Individual animals and humans show differing susceptibility to noise damage even under very carefully controlled exposure conditions. This difference in susceptibility may be related to unknown genetic components. Common experimental animals (rats, guinea pigs, chinchillas, cats) are outbred-their genomes contain an admixture of many genes. Many mouse strains have been inbred over many generations reducing individual variability, making them ideal candidates for studying the genetic modulation of individual susceptibility. Erway et al. (1993) demonstrated a recessive gene associated with early presbycusis in the C57BL/6J inbred mouse. A series of studies have shown that mice homozygous for Ahl allele are more sensitive to the damaging effects of noise. Recent work has shown that mice homozygous for Ahl are not only more sensitive to noise, but also are probably damaged in a different manner by noise than mice containing the wild-type gene (Davis et al., 2001). Recent work in Noben-Trauth's lab (Di Palma et al., 2001) has shown that the wild-type Ahl gene codes for a hair cell specific cadherin. Cadherins are calcium dependent proteins that hold cells together at adherins junctions to form tissues and organs. The cadherin of interest named otocadherin or CDH23, is localized to the stereocillia of the outer hair cells. Our working hypothesis, suggests that otocadherin may form the lateral links between stereocilia described by Pickles et al (1989). Reduction of, or missing otocadherin weakens the cell and may allow stereocilia to be more easily physically damaged by loud sounds and by aging.
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N Engl J Med
January 2025
From Médecins Sans Frontières (L.G., F.V.), Sorbonne Université, INSERM Unité 1135, Centre d'Immunologie et des Maladies Infectieuses (L.G.), Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Groupe Hospitalier Universitaire Sorbonne Université, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Centre National de Référence des Mycobactéries et de la Résistance des Mycobactéries aux Antituberculeux (L.G.), and Epicentre (M.G., E. Baudin), Paris, and Translational Research on HIV and Endemic and Emerging Infectious Diseases, Montpellier Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier, INSERM, Montpellier (M.B.) - all in France; Interactive Development and Research, Singapore (U.K.); McGill University, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, Montreal (U.K.); UCSF Center for Tuberculosis (G.E.V., P.N., P.P.J.P.) and the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine (G.E.V.), University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco; the National Scientific Center of Phthisiopulmonology (A.A., E. Berikova) and the Center of Phthisiopulmonology of Almaty Health Department (A.K.), Almaty, and the City Center of Phthisiopulmonology, Astana (Z.D.) - all in Kazakhstan; Médecins Sans Frontières (C.B., I.M.), the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit at University College London (I.M.), and St. George's University of London Institute for Infection and Immunity (S.W.) - all in London; MedStar Health Research Institute, Washington, DC (M.C.); Médecins Sans Frontières, Mumbai (V. Chavan), the Indian Council of Medical Research Headquarters-New Delhi, New Delhi (S. Panda), and the Indian Council of Medical Research-National AIDS Research Institute, Pune (S. Patil) - all in India; the Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research (V. Cox) and the Department of Medicine (H. McIlleron), University of Cape Town, and the Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (S.W.) - both in Cape Town, South Africa; the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium (B. C. J.); Médecins Sans Frontières, Geneva (G.F., N.L.); Médecins Sans Frontières, Yerevan, Armenia (O.K.); the National Center for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, Tbilisi, Georgia (N.K.); Partners In Health (M.K.) and Jhpiego Lesotho (L.O.) - both in Maseru; Socios En Salud Sucursal Peru (L.L., S.M.-T., J.R., E.S.-G., D.E.V.-V.), Hospital Nacional Sergio E. Bernales, Centro de Investigacion en Enfermedades Neumologicas (E.S.-G.), Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo (E.T.), Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (E.T.), and Hospital Nacional Hipólito Unanue (D.E.V.-V.) - all in Lima; Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School (L.L., K.J.S., M.L.R., C.D.M.), Partners In Health (L.L., K.J.S., M.L.R., C.D.M.), the Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women's Hospital (K.J.S., M.L.R., C.D.M.), the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, (L.T.), and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (L.T.) - all in Boston; and the Indus Hospital and Health Network, Karachi, Pakistan (H. Mushtaque, N.S.).
Background: For decades, poor treatment options and low-quality evidence plagued care for patients with rifampin-resistant tuberculosis. The advent of new drugs to treat tuberculosis and enhanced funding now permit randomized, controlled trials of shortened-duration, all-oral treatments for rifampin-resistant tuberculosis.
Methods: We conducted a phase 3, multinational, open-label, randomized, controlled noninferiority trial to compare standard therapy for treatment of fluoroquinolone-susceptible, rifampin-resistant tuberculosis with five 9-month oral regimens that included various combinations of bedaquiline (B), delamanid (D), linezolid (L), levofloxacin (Lfx) or moxifloxacin (M), clofazimine (C), and pyrazinamide (Z).
Ann Am Thorac Soc
January 2025
Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, China;
Rationale: Tobacco smoking is a well-established risk factor for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), yet the influence of early-life tobacco exposure on future IPF risk remains poorly understood.
Objectives: To test the hypothesis that early-life tobacco exposure may elevate the risk of developing IPF, with this effect potentially modified by genetic susceptibility to IPF and mediated through accelerated biological aging.
Methods: Using data from over 430,000 participants in the UK Biobank, we performed a prospective cohort study to examine the associations of maternal smoking around birth and age of smoking initiation with IPF risk.
JAMA Netw Open
January 2025
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, Maryland.
Importance: Sensitivity to environmental stress and adversity may influence lung cancer risk, highlighting a critical link between psychosocial factors and cancer etiology.
Objective: To evaluate whether genetically estimated sensitivity to environmental stress and adversity is associated with lung cancer risk.
Design, Setting, And Participants: Data were obtained from a genome-wide association study identifying 37 independent genetic variants strongly associated with sensitivity to environmental stress and adversity and a cross-ancestry genome-wide meta-analysis from the International Lung Cancer Consortium.
Rheumatology (Oxford)
January 2025
Department of Cell Biology and Immunology, Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine López-Neyra, CSIC, Granada, Spain.
Objectives: COVID-19 and systemic sclerosis (SSc) share multiple similarities in their clinical manifestations, alterations in immune response, and therapeutic options. These resemblances have also been identified in other immune-mediated inflammatory diseases where a common genetic component has been found. Thus, we decided to evaluate for the first time this shared genetic architecture with SSc.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Vis Exp
January 2025
Center for Gender-Specific Medicine, Istituto Superiore di Sanità.
Transgender (TG) people are individuals whose gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not match. They often undergo gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), a medical intervention that allows the acquisition of secondary sex characteristics more aligned with their individual gender identity, providing consistent results in the improvement of numerous socio-psychological variables. However, GAHT targets different body systems, and some side effects are recorded, although not yet fully identified and characterized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!