Publications by authors named "Alfonso Blazquez Moreno"

Spatial heterogeneity of cells in liver biopsies can be used as biomarker for disease severity of patients. This heterogeneity can be quantified by non-parametric statistics of point pattern data, which make use of an aggregation of the point locations. The method and scale of aggregation are usually chosen ad hoc, despite values of the aforementioned statistics being heavily dependent on them.

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Unlabelled: Capsid assembly is critical in the hepatitis B virus (HBV) life cycle, mediated by the viral core protein. Capsid assembly is the target for new anti-viral therapeutics known as capsid assembly modulators (CAMs) of which the CAM-aberrant (CAM-A) class induces aberrant shaped core protein structures and leads to hepatocyte cell death. This study aimed to identify the mechanism of action of CAM-A modulators leading to HBV-infected hepatocyte elimination where CAM-A-mediated hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) reduction was evaluated in a stable HBV replicating cell line and in AAV-HBV-transduced C57BL/6, C57BL/6 SCID, and HBV-infected chimeric mice with humanized livers.

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The organization and interaction between hepatocytes and other hepatic non-parenchymal cells plays a pivotal role in maintaining normal liver function and structure. Although spatial heterogeneity within the tumor micro-environment has been proven to be a fundamental feature in cancer progression, the role of liver tissue topology and micro-environmental factors in the context of liver damage in chronic infection has not been widely studied yet. We obtained images from 110 core needle biopsies from a cohort of chronic hepatitis B patients with different fibrosis stages according to METAVIR score.

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Fcγ receptors (FcγR), cell-surface glycoproteins that bind antigen-IgG complexes, control both humoral and cellular immune responses. The locus on chromosome 1q23.3 comprises five homologous genes encoding low-affinity FcγRII and FcγRIII, and displays functionally relevant polymorphism that impacts on human health.

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Metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC) are incurable due to the rapid development of resistance to all current therapeutics. Oncolytic adenoviral mutants have emerged as a promising new strategy that negates such resistance. In contrast to normal tissue, the majority of PDACs express the αvβ6 integrin receptor.

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Article Synopsis
  • Mutations in T-cell antigen receptor (TCR) genes lead to rare immunodeficiency diseases, causing problems with TCR expression on cell surfaces and resulting in low T lymphocyte counts.
  • Detailed analysis of a CD247-deficient patient revealed spontaneous mutations that restored CD247 expression in some T cells, though not as effectively as the normal version of the gene.
  • The study found that mutations in the CD247 gene are common, and it suggests that genes related to primary immunodeficiency diseases might have a higher likelihood of experiencing mutations that could reverse genetic defects.
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Many activating immunoreceptors associate with signaling adaptor molecules like FcεR1γ or CD247. FcεR1γ and CD247 share high sequence homology and form disulphide-linked homodimers that contain a pair of acidic aspartic acid residues in their transmembrane (TM) domains that mediate assembly, via interaction with an arginine residue at a similar register to these aspartic acids, with the activating immunoreceptors. However, this model cannot hold true for receptors like CD16A, whose TM domains do not contain basic residues.

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