assessment of PFAS as a group encompassing more substances instead of measuring chemicals one-by-one is expected to provide a better protection of human health and the environment. A coordinated mechanism at European level will be developed in order to simplify and synchronise the safety assessment of chemicals across various pieces of legislation, while further phasing out of PFAS for non-essential uses will be regulated under REACH. At global level, the concerns regarding the presence of PFAS in the environment will be targeted by Basel and Stockholm ConventionsJRC.D.2 - Water and Marine Resource

Mycotoxin fungal plant diseases and climate change: state of the art and beyond

This report is one of the outcomes of a project conceived to promote the Scientific and Innovation System of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in Italy, through mobility and collaboration between the Joint Research Centre and the University of Udine, funded by the European Commission, European Social Fund, Operational Programme 2014/2020. The project investigates the interaction between crops, pathogens and microbial communities as a possible mitigation strategy. Particularly this report aims to examine a few topics behind the project, by outlining promising new lines of research that could help further improve food safety in relation to fungal toxins, difficult to detect and prevent from contaminating crops. Managing these toxins is made more difficult due to the impact of climate change on their ability to move from crops to crops. The European Union so far has adopted a combination of strict regulations and advanced technologies to forecast, prevent or mitigate outbreaks, but there is room for improvement. The methods under discussion take advantage of artificial intelligence models, cross-referencing of meteorological data, and metagenomics.JRC.D.2 - Ocean and Wate

Protein moonlighting in parasitic protists

Reductive evolution during the adaptation to obligate parasitism and expansions of gene families encoding virulence factors are characteristics evident to greater or lesser degrees in all parasitic protists studied to date. Large evolutionary distances separate many parasitic protists from the yeast and animal models upon which classic views of eukaryotic biochemistry are often based. Thus a combination of evolutionary divergence, niche adaptation and reductive evolution means the biochemistry of parasitic protists is often very different from their hosts and to other eukaryotes generally, making parasites intriguing subjects for those interested in the phenomenon of moonlighting proteins. In common with other organisms, the contribution of protein moonlighting to parasite biology is only just emerging, and it is not without controversy. Here, an overview of recently identified moonlighting proteins in parasitic protists is provided, together with discussion of some of the controversies

AGuIX® from bench to bedside-Transfer of an ultrasmall theranostic gadolinium-based nanoparticle to clinical medicine

International audienceAGuIX® are sub-5 nm nanoparticles made of a polysiloxane matrix and gadolinium chelates. This nanoparticle has been recently accepted in clinical trials in association with radiotherapy. This review will summarize the principal preclinical results that have led to first in man administration. No evidence of toxicity has been observed during regulatory toxicity tests on two animal species (rodents and monkeys). Biodistributions on different animal models have shown passive uptake in tumours due to enhanced permeability and retention effect combined with renal elimination of the nanoparticles after intravenous administration. High radiosensitizing effect has been observed with different types of irradiations in vitro and in vivo on a large number of cancer types (brain, lung, melanoma, head and neck…). The review concludes with the second generation of AGuIX nanoparticles and the first preliminary results on human

Selection of substances for the 4th Watch List under the Water Framework Directive

The 1st Watch List (WL) for substances in surface waters under the Environmental Quality Standards Directive (EQSD - Directive 2013/39/EU) was established by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2015/495 in March 2015. The list was first updated in June 2018 by the Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/840. The period of continuous monitoring for any WL substance should not exceed four years (Article 8b of the EQSD). Thus, in 2022 the three substances added in 2018, i.e. the insecticide metaflumizone and the antibiotics amoxicillin and ciprofloxacin, should be removed. A maximum total of thirteen substances or groups of substances may be listed in the 4th WL, i.e. one more than the maximum allowed in 2020. The six substances or groups of substances added during the third WL update (EU 2020/1161) should be carried over to the 4th WL to ensure that enough high-quality monitoring data are collected for their risk assessment. Therefore, seven additional substances or groups of substances may be added to establish the 4th WL. The purpose of this report is to propose candidate substances for the 4th WL, which have been selected based on three pillars of information. The overall selection process, including the rationale for each substance selected, is described. Briefly, after comments received following the Working Group meetings, the seven candidates for the 4th Watch list are two plant protection products, two antibiotics, one insecticide, two pharmaceuticals and three sunscreen agents.JRC.D.2 - Water and Marine Resource

Diagnosing the frontal variant of Alzheimer’s disease: a clinician’s yellow brick road

BACKGROUND: Disruption of the frontal lobes and its associated networks are a common consequence of neurodegenerative disorders. Given the wide range of cognitive, behavioral and motor processes in which the frontal lobes are involved, there can be a great variety of manifestations depending on the pathology distribution. The most common are the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and the frontal variant of Alzheimer’s disease (fvAD), which are particularly challenging to disentangle. Recognizing fvAD from bvFTD-related pathologies is a diagnostic challenge and a critical need in the management and counseling of these patients. CASE PRESENTATION: Here we present three pathology-proven cases of Alzheimer’s disease initially misdiagnosed as bvFTD and discuss the distinctive or less overlapping historical, examination, and laboratory findings of fvAD and bvFTD, deriving analogies for mnemonic endurance from the Wizard of Oz worldview. CONCLUSION: The Yellow Brick Road to diagnosing these disorders may be served by the metaphor of fvAD as the irritable, paranoid, and tremulous Scarecrow and bvFTD the heartless, ritualistic, and rigid Tin Man. An Oz-inspired creative license may help the clinician recognize the differential disease progression, caregiver burden, and treatment response of fvAD compared with bvFTD. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40734-017-0052-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users