Publications by authors named "Daniela Pietra"

Article Synopsis
  • Hereditary thrombocytosis (HT) is a rare genetic disorder that has symptoms similar to essential thrombocythemia, a more common blood condition.
  • A study of 933 patients with persistent high platelet counts found various mutations related to HT, including several in the MPL gene, which could be significant causes of the disorder.
  • The research suggests screening triple-negative patients for specific MPL mutations and highlights the importance of accurate diagnosis to prevent unnecessary treatments.
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  • Pediatric Mastocytosis is a rare disease that leads to an excess of mast cells, causing symptoms like itching and fatigue, particularly affecting children with Systemic Mastocytosis who are at high risk for severe allergic reactions.
  • A child suffering from severe Systemic Mastocytosis experienced rapid improvement after being treated with Omalizumab, an anti-IgE monoclonal antibody, allowing for the withdrawal of steroid treatments and other medications.
  • Omalizumab proved to be a highly effective and safe option for managing symptoms in children unresponsive to conventional therapies, demonstrating significant benefits in quality of life.
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Mutant calreticulin (CALR) proteins resulting from a -1/+2 frameshifting mutation of the CALR exon 9 carry a novel C-terminal amino acid sequence and drive the development of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). Mutant CALRs were shown to interact with and activate the thrombopoietin receptor (TpoR/MPL) in the same cell. We report that mutant CALR proteins are secreted and can be found in patient plasma at levels up to 160 ng/mL, with a mean of 25.

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  • A study involving 3131 patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) found that 6.4% had a family history of a second hematological malignancy (HM).
  • The prevalence of second HM cases was consistent across different MPN subtypes, genders, and driver mutations.
  • Younger patients diagnosed with MPN (under 45 years) were more likely (8.5%) to have a relative with HM compared to older patients (5.5%), indicating a possible genetic link for early-onset cases.
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Unlabelled: Approximately 20% of patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) harbor mutations in the gene calreticulin (CALR), with 80% of those mutations classified as either type I or type II. While type II CALR-mutant proteins retain many of the Ca2+ binding sites present in the wild-type protein, type I CALR-mutant proteins lose these residues. The functional consequences of this differential loss of Ca2+ binding sites remain unexplored.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Acute leukemia of ambiguous lineage (ALAL) is a rare and poorly understood type of leukemia with no established treatment guidelines due to its variability and lack of clinical trials.
  • - A study of 10 ALAL cases revealed a high frequency of myeloid-gene mutations, particularly RUNX1 mutations, which are linked to an undifferentiated phenotype and lineage ambiguity.
  • - The findings suggest that ALAL, particularly those with undifferentiated characteristics, may be genetically more similar to acute myeloid leukemia than acute lymphoblastic leukemia, indicating that treatment approaches might need to focus on AML-based therapies.
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  • Myelofibrosis (MF) is a blood disorder within the group of Philadelphia-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms, which can either occur as primary (PMF) or secondary (SMF) types due to other conditions like polycythemia vera (PV) or essential thrombocythemia (ET).
  • Recent research focused on analyzing gene expression profiles (GEPs) in granulocytes from 114 MF patients, revealing 201 gene transcripts linked to survival risk and patient outcomes.
  • The study found that high-risk patients identified by these gene signatures experienced worse overall survival and leukemia-free survival, highlighting the potential of GEPs as a significant tool for better prognostic assessment in clinical settings.
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Somatic mutations in splicing factor genes frequently occur in myeloid neoplasms. While SF3B1 mutations are associated with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) with ring sideroblasts, SRSF2 mutations are found in different disease categories, including MDS, myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasms (MDS/MPN), and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). To identify molecular determinants of this phenotypic heterogeneity, we explored molecular and clinical features of a prospective cohort of 279 SRSF2-mutated cases selected from a population of 2663 patients with myeloid neoplasms.

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Among classical --negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), primary myelofibrosis (PMF) is the most aggressive subtype from a clinical standpoint, posing a great challenge to clinicians. Whilst the biological consequences of the three MPN driver gene mutations (JAK2, CALR, and MPL) have been well described, recent data has shed light on the complex and dynamic structure of PMF, that involves competing disease subclones, sequentially acquired genomic events, mostly in genes that are recurrently mutated in several myeloid neoplasms and in clonal hematopoiesis, and biological interactions between clonal hematopoietic stem cells and abnormal bone marrow niches. These observations may contribute to explain the wide heterogeneity in patients' clinical presentation and prognosis, and support the recent effort to include molecular information in prognostic scoring systems used for therapeutic decision-making, leading to promising clinical translation.

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Ruxolitinib is effective in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) but can cause reactivation of silent infections. We aimed at evaluating viral load and T-cell responses to human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in a cohort of 25 MPN patients treated with ruxolitinib. EBV-DNA and HCMV-DNA were quantified monthly using real-time polimerase chain reaction (PCR) on peripheral blood samples, and T-cell subsets were analyzed by flowcytometry.

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Approximately one-fourth of patients with essential thrombocythemia or primary myelofibrosis carry a somatic mutation of the calreticulin gene (CALR), the gene encoding for calreticulin. A 52-bp deletion (type I mutation) and a 5-bp insertion (type II mutation) are the most frequent genetic lesions. The mechanism(s) by which a CALR mutation leads to a myeloproliferative phenotype has been clarified only in part.

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The single transmembrane domain (TMD) of the human thrombopoietin receptor (TpoR/myeloproliferative leukemia [MPL] protein), encoded by exon 10 of the MPL gene, is a hotspot for somatic mutations associated with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). Approximately 6% and 14% of JAK2 V617F- essential thrombocythemia and primary myelofibrosis patients, respectively, have "canonical" MPL exon 10 driver mutations W515L/K/R/A or S505N, which generate constitutively active receptors and consequent loss of Tpo dependence. Other "noncanonical" MPL exon 10 mutations have also been identified in patients, both alone and in combination with canonical mutations, but, in almost all cases, their functional consequences and relevance to disease are unknown.

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Patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are known to have higher incidence of nonhematological second primary malignancies (SPM) compared to general population. In the MYSEC study on 781 secondary myelofibrosis (SMF) patients, the incidence of SPM after SMF diagnosis resulted 0.98/100 patient-years.

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Ph-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are hematological cancers that can be subdivided into entities with distinct clinical features. Somatic mutations in , , and have been described as drivers of the disease, together with a variable landscape of nondriver mutations. Despite detailed knowledge of disease mechanisms, targeted therapies effective enough to eliminate MPN cells are still missing.

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