Publications by authors named "Wataru Morii"

Background: Allergic diseases are major causes of morbidity in both developed and developing countries and represent a global burden on health care systems. Allergic sensitization is defined as the production of immunoglobulin E (IgE) specific to common environmental allergens, and it is an important indicator in the assessment of allergic diseases.

Objectives: This study aimed to clarify the genetic basis of allergic sensitization.

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Background: Intestinal bacteria may play a role in the development of food allergies. This study aimed to analyze and compare the gut microbiota of food-allergic children with that of healthy children of the same age.

Methods: Stool samples were collected from one-and-a-half-year-old food-allergic (FA group, n = 29) and healthy controls (HC group, n = 19).

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Article Synopsis
  • Allergic diseases are highly prevalent globally, yet prior research has not focused on the genetic factors behind sensitization to specific allergen components through genome-wide association studies (GWAS).
  • The study aimed to identify genetic variants linked to immune responses against various allergen components by analyzing participants from the Tokyo Children's Health, Illness, and Development study, measuring IgE levels at age 9.
  • Results indicated significant genetic associations with specific allergen sensitizations, particularly involving genes on chromosomes 14 and 6, marking the first evidence of genetic risk related to allergen component sensitization.
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  • Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is an inflammatory disease with eosinophilic and noneosinophilic types, and the study aims to explore how variations in the nasal microbiome may relate to these forms.
  • Factors such as the eosinophilic nature of CRS significantly affect microbiome diversity and composition, leading to notable differences in bacterial species and functions between patient groups.
  • The study found that eosinophilic CRS patients had distinct microbiomes, with specific bacteria like Fusobacterium nucleatum linked to suppressed immune responses in airway epithelial cells, suggesting a crucial role of the nasal microbiome in CRS pathophysiology.
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COVID-19 has a wide range of clinical presentations, and the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the mortality rate also vary by region and ethnicity. Here, we found that rs12329760 in the gene, a missense variant common in East Asian populations, contributes to protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection. TMPRSS2 is a protease responsible for SARS-CoV-2 entry and syncytium formation.

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Brain tumors affect one-third of all children with cancer. Approximately 10% of children with cancer carry variants in cancer-predisposition genes. However, germline analyses in large cohorts of Asian children have not been reported.

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Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is one of the most common soft tissue sarcomas in children. Germline mutations in cancer-predisposition genes have been detected in approximately 10% of pediatric cancers. However, the genetic background of RMS is still unclear, especially in Asian children.

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Objective: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is one of the most common diseases in Japan. However, several AR patients do not seek optimal treatments at clinics/hospitals. This may affect the patient's quality of life and labor productivity.

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Neoantigens have attracted attention as biomarkers or therapeutic targets. However, accurate prediction of neoantigens is still challenging, especially in terms of its accuracy and cost. Variant detection using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data has been reported to be a low-accuracy but cost-effective tool, but the feasibility of RNA-seq data for neoantigen prediction has not been fully examined.

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Gitelman syndrome (GS) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by alkalosis, hypokalemia, and hypomagnesemia. Although hundreds of genetic variants associated with GS have been reported, many of them are categorized as of uncertain significance in ClinVar. Here, we describe a pediatric GS patient from a three-generation family whose mother and maternal grandmother were asymptomatic.

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Article Synopsis
  • Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways, and while studies have looked at its genetic roots, the role of HLA alleles has been underexplored until now.
  • This study focused on a large group of individuals of African ancestry to investigate associations between HLA alleles and asthma-related traits, using advanced computational techniques to analyze genetics.
  • Although no direct association with asthma susceptibility was found, the study identified a specific HLA allele linked to higher total serum IgE levels, highlighting the potential of advanced computational methods in understanding complex genetic associations.
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Background: Food allergy is a growing health problem worldwide because of its increasing prevalence, life-threatening potential, and shortage of effective preventive treatments. In an outbreak of wheat allergy in Japan, thousands of patients had allergic reactions to wheat after using soap containing hydrolyzed wheat protein (HWP).

Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate genetic variation that can contribute to susceptibility to HWP allergy.

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Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease, and skin barrier defects are often observed in patients with AD. So far, few association studies between FLG loss-of-function mutations and onset of AD in longitudinal studies of early childhood have been reported. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effect of FLG loss-of-function mutations on the development of AD in a longitudinal birth cohort study.

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Background Nasal polyps (NP) are characterized by pseudocysts derived from stromal tissue edema and cause persistent infections in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). A low level of tissue-type plasminogen activator (gene name PLAT) is considered a cause of stromal tissue edema because of insufficient plasmin activation in NP; however, the mechanism regulating PLAT gene expression levels is still unclear. The epigenetic mechanism regulating the PLAT gene expression has been studied in other tissues.

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Background: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a heterogeneous disorder that significantly affects daily activity, work productivity, sleep, learning, and quality of life in all generations. Japanese cedar (JC) pollen is the most common allergen responsible for the development of AR in Japan. AR caused by JC pollen is considered to be a multifactorial inheritance disease that is caused by both environmental and genetic factors.

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