Ten-year radiographic and functional outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis patients in remission compared to patients in low disease activity.

Background: To compare the 10-year structural and functional prognosis between patients in sustained remission versus patients in sustained low disease activity (LDA) in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: We included 256 patients from the ESPOIR cohort who fulfilled the 2010 ACR/EULAR criteria for RA and who were in sustained remission using the Simple Disease Activity Index (SDAI) score (n = 48), in sustained LDA (n = 139) or in sustained moderate to high disease activity (MDA or HDA, n = 69) over 10 years. The mTSSs progression over 10 years and the 10-year HAQ-DI scores were compared between the 3 groups.

Toward a conceptual framework of health and its operational definition: an application in the 1958 British birth cohort.

Background: Defining and measuring Health presents a challenge, partly due to its conceptual pluralism. To measure Health as an ability to adapt and self-manage, we developed an approach within the theoretical framework of resources and reserves over the life course, recently proposed in the literature. We aimed to (i) use the conceptual framework developed to identify indicators of deteriorating health reserves, (ii) construct an overall health measure from these indicators, (iii) evaluate the association between the overall health measure and subsequent health outcomes and (iv) assess the robustness of our method.

On the Use of Optimal Transportation Theory to Recode Variables and Application to Database Merging.

Merging databases is a strategy of paramount interest especially in medical research. A common problem in this context comes from a variable which is not coded on the same scale in both databases we aim to merge. This paper considers the problem of finding a relevant way to recode the variable in order to merge these two databases.

Diagnostic accuracy in field conditions of the sickle SCAN® rapid test for sickle cell disease among children and adults in two West African settings: the DREPATEST study.

Background: Sickle cell disease (SCD) accounts for 5% of mortality in African children aged < 5 years. Improving the care management and quality of life of patients with SCD requires a reliable diagnosis in resource-limited settings. We assessed the diagnostic accuracy of the rapid Sickle SCAN® point-of-care (POC) test for SCD used in field conditions in two West-African countries.

Medical prescriptions falsified by the patients: a 12-year national monitoring to assess prescription drug diversion.

Diversion of prescription drugs is difficult to assess in quality and quantity. This study aimed to characterize diversion of prescription drugs in France through a comparative analysis of falsified prescriptions collected during three periods from 2001 to 2012. The data recorded in a national program which records all falsified prescriptions presented to community pharmacies were studied.

Aiming for SDAI remission versus low disease activity at 1 year after inclusion in ESPOIR cohort is associated with better 3-year structural outcomes.

Objectives: Using data for patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from the ESPOIR cohort, we aimed to evaluate the impact of remission versus low disease activity (LDA) by the Simple Disease Activity Index (SDAI) at 1 year on 3-year structural damage assessed by the modified Sharp-van der Heijde total score (mTSS) and functional impairment assessed by the Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI).

Methods: We included 625 patients from the ESPOIR cohort who fulfilled the 2010 American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism criteria for RA at baseline and had an SDAI score at 1 year. mTSS and HAQ-DI scores were compared at 3 years for patients with SDAI remission or LDA status at 1 year.

A unique in vivo experimental approach reveals metabolic adaptation of the probiotic Propionibacterium freudenreichii to the colon environment.

Background: Propionibacterium freudenreichii is a food grade bacterium consumed both in cheeses and in probiotic preparations. Its promising probiotic potential, relying largely on the active release of beneficial metabolites within the gut as well as the expression of key surface proteins involved in immunomodulation, deserves to be explored more deeply. Adaptation to the colon environment is requisite for the active release of propionibacterial beneficial metabolites and constitutes a bottleneck for metabolic activity in vivo.

A comprehensive evaluation of normalization methods for Illumina high-throughput RNA sequencing data analysis.

During the last 3 years, a number of approaches for the normalization of RNA sequencing data have emerged in the literature, differing both in the type of bias adjustment and in the statistical strategy adopted. However, as data continue to accumulate, there has been no clear consensus on the appropriate normalization method to be used or the impact of a chosen method on the downstream analysis. In this work, we focus on a comprehensive comparison of seven recently proposed normalization methods for the differential analysis of RNA-seq data, with an emphasis on the use of varied real and simulated datasets involving different species and experimental designs to represent data characteristics commonly observed in practice.

Transcriptomic profiling of the reproductive mode switch in the pea aphid in response to natural autumnal photoperiod.

Aphids are among the rare organisms that can change their reproductive mode across their life cycle. During spring and summer they reproduce clonally and efficiently by parthenogenesis. At the end of summer aphids perceive the shortening of day length which triggers the production of sexual individuals - males and oviparous females - that will mate and lay overwintering cold-resistant eggs.

The GENCODE v7 catalog of human long noncoding RNAs: analysis of their gene structure, evolution, and expression.

The human genome contains many thousands of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). While several studies have demonstrated compelling biological and disease roles for individual examples, analytical and experimental approaches to investigate these genes have been hampered by the lack of comprehensive lncRNA annotation. Here, we present and analyze the most complete human lncRNA annotation to date, produced by the GENCODE consortium within the framework of the ENCODE project and comprising 9277 manually annotated genes producing 14,880 transcripts.

Using transcriptome profiling to characterize QTL regions on chicken chromosome 5.

Background: Although many QTL for various traits have been mapped in livestock, location confidence intervals remain wide that makes difficult the identification of causative mutations. The aim of this study was to test the contribution of microarray data to QTL detection in livestock species. Three different but complementary approaches are proposed to improve characterization of a chicken QTL region for abdominal fatness (AF) previously detected on chromosome 5 (GGA5).

Transcriptomic analysis of intestinal genes following acquisition of pea enation mosaic virus by the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum.

Viruses in the family Luteoviridae are strictly transmitted by aphids in a non-propagative, circulative and persistent mode. Virions ingested by aphids successively cross the gut and the accessory salivary gland epithelia before being released, together with saliva, into the plant vasculature. Virion transport through aphid cells occurs by a transcytosis mechanism.

Effect of wheat roots infected with the pathogenic fungus Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici on gene expression of the biocontrol bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf29Arp.

Traits contributing to the competence of biocontrol bacteria to colonize plant roots are often induced in the rhizosphere in response to plant components. These interactions have been studied using the two partners in gnotobiotic systems. However, in nature, beneficial or pathogenic fungi often colonize roots.

Body size and risk of colon and rectal cancer in the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).

Background: Body weight and body mass index (BMI) are positively related to risk of colon cancer in men, whereas weak or no associations exist in women. This discrepancy may be related to differences in fat distribution between sexes or to the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in women.

Methods: We used multivariable adjusted Cox proportional hazards models to examine the association between anthropometric measures and risks of colon and rectal cancer among 368 277 men and women who were free of cancer at baseline from nine countries of the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition.