Publications by authors named "Wouters C"

SARS-CoV-2 infection poses a major threat to public health, and understanding the mechanism of viral replication and virion release would help identify therapeutic targets and effective drugs for combating the virus. Herein, we identified E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase Itchy homolog (ITCH) as a central regulator of SARS-CoV-2 at multiple steps and processes. ITCH enhances the ubiquitination of viral envelope and membrane proteins and mutual interactions of structural proteins, thereby aiding in virion assembly.

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Unlabelled: Chronic non-bacterial osteomyelitis (CNO) is caused by aseptic inflammation of bones, primarily driven by the innate immune system. CNO may display different clinical presentations (acute vs chronic, uni- vs multifocal) and is accompanied by other inflammatory disorders in up to a third of patients. Once considered a rare disorder, it has become clear that many patients were underdiagnosed.

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Mevalonate kinase deficiency (MKD), a rare auto-inflammatory disorder, arises from mutations in the gene, disrupting isoprenoid biosynthesis, and affecting cellular processes. This comprehensive review provides an updated perspective on MKD, including its aetiology, pathogenesis, diagnostic modalities, and therapeutic strategies. Based on recent research and clinical advances, our objective is to bridge the knowledge gaps in the 2015 SHARE guidelines.

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Purpose: To review the existing literature to evaluate the utility of insulin eye drops as a treatment for neurotrophic-related epithelial defects.

Methods: A comprehensive literature search of Medline, Embase, and Web of Science and additional manual searches were conducted using relevant keywords. All articles published from January 2005 to January 2024 were examined.

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  • Hypoglycin A (HGA) and methylenecyclopropylglycine (MCPrG) are harmful compounds from certain plants that cause atypical myopathy (AM) in horses by disrupting energy metabolism.
  • The study developed a zebrafish embryo model to test the toxicity of these compounds and found that HGA and its metabolite had lethal effects, while MCPrG did not from concentrations tested.
  • Notable increases in specific metabolic compounds were observed post-exposure, and glycine and carnitine were found to be effective in reducing mortality, indicating the potential of the zebrafish model for screening AM treatments.
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Macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) exemplifies a severe cytokine storm disorder with liver inflammation. In the liver, classical natural killer (cNK) cells and liver-resident type 1 innate lymphoid cells (ILC1s) dominate the ILC population. Thus far, research has primarily focused on the corresponding role of cNK cells.

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SARS-CoV-2 infection of immunocompromised individuals often leads to prolonged detection of viral RNA and infectious virus in nasal specimens, presumably due to the lack of induction of an appropriate adaptive immune response. Mutations identified in virus sequences obtained from persistently infected patients bear signatures of immune evasion and have some overlap with sequences present in variants of concern. We characterized virus isolates obtained greater than 100 days after the initial COVID-19 diagnosis from two COVID-19 patients undergoing immunosuppressive cancer therapy, wand compared them to an isolate from the start of the infection.

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Unlabelled: Systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA) and adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) are considered the same disease, but a common approach for diagnosis and management is still missing.

Methods: In May 2022, EULAR and PReS endorsed a proposal for a joint task force (TF) to develop recommendations for the diagnosis and management of sJIA and AOSD. The TF agreed during a first meeting to address four topics: similarity between sJIA and AOSD, diagnostic biomarkers, therapeutic targets and strategies and complications including macrophage activation syndrome (MAS).

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Unlabelled: Solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) suffer more frequent and more severe infections due to their compromised immune responses resulting from immunosuppressive treatments designed to prevent organ rejection. Pharmacological immunosuppression can adversely affect immune responses to vaccination. A cohort of kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) received their third dose of ancestral, monovalent COVID-19 vaccine in the context of a clinical trial and antibody responses to the vaccine strain, as well as to Omicron variants BA.

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  • Hereditary C1q deficiency (C1QDef) is a rare genetic disorder that disrupts the complement system and can cause symptoms similar to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
  • A study of 12 genetically confirmed C1QDef patients showed elevated expression of interferon-stimulated genes and high levels of interferon alpha in their blood and cerebrospinal fluid, indicating significant immune dysfunction.
  • Treatment with Janus-kinase inhibitors had mixed results, with one patient improving while others continued to struggle with their condition, highlighting the complexity of managing C1QDef.
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Background: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) refers to a heterogeneous group of rheumatic conditions in children. Novel drugs have greatly improved disease outcomes; however, outcomes are impacted by limited awareness of the importance of early diagnosis and adequate treatment, and by differences in access across health systems. As a result, patients with JIA continue to be at risk for short- and long-term morbidity, as well as impacts on virtually all aspects of life of the child and family.

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Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) comprises a broad spectrum of life-threatening cytokine storm syndromes, classified into primary (genetic) or secondary (acquired) HLH. The latter occurs in a variety of medical conditions, including infections, malignancies, autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases, acquired immunodeficiency, and metabolic disorders. Despite recent advances in the field, the pathogenesis of secondary HLH remains incompletely understood.

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Virus detection is highly important; the last several years, since the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, have highlighted a weakness in the field: the need for highly specialized and complex methodology for sensitive virus detection, which also manifests as sacrifices in limits of detection made to achieve simple and rapid sensing. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has the potential to fill this gap, and two novel approaches to the development of a detection scheme are presented in this study. First, the physical entrapment of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and additional virus-like particles through substrate design to localize virus analytes into SERS hotspots is explored.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study evaluates the safety, tolerability, and effectiveness of tofacitinib in children and adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) in a long-term extension (LTE) study.
  • Out of 225 patients treated with tofacitinib, a high percentage experienced adverse events (AEs), although serious AEs were relatively low, with a focus on infection rates and disease activity.
  • Results showed significant improvement in disease activity scores over time, with a notable increase in patients achieving inactive disease status after 48 months of treatment.
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Objectives: The aim of the study was to establish an international multicenter registry to collect data on patients with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), in order to highlight a relationship between clinical presentation, age of onset and geographical distribution on the clinical outcome.

Study Design: Multicenter retrospective study involving different international societies for rare immunological disorders.1009 patients diagnosed with MIS-C between March and September 2022, from 48 centers and 22 countries were collected.

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In this work, we investigate the growth of monoclinic β-(InGa)O alloys on top of (010) β-GaO substrates via plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. In particular, using different (reflection high-energy electron diffraction) and (atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, and transmission electron microscopy) characterization techniques, we discuss (i) the growth parameters that allow for In incorporation and (ii) the obtainable structural quality of the deposited layers as a function of the alloy composition. In particular, we give experimental evidence of the possibility of coherently growing (010) β-(InGa)O layers on β-GaO with good structural quality for up to ≈ 0.

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  • Scientists worked on a special test called JDMAI to help doctors understand how active a disease called juvenile dermatomyositis is in kids.
  • They looked at information from 139 kids during a study and found numbers (cut-offs) that show different levels of the disease: inactive, low, moderate, and high activity.
  • The test is good at showing the disease's status by comparing it to how the kids feel and how they do in daily life, and it's ready to be used in hospitals and research.
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Background: Cytology of airway samples is sensitive for diagnosis of exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage (EIPH), but the association between tracheal wash (TW) and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine whether diagnosis of EIPH, using haemosiderophages/macrophages (H/M) ratio, differs when based on TW or BALF.

Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 102 standardbred horses in training.

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The plastisphere is a newly recognized ecosystem. However, its interaction with early life stages of aquatic vertebrates is a multifaceted issue that requires further research. This study investigated the involvement of bacteria in shaping realistic microplastics hazards in zebrafish Danio rerio embryos.

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Thoroughbred (TB) racehorses undergo rigorous conditioning programs to optimize their physical and mental capabilities through varied exercise sessions. While conventional investigations focus on limited hematological and biochemical parameters, this field study employed untargeted metabolomics to comprehensively assess metabolic responses triggered by exercise sessions routinely used in TB conditioning. Blood samples were collected pre- and post-exercise from ten racehorses, divided into two groups based on exercise intensity: high intensity ( = 6, gallop at ± 13.

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We report the fatal case of a 20-year-old woman with refractory adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) accompanied by fulminant macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) and atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS). Anakinra and tocilizumab temporarily controlled AOSD. In 2021, she presented to ICU with generalized tonic-clonic seizure, lymphocytic aseptic meningitis, and acute kidney injury.

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Article Synopsis
  • Accurate and standardized phenotypic descriptions are crucial for diagnosing rare diseases, leading to the development of the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) system, which organizes these descriptions hierarchically.
  • This study investigates whether improved HPO terms for systemic autoinflammatory diseases (SAIDs) enhance the identification of these conditions among patients.
  • Results indicate that HPO curation significantly boosted correct SAID diagnoses from 66% to 86% and streamlined genome diagnostics, reducing the average candidate diseases for interpretation from 35 to 2.
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Biologic and targeted synthetic DMARDs (b/tsDMARDs) have revolutionized the management of multiple rheumatic inflammatory conditions. Among these, polyarticular JIA (pJIA) and RA display similarities in terms of disease pathophysiology and response pattern to b/tsDMARDs. Indeed, the therapeutic efficacy of novel targeted drugs is variable among individual patients, in both RA and pJIA.

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Background: Systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (systemic JIA) is a severe disease with both systemic and joint inflammation. This study aims to identify predictors of disease evolution within the systemic JIA population enrolled in the Juvenile Inflammatory Rheumatism cohort (JIRcohort).

Methods: Observational patient cohort study with 201 recruited children from 4 countries (3 European, 1 North Africa) from 2005 until 2019, using retrospectively (2005-2015) and prospectively (2015-2019) routine care collected data.

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An adolescent boy presented to the clinic with upper chest pain, anterior neck pain and difficulty swallowing 3 weeks following a COVID-19 infection. The pain started a few days before while participating in football practice. He reported no significant trauma or specific incidence when the pain began.

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