Rural Environment as a Risk Factor for the Age at Onset of Machado-Joseph Disease.

Background: Machado-Joseph disease (SCA3/MJD) is a neurodegenerative condition caused by a dominant expansion of a CAG repeat (CAGexp). Most of the variability in the age at onset of symptoms (AO) remains unexplained, and environmental influences were scarcely studied.

Objective: The objective was to test if AO of SCA3/MJD carriers can be associated with markers of the rural environment, such as demographic density (DeD), proportion of rural population (PRP), and the consumption of untreated well water (CWW).

Genetic Variants Influence the Severity of Oral Mucositis in Pediatric Osteosarcoma Patients.

Background: The variability in patients' risk of oral mucositis (OM) has been, in part, attributed to differences in host genomics. The aim better define the role of genomics as an OM risk by investigating the association between genetic variants and the presence and severity of OM in pediatric patients with osteosarcoma (OS) undergoing chemotherapy (CT).

Methods: A longitudinal observational retrospective study was conducted.

Large deletions and small insertions and deletions in the factor VIII gene predict unfavorable immune tolerance induction outcome in people with severe hemophilia A and high-responding inhibitors.

Introduction: Hemophilia A is an inherited bleeding disorder caused by pathogenic variants in the factor VIII gene (F8), which leads to factor VIII (FVIII) deficiency. Immune tolerance induction (ITI) is a therapeutic approach to eradicate alloantibodies (inhibitors) against exogenous FVIII in people with inherited hemophilia A. Few studies have evaluated the role of F8 variants on ITI outcome.

The parkin V380L variant is a genetic modifier of Machado-Joseph disease with impact on mitophagy.

Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative spinocerebellar ataxia caused by a polyglutamine-coding CAG repeat expansion in the ATXN3 gene. While the CAG length correlates negatively with the age at onset, it accounts for approximately 50% of its variability only. Despite larger efforts in identifying contributing genetic factors, candidate genes with a robust and plausible impact on the molecular pathogenesis of MJD are scarce.

Caffeine Consumption and Interaction with ADORA2A, CYP1A2 and NOS1 Variants Do Not Influence Age at Onset of Machado-Joseph Disease.

Background: The age at onset (AO) of Machado-Joseph disease (SCA3/MJD), a disorder due to an expanded CAG repeat (CAGexp) in ATXN3, is quite variable and the role of environmental factors is still unknown. Caffeine was associated with protective effects against other neurodegenerative diseases, and against SCA3/MJD in transgenic mouse models. We aimed to evaluate whether caffeine consumption and its interaction with variants of caffeine signaling/metabolization genes impact the AO of this disease.