Blood integrin- and cytokine-producing T cells are associated with stage and genetic risk score in age-related macular degeneration.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) remains a leading cause of vision loss in the geriatric population. There are age-related changes in peripheral blood leukocyte composition, but their significance for AMD remains unclear. We aimed to determine changes in immune cell populations in the blood of AMD patients.

Transcriptome network analysis implicates CX3CR1-positive type 3 dendritic cells in non-infectious uveitis.

Background: Type I interferons (IFNs) promote the expansion of subsets of CD1c+ conventional dendritic cells (CD1c+ DCs), but the molecular basis of CD1c+ DCs involvement in conditions not associated without elevated type I IFNs remains unclear.

Methods: We analyzed CD1c+ DCs from two cohorts of non-infectious uveitis patients and healthy donors using RNA-sequencing followed by high-dimensional flow cytometry to characterize the CD1c+ DC populations.

Results: We report that the CD1c+ DCs pool from patients with non-infectious uveitis is skewed toward a gene module with the chemokine receptor as the key hub gene.

Multi-omics integration reveals a core network involved in host defence and hyperkeratinization in psoriasis.

Objectives: The precise pathogenesis of psoriasis remains incompletely explored. We aimed to better understand the underlying mechanisms of psoriasis, using a systems biology approach based on transcriptomics and microbiome profiling.

Methods: We collected the skin tissue biopsies and swabs in both lesional and non-lesional skin of 13 patients with psoriasis, 15 patients with psoriatic arthritis and healthy skin from 12 patients with ankylosing spondylitis.

cDC2 and plasmacytoid dendritic cells diminish from tissues of patients with non-Hodgkin orbital lymphoma and idiopathic orbital inflammation.

Non-Hodgkin orbital lymphoma (NHOL) and idiopathic orbital inflammation (IOI) are common orbital conditions with largely unknown pathophysiology. To investigate the immune cell composition of these diseases, we performed standardized 29 parameter flow cytometry phenotyping in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 18 NHOL patients, 21 IOI patients, and 41 unaffected controls. Automatic gating by FlowSOM revealed decreased abundance of meta-clusters containing dendritic cells in patients, which we confirmed by manual gating.

The influence of hERG1a and hERG1b isoforms on drug safety screening in iPSC-CMs.

The human Ether-à-go-go Related Gene (hERG) encodes the pore forming subunit of the channel that conducts the rapid delayed rectifier potassium current I. I drives repolarization in the heart and when I is dysfunctional, cardiac repolarization delays, the QT interval on the electrocardiogram (ECG) prolongs and the risk of developing lethal arrhythmias such as Torsade de Pointes (TdP) increases. TdP risk is incorporated in drug safety screening for cardiotoxicity where hERG is the main target since the I channels appear highly sensitive to blockage.

High-Dimensional Profiling Reveals Heterogeneity of the Th17 Subset and Its Association With Systemic Immunomodulatory Treatment in Non-infectious Uveitis.

Non-infectious uveitis (NIU) is a severe intra ocular inflammation, which frequently requires prompt systemic immunosuppressive therapy (IMT) to halt the development of vision-threatening complications. IMT is considered when NIU cannot be treated with corticosteroids alone, which is unpredictable in advance. Previous studies have linked blood cell subsets to glucocorticoid sensitivity, which suggests that the composition of blood leukocytes may early identify patients that will require IMT.