Publications by authors named "AJ Simon"

Genetic variants in Folliculin interacting protein 1 (FNIP1) were recently discovered as monogenic causes for immunodeficiency and cardiomyopathy, with only a few patients diagnosed thus far. In this study, we describe a patient harboring a novel genetic variant in FNIP1 causing immunodeficiency with cardiac involvement. Clinical and immunological workups were performed.

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  • Inborn errors of immunity (IEI) are diseases that affect how the immune system works, causing problems like getting sick easily or having allergies.
  • A 19-year-old girl with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) and a family history of similar issues had two genetic mutations that made her immune system not work right.
  • After getting a special treatment called HSCT, she developed serious autoimmune problems like lupus, and tests showed complicated genetic issues can exist in people from close families.
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  • CD4+ T cells are crucial for the immune system, but their exact function is not fully understood, particularly the role of the CD4 protein itself.
  • Researchers studied seven patients with a rare genetic condition causing CD4 deficiency, leading to various infections, and found that these individuals lacked CD4+ T cells but had alternative T cell populations that could still mount immune responses.
  • While the patients showed compensatory immune responses against many pathogens, CD4 remains essential for protection against specific infections like human papillomavirus and Whipple's disease.
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Mutations in proteasome β-subunits or their chaperone and regulatory proteins are associated with proteasome-associated autoinflammatory disorders (PRAAS). We studied six unrelated infants with three de novo heterozygous missense variants in PSMB10, encoding the proteasome β2i-subunit. Individuals presented with T-B-NK± severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) and clinical features suggestive of Omenn syndrome, including diarrhea, alopecia, and desquamating erythematous rash.

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Background: Cardiac amyloidosis (CA) is characterized by the extracellular deposition of misfolded protein in the heart. Precise identification of the amyloid type is often challenging, but critical, since the treatment and prognosis depend on the disease form and the type of deposited amyloid. Coexistence of clinical conditions such as old age, monoclonal gammopathy, chronic inflammation, or peripheral neuropathy in a patient with cardiomyopathy creates a differential diagnosis between the major types of CA: amyloidosis light chains (AL), amyloidosis transthyretin (ATTR) and amyloidosis A (AA).

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N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a serotonergic psychedelic, known to rapidly induce short-lasting alterations in conscious experience, characterized by a profound and immersive sense of physical transcendence alongside rich and vivid auditory distortions and visual imagery. Multimodal neuroimaging data paired with dynamic analysis techniques offer a valuable approach for identifying unique signatures of brain activity - and linked autonomic physiology - naturally unfolding during the altered state of consciousness induced by DMT. We leveraged simultaneous fMRI and EKG data acquired in 14 healthy volunteers prior to, during, and after intravenous administration of DMT, and, separately, placebo.

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  • Mutations in T-cell receptor (TCR) signaling can lead to combined immunodeficiency (CID), highlighted by its effects on T-cell homeostasis and differentiation.
  • This study focuses on two cousins with CID caused by a novel LCK gene mutation, which results in a truncated protein affecting T-cell function.
  • The patients experienced early infections, showed reduced CD4 T-cell levels, and while TCR signaling was impaired, some mTOR signaling pathways remained active, allowing for limited differentiation of T-cells despite their dysfunctional performance.
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  • The study introduces a new way to measure sustained attention by focusing on how long someone can stay "in the zone" during a task, instead of using traditional performance metrics like response time.* -
  • Researchers found that attention span tends to be longer in young adults compared to children and older adults, and that children's declining attention span during tasks is linked to symptoms of inattention.* -
  • The findings highlight that measuring attention span is a valuable method for assessing sustained attention, especially for understanding differences across different age groups and in individuals showing inattention symptoms.*
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Objectives: Diagnosis of light chain amyloidosis (AL) requires demonstration of amyloid deposits in a tissue biopsy followed by appropriate typing. Previous studies demonstrated increased dimerization of monoclonal serum free light chains (FLCs) as a pathological feature of AL. To further examine the pathogenicity of FLC, we aimed at testing amino acid sequence homology between circulating and deposited light chains (LCs).

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Introduction: Renal ischemia and reperfusion (IR) injury introduces cellular stress and is the main cause of acute kidney damage. Renal cells exposed to noxious stress induce the expression of the pleiotropic hormone leptin. As we have previously revealed a deleterious stress-related role for leptin expression, these results suggested that leptin is also involved in pathological renal remodeling.

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Purpose: Patients with X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) are characterized by humoral impairment and are routinely treated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG). In this study, we aimed to investigate the presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies in IVIG preparations harvested globally and evaluate the transfer of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to the XLA patient.

Methods: A single-center, prospective cohort study was conducted in the period of November 2020 to November 2022.

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Inattention can negatively impact several aspects of a child's life, including at home and school. Cognitive and physical interventions are two promising non-pharmaceutical approaches used to enhance attention abilities, with combined approaches often being marketed to teachers, therapists, and parents typically without research validation. Here, we assessed the feasibility of incorporating an integrated, cognitive-physical, closed-loop video game (body-brain trainer or 'BBT') as an after-school program, and also evaluated if there were attention benefits following its use.

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  • - Patients with primary immunodeficiency disorders (PIDs) often experience unique and severe skin infections due to their compromised immune systems, highlighting the challenges in diagnosis and treatment
  • - A study reviewed cases of eight children with PIDs who presented with atypical skin infections, noting their average diagnosis age and types of infections, which included serious cases like ulcerative-hemorrhagic varicella-zoster virus and resistant scabies
  • - The findings emphasize the importance of recognizing unusual infectious skin manifestations in PID patients, which can lead to critical treatment interventions and improved outcomes
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Decarbonization of transportation fuels represents one of the most vexing challenges for climate change mitigation. Biofuels derived from corn starch have offered modest life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions over fossil fuels. Here we show that capture and storage of CO emissions from corn ethanol fermentation achieves ∼58% reduction in the GHG intensity (CI) of ethanol at a levelized cost of 52 $/tCOe abated.

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Introduction: Sleep-wake disturbances are a prominent feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Atypical (non-amnestic) AD syndromes have different patterns of cortical vulnerability to AD. We hypothesized that atypical AD also shows differential vulnerability in subcortical nuclei that will manifest as different patterns of sleep dysfunction.

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Background: Autosomal dominant hyper-IgE syndrome (AD-HIES) caused by dominant negative (DN) variants in the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 gene () is characterized by recurrent Staphylococcal abscesses, severe eczema, chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis (CMC), and non-immunological facial and skeletal features.

Objectives: To describe our experience with the diagnosis and treatment of adult patients with AD-HIES induced by DN- variants.

Methods: The medical records of adult patients (>18 years) treated at the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Clinic of Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel, were retrospectively analyzed.

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  • * The child was diagnosed with diffuse large B cell lymphoma, and genetic analysis identified a novel homozygous mutation in the SLP76 gene, which is important for T cell signaling and linked to immunodeficiency disorders.
  • * Functional studies of T cells showed that this mutation impaired key signaling processes, suggesting that SLP76 deficiency contributes to severe EBV infections and should be recognized as a significant factor in related immunological conditions.
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  • Older adults are keen to preserve their attention abilities for better quality of life, and combining cognitive and physical fitness interventions shows promise in this area.
  • A new video game called Body-Brain Trainer (BBT) was developed to provide a personalized training experience that enhances both cognitive and physical demands for seniors.
  • After two months of using BBT, older participants showed significant improvements in attention and physical fitness, even surpassing the performance of younger adults and maintaining these benefits for at least a year.
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Background: During the process of generating diverse T and B cell receptor (TCR and BCR, respectively) repertoires, double-strand DNA breaks are produced. Subsequently, these breaks are corrected by a complex system led by the non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ). Pathogenic variants in genes involved in this process, such as the gene, cause severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID) along with neurodevelopmental disease and sensitivity to ionizing radiation.

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The transcription factor GATA2 plays a key role in the survival and self-renewal of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. Autosomal dominant variants in cause a broad spectrum of heterogeneous phenotypes. Here, we present our experience with GATA2 deficiency in a retrospective multicenter analysis of computerized medical records of adult patients (age ≥18 years) treated between 2018 and 2022 at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and Sheba Tel-Hashomer Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel.

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  • Newborn screening (NBS) programs for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) have significantly improved early diagnosis and outcomes for affected infants, making long-term follow-up essential.
  • In Israel, a 5-year analysis of the NBS program revealed a SCID incidence of 1:29,000 births and identified specific genetic defects in affected infants, with no missed diagnoses.
  • The study found a 91% survival rate following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for SCID patients, supporting the case for global implementation of NBS, particularly in regions with high consanguinity.
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Background And Objective: Cartilage-hair hypoplasia (CHH) syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive syndrome associated with skeletal dysplasia, varying degrees of combined immunodeficiency (CID), short stature, hair hypoplasia, macrocytic anemia, increased risk of malignancies, and Hirschsprung disease. To provide clinical and immunological insights obtained from 2 unrelated patients who displayed clinical characteristics of CHH.

Methods: Two patients with suspected CHH syndrome due to skeletal dysplasia and immunodeficiency underwent an immunological and genetic work-up using flow cytometry, next-generation sequencing (NGS) of the immune repertoire, and Sanger sequencing to identify the underlying defects.

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  • Diagnosis of primary complement deficiencies often goes unrecognized, leading to underdiagnosis and a lack of treatment in susceptible patients.
  • A retrospective study across two medical centers identified five pediatric patients with novel mutations in complement components C6-C8, linked to severe infections like meningitis.
  • Increased awareness of the signs of complement deficiencies can enable earlier diagnosis and treatment, particularly in cases of recurrent meningococcal infections or high rates of consanguinity.
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X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) is caused by mutations in the Bruton tyrosine kinase) BTK) gene. Affected patients have severely reduced amounts of circulating B cells. Patients with atypical XLA may have residual circulating B cells, and there are few studies exploring these cells' repertoire.

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