Publications by authors named "Blanchard V"

Aims: The Antwerp Pelvic Floor Knowledge Questionnaire (APFK-Q) is a self-administered tool used for assessing women's knowledge of the pelvic floor, an essential element of pelvic health education initiatives. The aim of this study was to validate the French version of the APFK-Q and to assess its psychometric properties.

Methods: Acceptability of the cultural adaptation of APFK-Q in French (translation/back-translation) was assessed in two groups of women: one group not working in the healthcare sector (non-healthworkers, n = 112), and another of student midwives (n = 29).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Pelvic floor health education workshops for women appear to improve women's knowledge and pelvic floor symptoms. Our aim was to obtain expert consensus on the content and format of a pelvic floor health education program using the Delphi method.

Material And Methods: A two-round Delphi study was conducted involving French-speaking multidisciplinary experts in pelvic floor dysfunction management.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting a growing number of elderly people. In order to improve the early and differential diagnosis of AD, better biomarkers are needed. Glycosylation is a protein post-translational modification that is modulated in the course of many diseases, including neurodegeneration.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have a high prevalence of hyperphosphatemia, where uremic toxins like inorganic phosphate (Pi) induce a cardiovascular remodeling. Related disorders like atherosclerosis bear the risk of increased morbidity and mortality. We previously found that Pi stimulates the synthesis and sulfation of the negatively charged glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) heparan sulfate and chondroitin sulfate in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Guanosine diphosphate-mannose pyrophosphorylase B (GMPPB) catalyzes the conversion of mannose-1-phosphate and GTP to GDP-mannose, which is required as a mannose donor for the biosynthesis of glycan structures necessary for proper cellular functions. Mutations in GMPPB have been associated with various neuromuscular disorders such as muscular dystrophy and myasthenic syndromes. Here, we report that GMPPB protein abundance increases during brain and skeletal muscle development, which is accompanied by an increase in overall protein mannosylation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of group pelvic floor education workshops on participants' knowledge, satisfaction, and changes in urinary and digestive habits, while also comparing healthcare providers' knowledge to that of the general population.
  • The workshops were conducted online from May 2021 to June 2022 and included discussions on pelvic floor anatomy, physiology, risk factors for pelvic floor disorders, and preventive measures; participants filled out questionnaires before and after to measure changes in knowledge and behavior.
  • Results indicated a significant increase in pelvic floor knowledge for both healthcare providers and non-providers, with many participants reporting improved understanding and a willingness to change their urinary and digestive behaviors after the workshops.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Protein glycosylation, a complex and heterogeneous post-translational modification that is frequently dysregulated in disease, has been difficult to analyse at scale. Here we report a data-independent acquisition technique for the large-scale mass-spectrometric quantification of glycopeptides in plasma samples. The technique, which we named 'OxoScan-MS', identifies oxonium ions as glycopeptide fragments and exploits a sliding-quadrupole dimension to generate comprehensive and untargeted oxonium ion maps of precursor masses assigned to fragment ions from non-enriched plasma samples.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Impaired arterial elasticity reflects increased risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). Treatment with omega-3 fatty acid ethyl esters (ω-3FAEEs) in FH patients has been shown to improve postprandial triglyceride-rich lipoprotein (TRL) metabolism, including TRL-apolipoprotein(a) [TRL-apo(a)]. Whether ω-3FAEE intervention also improves postprandial arterial elasticity in FH has not been demonstrated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

It remains uncertain how brain glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) contribute to the progression of inflammatory disorders like multiple sclerosis (MS). We investigated here neuroinflammation-mediated changes in GAG composition and metabolism using the mouse model of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and sham-immunized mice as controls. Cerebellum, mid- and forebrain at different EAE phases were investigated using gene expression analysis (microarray and RT-qPCR) as well as HPLC quantification of CS and hyaluronic acid (HA).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lysosomal acid lipase (LAL), encoded by the gene , is the sole neutral lipid hydrolase in lysosomes, responsible for cleavage of cholesteryl esters and triglycerides into their component parts. Inherited forms of complete (Wolman Disease, WD) or partial LAL deficiency (cholesteryl ester storage disease, CESD) are fortunately rare. Recently, LAL has been identified as a cardiovascular risk gene in genome-wide association studies, though the directionality of risk conferred remains controversial.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Our objective was to evaluate the impact of pelvic floor educational sessions on teenage girls about their general knowledge of pelvic floor disorders (PFD) and the anatomy of the pelvic floor.

Material: Educational sessions were offered to teenage girls from middle and high schools in the city of Caen. Each session included pelvic floor anatomy, urinary and digestive physiology as well as situations that favor PFD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) comprise mainly ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn´s disease (CD). Both forms present with a chronic inflammation of the (gastro) intestinal tract, which induces excessive changes in the composition of the associated extracellular matrix (ECM). In UC, the inflammation is limited to the colon, whereas it can occur throughout the entire gastrointestinal tract in CD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A series of quinoline and quinazoline analogs were designed and synthesized as new tubulin polymerization (TP) and histone deacetylases (HDAC) inhibitors. Compounds 12a and 12d showed the best cytotoxicity activities against a panel of human cancer cell lines with an averaged IC value of 0.6 and 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cholesterol-overloaded cells or "foam cells" in the artery wall are the biochemical hallmark of atherosclerosis, and are responsible for much of the growth, inflammation and susceptibility to rupture of atherosclerotic lesions. While it has previously been thought that macrophages are the main contributor to the foam cell population, recent evidence indicates arterial smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are the source of the majority of foam cells in both human and murine atherosclerosis. This review outlines the timeline, site of appearance and proximity of SMCs and macrophages with lipids in human and mouse atherosclerosis, and likely interactions between SMCs and macrophages that promote foam cell formation and removal by both cell types.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ovarian cancer (OC) is a gynecological malignancy characterized by high morbidity and mortalities due to late-stage diagnosis because accurate early diagnostic biomarkers are lacking. Testing of Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Hepatitis C virus (HCV), and Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in OC patients is pertinent in light of the emerging evidence of their contribution to poor prognosis. We, for the first time, investigated the prevalence of HBV, HCV, and HIV infections in a Kenyan cohort of OC to inform optimal management.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim: Lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) is a low-density lipoprotein-like particle containing apolipoprotein(a) (apo(a)) that increases the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). Postprandial redistribution of apo(a) protein from Lp(a) to triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TRLs) may also increase the atherogenicity of TRL particles. Omega-3 fatty acid (ω3FA) supplementation improves postprandial TRL metabolism in FH subjects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been affecting the world since January 2020 and has caused millions of deaths. To gain a better insight into molecular changes underlying the COVID-19 disease, we investigated here the -glycosylation of three immunoglobulin G (IgG) fractions isolated from plasma of 35 severe COVID-19 patients, namely total IgG, total IgG, and anti-Spike IgG, by means of MALDI-TOF-MS. All analyses were performed at the glycopeptide level to assure subclass- and site-specific information.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are considered to be the most difficult type of glycoconjugates to analyze as they are constituted of linear long polysaccharidic chains having molecular weights reaching up to several million daltons. Bottom-up analysis of glycosaminoglycans from biological samples is a long and work-extensive procedure due to the many preparation steps involved. In addition, so far, only few research articles have been dedicated to the analysis of GAGs by means of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) because their intact ionization can be problematic due to the presence of labile sulfate groups.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Recent studies reveal that the APOE gene also plays a significant role in Lp(a) levels, especially where the apoE2 variant is concerned, showing that carriers of this variant have lower Lp(a) concentrations.
  • * While the apoE2 genotype can lead to another lipid disorder called dysbetalipoproteinemia, it does not affect Lp(a) levels, indicating that there are complex mechanisms involved in Lp(a) production and metabolism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Glycoconjugates on extracellular vesicles (EVs) play a vital role in internalization and mediate interaction as well as regulation of the host immune system by viruses, bacteria, and parasites. During their intraerythrocytic life-cycle stages, malaria parasites, () mediate the secretion of EVs by infected red blood cells (RBCs) that carry a diverse range of parasitic and host-derived molecules. These molecules facilitate parasite-parasite and parasite-host interactions to ensure parasite survival.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Plasma lipids are carried within lipoproteins with various apolipoprotein content. This study evaluates the interest of measuring the apolipoproteins of circulating lipoproteins in breast cancer. Patients with early-stage breast cancer ( = 140) were included.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The particularly high mortality of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is in part linked to limited understanding of its molecular signatures. Although there are data available on in situ -glycosylation in EOC tissue, previous studies focused primarily on neutral -glycan species and, hence, still little is known regarding EOC tissue-specific sialylation. In this proof-of-concept study, we implemented MALDI mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) in combination with sialic acid derivatization to simultaneously investigate neutral and sialylated -glycans in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue microarray specimens of less common EOC histotypes and non-malignant borderline ovarian tumor (BOT).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Lp(a) (lipoprotein [a]) is a highly atherogenic lipoprotein strongly associated with coronary artery disease (CAD). Lp(a) concentrations are chiefly determined genetically. Investigation of large pedigrees with extreme Lp(a) using modern whole-genome approaches may unravel the genetic determinants underpinning this pathological phenotype.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on identifying plasma apolipoproteins as potential biomarkers for predicting the onset of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in subjects with prediabetes.
  • Over a 5-year follow-up of 307 participants, it was found that certain apolipoproteins (apoE, apoF, apoJ, and apoL1) were positively linked with a higher risk of developing T2D, even after accounting for other factors.
  • Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated that lower levels of apoE significantly correlated with a reduced risk of progressing to T2D.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF