As the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo illustrates, Ebola virus disease continues to pose a significant risk to humankind and this necessitates the continued development of therapeutic options. One option that warrants evaluation is that of defective genomes; these can potentially parasitize resources from the wild-type virus and may even be packaged for repeated co-infection cycles. Deletion and copy-back defective genomes have been identified and reported in the literature. As a crude, mixed preparation these were found to have limiting effects on cytopathology. Here we have used synthetic virology to clone and manufacture two deletion defective genomes. These genomes were tested with Ebola virus using cell culture and shown to inhibit viral replication; however, and against expectations, the defective genomes were not released in biologically significant numbers. We propose that EBOV might have yet unknown mechanisms to prevent parasitisation by defective interfering particles beyond the known mechanism that prevents sequential infection of the same cell. Understanding this mechanism would be necessary in any development of a defective interfering particle-based therapy.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2020.00159 | DOI Listing |
Genetic modifiers are believed to play an important role in the onset and severity of polycystic kidney disease (PKD), but identifying these modifiers has been challenging due to the lack of effective methodologies. In this study, we investigated zebrafish mutants of , a newly identified ADPKD gene, and observed phenotypes similar to those seen in mammalian models, including kidney cysts and bone defects. Using efficient microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ)-based genome editing technology, we demonstrated that CRISPRants recapitulate mutant phenotypes while bypassing the early lethality of the mutants to allow for renal cyst analysis in adult fish.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArthritis Rheumatol
January 2025
Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a life-long autoimmune disease caused by the confluence of genetic and environmental variables that lead to loss of self-tolerance and persistent joint inflammation. RA occurs at the highest incidence in individuals >65 years old, implicating the aging process in disease susceptibility. Transformative approaches in molecular immunology and in functional genomics have paved the way for pathway paradigms underlying the replacement of immune homeostasis with auto-destructive immunity in affected patients, including the process of immune aging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Epigenetics
January 2025
Faculty of Medicine of TUD Dresden University of Technology, Institute for Clinical Genetics, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus at TUD Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany.
Autosomal dominant CDK13-related disease is characterized by congenital heart defects, dysmorphic facial features, and intellectual developmental disorder (CHDFIDD). Heterozygous pathogenic variants, particularly missense variants in the kinase domain, have previously been described as disease causing. Using the determination of a methylation pattern and comparison with an established episignature, we reveal the first hypomorphic variant in the kinase domain of CDK13, leading to a never before described autosomal recessive form of CHDFIDD in a boy with characteristic features.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Affect Disord
January 2025
Healthy Food Evaluation Research Center, West China School of Public Health and West China Fourth Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China; Food Safety Monitoring and Risk Assessment Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu 610041, China. Electronic address:
Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with gastrointestinal tract (GIT) disorders, while genetic correlation, pleiotropic loci and shared risk genes remain to be explored.
Methods: Leveraging genome-wide association study statistics for MDD (n = 170,756), peptic ulcer disease (PUD; n = 16,666), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GORD; n = 54,854), PUD and/or GORD and/or medications (PGM; n = 90,175), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS; n = 28,518), and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD; n = 7045), we determined global and local genetic correlations, identified pleiotropic loci, performed gene-level evaluations, and inferred causal associations using bidirectional Mendelian randomization.
Results: We found global correlation of MDD with PUD (r = 0.
J Biol Chem
January 2025
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, 76798-7348, USA. Electronic address:
Coupling interactions between the alpha (α) subunit of the polymerase III core (α-Pol III core) and the tau (τ) subunit of the clamp loader complex (τ-CLC) are vital for efficient and rapid DNA replication in Escherichia coli (E. coli). Specific and targeted mutations in the C-terminal τ-interaction region of the Pol III α-subunit disrupted efficient coupled rolling circle DNA synthesis in vitro and caused significant genomic defects in CRISPR-Cas9 dnaE edited cell strains.
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