Publications by authors named "M Ugarte"

Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) is a rare inherited metabolic disorder characterized by deficient activity of the branched-chain alpha-ketoacid dehydrogenase (BCKDH) complex, required to metabolize the amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine. Despite its profound metabolic implications, the molecular alterations underlying this metabolic impairment had not yet been completely elucidated. We performed a comprehensive multi-omics integration analysis, including genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic data from fibroblasts derived from a cohort of MSUD patients and unaffected controls to genetically characterize an MSUD case and to unravel the MSUD pathophysiology.

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The mammalian retina contains high amounts of metals/metalloid-selenium. Their dyshomeostases are associated with certain retinal diseases. We carried out this bioinformatics study to identify the relationships between putative retinal metal/selenium binding proteins, their molecular functions, and biological processes.

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Article Synopsis
  • Nonketotic hyperglycinemia (NKH) is a rare disorder linked to severe brain malformations and neurological issues, and understanding its underlying causes is still a work in progress.
  • Researchers aimed to study how gene variants associated with NKH affect the growth and development of human stem cells into astrocytes, a type of brain cell, by creating a specific cell line for their investigation.
  • The study revealed that the modified stem cells underwent metabolic changes to adapt, which led to increased growth and a shift in the types of brain cells produced, providing insights into NKH and potential new treatment strategies.
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Background: Persons with achondroplasia develop early obesity, which is a comorbidity associated with other complications. Currently, there are no validated specific predictive equations to estimate resting energy expenditure in achondroplasia.

Methods: We analyzed the influence of body composition on this parameter and determined whether predictive models used for children with standard height are adjusted to achondroplasia.

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Short-term disease forecasting at specific discrete spatial resolutions has become a high-impact decision-support tool in health planning. However, when the number of areas is very large obtaining predictions can be computationally intensive or even unfeasible using standard spatiotemporal models. The purpose of this paper is to provide a method for short-term predictions in high-dimensional areal data based on a newly proposed "divide-and-conquer" approach.

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