Soluble CD146 cooperates with VEGF-A to generate an immunosuppressive microenvironment in CD146-positive tumors: interest of a combined antibody-based therapy.

Tumor development necessitates immune escape through different mechanisms. To counteract these effects, the development of therapies targeting Immune Checkpoints (ICP) has generated interest as they have produced lasting objective responses in patients with advanced metastatic tumors. However, many tumors do not respond to inhibitors of ICP, necessitating to further study the underlying mechanisms of exhaustion.

French protocol for the diagnosis and management of systemic lupus erythematosus.

Because Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a rare disease, and due to the significant prognostic impact of early management, a diagnosis confirmed by a physician with experience in SLE is recommended, for example from an expert center. Once the diagnosis is confirmed, existing manifestations should be identified in particular, renal involvement by an assessment of proteinuria, disease activity and severity should be determined, potential complications anticipated, associated diseases searched for, and the patient's socioprofessional and family context noted. Therapeutic management of SLE includes patient education on recognizing symptoms, understanding disease progression as well as when they should seek medical advice.

Biological markers of high risk of thrombotic recurrence in patients with antiphospholipid syndrome: A literature review.

Objectives: This review aims to identify biological markers associated with the risk of recurrence of thrombotic and/or obstetric events in patients with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS).

Methods: A comprehensive review of literature was conducted to evaluate established and potential novel biological markers associated with thrombosis in APS. To this end, a PubMed literature search was conducted for the last twenty years using the following keywords or their combinations: thrombotic risk, recurrence of thrombosis, risk stratification, severity, predictive value.

Comparison of the Capacity of Several Machine Learning Tools to Assist Immunofluorescence-Based Detection of Anti-Neutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibodies.

The success of artificial intelligence and machine learning is an incentive to develop new algorithms to increase the rapidity and reliability of medical diagnosis. Here we compared different strategies aimed at processing microscope images used to detect anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies, an important vasculitis marker: (i) basic classifier methods (logistic regression, k-nearest neighbors and decision tree) were used to process custom-made indices derived from immunofluorescence images yielded by 137 sera. (ii) These methods were combined with dimensional reduction to analyze 1733 individual cell images.

Imbalance of TH17/TREG cells in Tunisian patients with systemic sclerosis.

Fibrosis is a pathological manifestation in which connective tissue replaces normal one. It can affect many tissues from the skin to internal organs such as the lungs. Manifestations of pulmonary involvement can be pulmonary arterial hypertension or pulmonary fibrosis.

Anti-Jo-1 autoantibodies: biomarkers of severity and evolution of the disease in antisynthetase syndrome.

Background: Anti-Jo-1 autoantibodies represent essential markers in the diagnosis of antisynthetase syndrome (ASS). In this retrospective study, we aimed to investigate whether their concentrations and fluctuations could both respectively reflect the severity and evolution of ASS.

Methods: Between 2015 and 2020, clinical and biological features of ASS patients with at least one positive measure of anti-Jo-1 autoantibody were collected.

Gut microbiota in SLE: from animal models to clinical evidence and pharmacological perspectives.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multifactorial autoimmune disease driven by complex interactions between genetics and environmental factors. SLE is characterised by breaking self-immune tolerance and autoantibody production that triggers inflammation and damage of multiple organs. Given the highly heterogeneous nature of SLE, the treatments currently used are still not satisfactory with considerable side effects, and the development of new therapies is a major health issue for better patient management.

Signaling Pathways and Potential Therapeutic Strategies in Cardiac Fibrosis.

Cardiac fibrosis constitutes irreversible necrosis of the heart muscle as a consequence of different acute (myocardial infarction) or chronic (diabetes, hypertension, …) diseases but also due to genetic alterations or aging. Currently, there is no curative treatment that is able to prevent or attenuate this phenomenon that leads to progressive cardiac dysfunction and life-threatening outcomes. This review summarizes the different targets identified and the new strategies proposed to fight cardiac fibrosis.

Anti-cardiolipin IgG autoantibodies associate with circulating extracellular DNA in severe COVID-19.

Whereas the detection of antiphospholipid autoantibodies (aPL) in COVID-19 is of increasing interest, their role is still unclear. We analyzed a large aPL panel in 157 patients with COVID-19 according to the disease severity. We also investigated a potential association between aPL and extracellular DNA (exDNA, n = 85) or circulating markers of neutrophil extracellular traps (NET) such as citrullinated histones H3 (CitH3, n = 49).

CD146 at the Interface between Oxidative Stress and the Wnt Signaling Pathway in Systemic Sclerosis.

CD146 involvement was recently described in skin fibrosis of systemic sclerosis through its regulation of the Wnt pathway. Because the interaction between Wnt and ROS signaling plays a major role in fibrosis, we hypothesized that in systemic sclerosis, CD146 may regulate Wnt/ROS crosstalk. Using a transcriptomic and western blot analysis performed on CD146 wild-type or knockout mouse embryonic fibroblasts, we showed a procanonical Wnt hallmark in the absence of CD146 that is reversed when CD146 expression is restored.

[Antiphospholipid autoantibodies and Covid-19].

Infection with Sars-CoV-2 is at the origin of a viral pandemic responsible for an unprecedented global health and economic crisis. Recently, an autoimmune process has been described in particular in severe forms of Covid-19. However, the role of autoimmunity in the disease remains to be defined.

Soluble CD146 as a Potential Target for Preventing Triple Negative Breast Cancer MDA-MB-231 Cell Growth and Dissemination.

Triple Negative Breast Cancers (TNBC) are the most aggressive breast cancers and lead to poor prognoses. This is due to a high resistance to therapies, mainly because of the presence of Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs). Plasticity, a feature of CSCs, is acquired through the Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT), a process that has been recently shown to be regulated by a key molecule, CD146.

Involvement of Multiple Variants of Soluble CD146 in Systemic Sclerosis: Identification of a Novel Profibrotic Factor.

Objective: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disorder characterized by excessive fibrosis, immune dysfunction, and vascular damage, in which the expression of many growth factors is deregulated. CD146 was recently described as a major actor in SSc. Since CD146 also exists as a circulating soluble form (sCD146) that acts as a growth factor in numerous angiogenic- and inflammation-related pathologies, we sought to identify the mechanisms underlying the generation of sCD146 and to characterize the regulation and functions of the different variants identified in SSc.

Persistent IgG anticardiolipin autoantibodies are associated with post-COVID syndrome.

Persistence of various symptoms in patients who have recovered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was recently defined as 'long COVID' or 'post-COVID syndrome' (PCS). This article reports a case of a 58-year-old woman who, although recovering from COVID-19, had novel and persistent symptoms including neurological complications that could not be explained by any cause other than PCS. In addition to a low inflammatory response, persistence of immunoglobulin G anticardiolipin autoantibody positivity and eosinopenia were found 1 year after acute COVID-19 infection, both of which have been defined previously as independent factors associated with the severity of COVID-19.

Single or triple positivity for antiphospholipid antibodies in "carriers" or symptomatic patients: Untangling the knot.

Background: Although the triple positivity of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) is important for classifying high-risk patients, interpretation of aPL positivity, namely the lupus anticoagulant (LA), anti-cardiolipin (aCL), and anti-beta2-glycoprotein I autoantibodies (aB2GPI) remains challenging for thrombotic risk stratification.

Objective: To compare biological and clinical data between triple aPL- and single aCL-positive patients.

Methods: Of the 6500 patients assayed for aPL in daily practice within 3 years, we retrospectively analyzed data from 161 patients that were either triple aPL-positive or single aCL-positive with 5 years' follow-up for 121 of them.