Publications by authors named "Augustine Fernandes"

Malignant infantile osteopetrosis is a rare inherited disorder with neurological complications and a shortened life expectancy. Vision loss is typically attributed to osseous compression of the optic nerves at the level of the optic canal. Fundus imaging is reported, as well as the first optical coherence tomography and optical coherence tomography angiography in this rare condition.

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Patients lacking functional adenosine deaminase activity have severe combined immunodeficiency (ADA SCID), which can be treated with ADA enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), or autologous HSCT with gene-corrected cells (gene therapy [GT]). A cohort of 10 ADA SCID patients, aged 3 months to 15 years, underwent GT in a phase 2 clinical trial between 2009 and 2012. Autologous bone marrow CD34+ cells were transduced ex vivo with the MND (myeloproliferative sarcoma virus, negative control region deleted, dl587rev primer binding site)-ADA gammaretroviral vector (gRV) and infused following busulfan reduced-intensity conditioning.

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The interaction between the hormone hepcidin and the iron exporter ferroportin (Fpn) regulates plasma iron concentrations. Hepcidin binds to Fpn and induces its internalization and degradation, resulting in decreased iron efflux from cells into plasma. Fpn mutations in N144, Y64N, and C326 residue cause autosomal dominant disease with parenchymal iron overload, apparently due to the resistance of mutant Fpn to hepcidin-mediated internalization.

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Protein kinase C (PKC) plays a critical role in signal transduction controlling T lymphocyte activation. Both positive and negative regulation of signal transduction is needed for proper control of T lymphocyte activation. We have found that a golli product of the myelin basic protein (MBP) gene can serve as a negative regulator of signaling pathways in the T lymphocyte, particularly the PKC pathway.

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The myelin basic protein (MBP) gene encodes the classic MBPs and the golli proteins, which are related structurally to the MBPs but are not components of the myelin sheath. A yeast two-hybrid approach was used to identify molecular partners that interact with the golli proteins. A mouse cDNA was cloned that encoded a protein of 261 amino acids and called golli-interacting protein (GIP).

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A new family of the myelin proteolipid protein (PLP/DM20) gene products, srPLP/DM20, has been identified recently in thymus and brain. In the central nervous system, srPLP/DM20 products are not localized in the myelin membrane, unlike their classic PLP/DM20 counterparts. In the immune system, the classic PLP/DM20 products appear to be expressed predominantly in thymic cortical epithelium.

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The golli-myelin basic proteins (MBPs) have been known to mark the nerve fiber extensions in both the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and the central nervous system. In this paper, we show that the nerve fibers revealed by neurofilament (NF) antibody staining in thymus and spleen, colocalized with golli in the capsular, trabecular (tr), and vasculature (v) systems. In the thymus, the density of these fibers was greater in the medulla than in the cortex.

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