Evaluation of circulating microRNA signature in patients with erosive hand osteoarthritis: The HOAmiR study.

Objectives: To identify circulating micro-RNAs differentially expressed in patients with erosive hand osteoarthritis (HOA) compared to patients with non-erosive HOA and patients without HOA.

Methods: In the screening phase, 768 well-characterized micro-RNAs using Taqman low-density array cards were measured in 30 sera from 10 patients with erosive HOA, 10 patients with non-erosive HOA, and 10 controls without HOA, matched for age and body mass index (BMI). In a second step, we validated the micro-RNAs identified at the screening phase (adjusted p value < 0.

Association of circulating hsa-miRNAs with sarcopenia: the SarcoPhAge study.

Objective: To identify a microRNA signature associated to sarcopenia in community-dwelling older adults form the SarcoPhAge cohort.

Methods: In a screening phase by next generation sequencing (NGS), we compared the hsa-miRome expression of 18 subjects with sarcopenia (79.6 ± 6.

The disability associated with hand osteoarthritis is substantial in a cohort of post-menopausal women: the QUALYOR study.

Objectives: Our primary aims were to assess current prevalence of HOA and the disability associated with this condition, in the group usually most affected, i.e., women older than 55.

Serological response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease treated with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs: A cohort study and a meta-analysis.

Introduction: Vaccination is considered as a cornerstone of the management of COVID-19 pandemic. However, while vaccines provide a robust protection in immunocompetent individuals, the immunogenicity in patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases (IRD) is not well established.

Methods: A monocentric observational study evaluated the immunogenicity of a two-dose regimen vaccine in adult patients with IRD (n=123) treated with targeted or biological therapies.

[Rheumatic immune adverse events related to immune checkpoint inhibitors-(IrAEs related to ICI)].

New anti-cancer therapeutics have been developed in the recent years and dramatically change prognosis and patient management. Either used alone or in combination, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), such as anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD1/PD-(L)1, act by removing T-cell inhibition to enhance their antitumor response. This change in therapeutic targets leads to a break in immune-tolerance and a unique toxicity profile resulting in immune complications.

Progeny's mental aptitudes in man: relationship with parental age at conception and with some environmental factors.

Psychometric tests obtained from 6564 young men were studied as a function of the parents' ages at conception and of some characteristics of the subject's postnatal environment. Individual scores, from 0 to 20, were divided into two groups: n(1)11 and n(2)<11. In univariate analysis, scores <11 were respectively related to low height, high number of siblings and junior in birth order, subject's and parents' tobacco consumption, parents' alcohol consumption, subject's and parents' low academic standard, parents' youth or ageing at conception.

Is embryo-cryopreservation really neutral? A new long-term effect of embryo freezing in mice: protection of adults from induced cancer according to strain and sex.

Background: Beneficial or harmful effects of embryo freezing have been described in man and animals, raising the question of the neutrality of this technique.

Objective: We examined, in mice, the possibility that embryo freezing influences the probability of the emergence, in adults, of an induced urinary bladder cancer.

Methods: The experiment was conducted in mice derived from embryos of two different genotypes.

Long-term effects in progeny of paternal environment and of gamete/embryo cryopreservation.

In addition to gross malformations, many problems relating to the formation of gametes and embryos can generate, within a continuum of abnormalities, a number of problems that are less evident. On the basis of genetic and/or biochemical or cytological changes, these effects generally appear long after birth as functional difficulties that range from growth changes and altered endocrine functions and cancer to very late behavioural disorders. Such problems may have effects on males and females before conception, on the embryo during gestation, and may also impact on the success of assisted reproduction techniques.

Post-pubescent to mature fathers: increase in progeny quality?

In the mouse, offspring born from mature fathers exhibit better behavioural performances (for spontaneous activity in both sex and learning capacity in males) than those born from post-pubescent fathers. These behavioural variations are not accompanied by other obvious modifications. They could correspond to what has been observed in man relating to the results in a psychometric test undergone by male progeny born from very young to mature fathers.

Cryopreserved immature mouse oocytes: a chromosomal and spindle study.

Purpose: Cryopreservation of human oocytes might provide an alternative approach to freezing supernumerary embryos obtained during IVF. This process, performed on immature denuded prophase 1 mouse oocytes, was investigated.

Methods: We first investigated the capacity of frozen, immature, murine oocytes to continue in vitro maturation after thawing.

Behavioral teratogenesis: an extension to the teratogenesis of functions.

Major malformations correspond to pathology during the first 2 months of gestation. Thereafter, histological and biochemical abnormalities can result from different negative maternal incidents and, without obvious malformations, change the phenotype of the conceptus. These abnormalities lead to essentially functional disorders often compatible with life and to more or less serious handicaps.

[Capabilities and limitations of research].

Assisted human reproduction (AHR) currently solves numerous difficulties caused by sterility in couples. However, it poses some problems whose solutions involve three main directions in research. Fundamental research explores spontaneously occuring phenomena.

Chromosome 18 analysis by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in human blastomeres of abnormal embryos after in vitro fertilization (IVF) attempt.

We performed fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with a chromosome 18-specific probe on human abnormal cleaved embryos, fertilized either by two spermatozoa and exhibiting three pronuclei (3 PN) or normally fertilized and exhibiting two pronuclei (2 PN) with subsequent severe fragmentation and/or blocking. The aim of the study was to evaluate the incidence of chromosome 18 anomalies among these embryos in order to evaluate the FISH efficiency on such material and to obtain more precise and complete data than those obtained with classical cytogenetic analysis. For the 3 PN cleaved embryos, FISH confirmed the frequent regulation towards diploidy (25 per cent) and the high frequency of mosaics (53 per cent).

Long-term effects of embryo freezing in mice.

Embryo cryopreservation does not induce clear-cut anomalies at detectable rates, but several mechanisms exist for nonlethal damage during the freeze-thaw process, and the risk of moderate or delayed consequences has not been extensively investigated. In a long-term study including senescence, we compared cryopreserved and control mice for several quantitative traits. Significant differences were seen in morphophysiological and behavioral features, some of them appearing in elderly subjects.

Effects of cooling and equilibration in DMSO, and cryopreservation of mouse oocytes, on the rates of in vitro fertilization, development, and chromosomal abnormalities.

In a previous study, we have shown that the cryopreservation of mouse oocytes caused increases in the rates of degeneration and of digynic polyploid embryos, while the fertility of frozen-thawed oocytes was decreased. In this study, we have attempted to determine the different stages in the complete freezing-thawing process which are deleterious for the oocytes and the subsequent zygotes. IVF assays showed that DMSO decreased the fertility of oocytes, whereas cooling to 0 degrees C had no effect.

Spermatozoa as potential carriers of HIV.

In order to investigate the role of germ cells in the sexual transmission of immunodeficiency virus (HIV), spermatozoa from healthy HIV-seronegative men were incubated in vitro with HIV1. After washing, they were cocultured with peripheral blood leukocytes from seronegative blood donors. Reverse transcriptase assays and p24 antigen tests were performed in culture supernatants.

Cryopreservation of mouse oocytes: mutagenic effects in the embryo?

We have shown in previous studies that the complete cycle of cryopreservation and prefreezing manipulations increases the degeneration and decreases the fecundability of mouse oocytes. The present study confirms these results. Moreover, we show that the increase of polyploidy previously observed in one-cell zygotes derived from frozen-thawed oocytes persists during the early stages of embryonic development.