Background: Multimorbidity, the co-existence of two or more conditions within an individual at any one time, is globally increasing and forecasted to rise. This poses a significant challenge for current models of healthcare delivery, which are now ill-equipped to meet the future population health needs. Interprofessional collaborative practice is a specific way professionals work closely together and with patients and their families to improve patient outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A primary barrier to curing HIV is the HIV reservoir. The leading infectious cause of death worldwide for people living with HIV is tuberculosis (TB), but we do not know how TB impacts the HIV reservoir.
Methods: Participants in identification and validation cohorts were selected from previously enrolled studies at Groupe Haïtien d'Étude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infections Opportunistes (GHESKIO) in Port au Prince, Haiti.
BMJ Open Respir Res
September 2024
Introduction: Health research bodies recommend patient involvement and engagement in research and healthcare planning, although their implementation is not yet widespread. This deficiency extends to progressive pulmonary fibrosis (PPF), where crucial aspects remain unknown, including causal mechanisms, curative treatments and optimal symptom management. This study addresses these gaps by seeking stakeholders' perspectives to guide research and treatment directions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Reasons for the high prevalence of Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) in sub-Saharan Africa, and risk factors leading to viral reactivation and shedding, remain largely undefined. Preliminary studies have suggested that schistosome infection, which has been associated with impaired viral control, is associated with KSHV. In this study we sought to determine the relationship between active or infection and KSHV shedding.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The primary barrier to curing HIV infection is the pool of intact HIV proviruses integrated into host cell DNA throughout the bodies of people living with HIV (PLHIV), called the HIV reservoir. Reservoir size is impacted by the duration of HIV infection, delay in starting antiretroviral therapy (ART), and breakthrough viremia during ART. The leading infectious cause of death worldwide for PLHIV is TB, but we don't know how TB impacts the HIV reservoir.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFinfection may impair genital mucosal antiviral immunity, but immune cell populations have not been well characterized. We characterized mononuclear cells from cervical brushings of women with and without infection. We observed lower frequencies of natural killer T cells and higher frequencies of CD14 monocytes in infected women.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTetrathiomolybdate (TM) is a novel, copper-depleting compound associated with promising survival in a phase II study of patients with high-risk and triple-negative breast cancer. We sought to elucidate the mechanism of TM by exploring its effects on collagen processing and immune function in the tumor microenvironment (TME). Using an exploratory cohort, we identified markers of collagen processing (LOXL2, PRO-C3, C6M, and C1M) that differed between those with breast cancer versus controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Bone marrow-derived progenitor cells, including VEGFR2 endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) and copper-dependent pathways, model the tumor microenvironment. We hypothesized that copper depletion using tetrathiomolybdate would reduce EPCs in high risk for patients with breast cancer who have relapsed. We investigated the effect of tetrathiomolybdate on the tumor microenvironment in preclinical models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Variations in single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been associated with enhanced drug efficacy and toxicity in cancer therapy. SNP variations in the ErbB2 gene have been identified that alter the protein sequence of the HER2-neu protein, but how these polymorphisms affect prognosis and response to HER2 targeted therapy is unknown. We examined eleven ErbB2 SNPs that alter the HER2-neu amino acid sequence to determine whether any of these particular polymorphisms were associated with increased trastuzumab cardiotoxicity in a case-control study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnn Clin Transl Neurol
September 2014
Background: We sought to define the clinical and ultrastructure effects of ixabepilone (Ix), a microtubule-stabilizing chemotherapy agent on cutaneous sensory nerves and to investigate a potential mitochondrial toxicity mechanism.
Methods: Ten breast cancer patients receiving Ix underwent total neuropathy score clinical (TNSc) assessment, distal leg skin biopsies at cycle (Cy) 3 (80-90 mg/m(2)), Cy5 (160-190 mg/m(2)), and Cy7 (>200 mg/m(2)) and were compared to 5 controls. Skin blocks were processed for EM and ultrastructural morphometry of Remak axons done.
Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of bortezomib plus irinotecan and bortezomib alone in patients with advanced gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) and gastric adenocarcinoma. We also sought to explore the effect of these therapeutics on tumor and normal gene expression in vivo.
Methods: Forty-one patients with advanced GEJ (89 %) or gastric (11 %) adenocarcinoma received bortezomib (1.
Purpose: This phase II study evaluated bortezomib-based secondary induction and stem cell mobilization in 38 transplant-eligible patients with myeloma who had an incomplete and stalled response to, or had relapsed after, previous immunomodulatory drug-based induction.
Experimental Design: Patients received up to six 21-day cycles of bortezomib plus dexamethasone, with added liposomal doxorubicin for patients not achieving partial response or better by cycle 2 or very good partial response or better (≥VGPR) by cycle 4 (DoVeD), followed by bortezomib, high-dose cyclophosphamide, and filgrastim mobilization. Gene expression/signaling pathway analyses were conducted in purified CD34+ cells after bortezomib-based mobilization and compared against patients who received only filgrastim ± cyclophosphamide.
Animal models have demonstrated the critical role of bone marrow-derived VEGFR1(+) hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) and VEGFR2(+) endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in metastatic progression. We explored whether these cells could predict relapse and response in breast cancer (BC) patients. One hundred and thirty-two patients with stages 1-4 BC were enrolled on 2 studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: 3-Aminopyridine-2-carboxaldehydethiosemicarbazone (3-AP) is a novel small molecule ribonucleotide reductase (RR) inhibitor which is more potent than hydroxyurea, the prototype of RR inhibitors. 3-AP enhances the cellular uptake and DNA incorporation of gemcitabine in tumor cell lines. We evaluated the combination of 3-AP plus gemcitabine in advanced biliary tract adenocarcinoma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExp Biol Med (Maywood)
October 2010
Lentiviral vectors derived from the HIV-1 genome offer great promise for gene therapy due to their ability to transduce non-dividing cells and sustain long-term expression of transgenes. The majority of current lentiviral vectors are pseudotyped with the vesicular stomatitis viral envelope (VSV-G). VSV-G equips lentiviral vectors with a broad host cell tropism and increased stability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRearrangements initiating within the well-characterized break-point cluster region of the mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) gene on 11q23 are a hallmark of therapy-related leukemias following treatment with topoisomerase II poisons including etoposide. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) are believed to be the target cell for leukemia-initiating MLL rearrangement events. Although etoposide treatment is sufficient to induce readily detectable MLL rearrangements in primary human CD34+ cells, the majority of cells that gain translocations do not proliferate in culture possibly due to reduced proliferative capacity of most CD34+ cells during normal differentiation [Blood 2005;105:2124].
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIkaros and Notch1 genes are critical to T-cell differentiation through transcriptional activation of target genes and interaction with chromatin remodeling complexes. An Ikaros (Plastic) point mutation inhibits activity of normal Ikaros and Ikaros family members, and leads to T-cell lymphoma in heterozygotes (Plstc/+). Analysis revealed Notch1 activating mutations in 12 of 17 Plstc/+ lymphomas (70%), analogous to those in human T-ALL.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIkaros is a critical transcriptional regulator of hematopoietic cell differentiation. In addition to its effects on the lymphoid system and hematopoietic stem-cell compartment, we have previously shown that Ikaros is also required for normal erythroid development. In this report, we compare Ikaros-dependent gene expression in erythroid cells of mice lacking the Ikaros protein with that of normal mice in purified adult bone-marrow erythroid cells (BMRC).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe details of the molecular events regulating normal human hemoglobin switching and reactivation of fetal hemoglobin in adult hematopoietic cells are unclear. The potential role of sequences between the human gamma- and delta-globin genes (intergenic gamma-delta sequences) in this process has been in question until the recent finding that two patients homozygous for the Corfu deletion, involving the loss of 7.2 kb of the intergenic gamma-delta region upstream of the delta gene, have 88% and 90% fetal hemoglobin, only mild anemia, and no transfusion requirements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral barriers exist to high-efficiency transfer of therapeutic genes into human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) using complex oncoretroviral vectors. Human clinical trials to date have used Moloney leukemia virus-based amphotropic and gibbon ape leukemia virus-based envelopes in stable retroviral packaging lines. However, retroviruses pseudotyped with these envelopes have low titers due to the inability to concentrate viral supernatants efficiently by centrifugation without damaging the virus and low transduction efficiencies because of low-level expression of viral target receptors on human HSC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGene therapy, the replacement of normal human beta- or gamma-globin genes into the hematopoietic stem cells of patients with homozygous beta-thalassemia, is a promising therapy for the future. High-level lineage-specific stable globin expression in transduced cells reinfused into patients in an autologous transplantation setting could be curative, if successful. Previous studies have shown high-level donor chimerism in nonmyeloablated non-thalassemic hosts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To assess the accuracy of a risk stratification that is used at initial assessment to identify groups with increased risk of mortality and requirement for urgent treatment intervention.
Design: Prospective assessment of risk stratification in consecutive patients with acute upper-gastrointestinal haemorrhage.
Methods: Over a 3-year period, 1349 consecutive patients with acute upper-gastrointestinal haemorrhage presenting to a single teaching hospital were prospectively risk stratified before endoscopy and followed up for outcome.