93 results match your criteria: "1 Institute of Interdisciplinary Research (IRIBHM); Université libre de Bruxelles[Affiliation]"

Article Synopsis
  • Oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) with genomic changes have a higher chance of turning into oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), and while tissue biopsies provide genomic data, they are invasive.
  • This pilot study explores the effectiveness of non-invasive brush biopsies in profiling the genomic landscape of a patient with both OPMD and OSCC, revealing that brush biopsies accurately captured 90% of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and matched copy number profiles with tissue biopsies.
  • The results suggest that brush biopsies can identify shared genomic alterations between OPMD and OSCC lesions, showcasing their potential for understanding tumor evolution and ancestry without the need for invasive procedures.
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Alteration of gene expression and protein solubility of the PI 5-phosphatase SHIP2 are correlated with Alzheimer's disease pathology progression.

Acta Neuropathol

June 2024

Alzheimer and Other Tauopathies Research Group, ULB Neuroscience Institute (UNI), ULB Center for Diabetes Research (UCDR), Faculty of Medicine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 808 Route de Lennik, Bldg GE, 1070, Brussels, Belgium.

A recent large genome-wide association study has identified EGFR (encoding the epidermal growth factor EGFR) as a new genetic risk factor for late-onset AD. SHIP2, encoded by INPPL1, is taking part in the signalling and interactome of several growth factor receptors, such as the EGFR. While INPPL1 has been identified as one of the most significant genes whose RNA expression correlates with cognitive decline, the potential alteration of SHIP2 expression and localization during the progression of AD remains largely unknown.

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Background: Pulmonary hypertension and right ventricular (RV) dysfunction are major prognostic determinants in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The underlying pathomechanisms remain unknown. In this context, we sought to study the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension and RV dysfunction in a rat model of obesity-associated HFpEF.

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Safety and efficacy of salvage endoscopic submucosal dissection for Barrett's neoplasia recurrence after radiofrequency ablation.

Endoscopy

September 2024

Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatopancreatology and Digestive Oncology, CUB Erasme Hospital, HUB (Hôpital Universitaire de Bruxelles), Université Libres de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium.

Background: This study evaluated the safety and efficacy of salvage endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for Barrett's neoplasia recurrence after radiofrequency ablation (RFA).

Methods: Data from patients at 16 centers were collected for a multicenter retrospective study. Patients who underwent at least one RFA treatment for Barrett's esophagus and thereafter underwent further esophageal ESD for neoplasia recurrence were included.

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Investigation of the effects of phthalates on thyroid models with RNA-Seq and ATAC-Seq.

Front Endocrinol (Lausanne)

October 2023

Department of Toxicogenomics, GROW School for Oncology and Reproduction, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.

Introduction: Phthalates are a class of endocrine-disrupting chemicals that have been shown to negatively correlate with thyroid hormone serum levels in humans and to cause a state of hyperactivity in the thyroid. However, their mechanism of action is not well described at the molecular level.

Methods: We analyzed the response of mouse thyroid organoids to the exposure to a biologically relevant dose range of the phthalates bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), di-iso-decylphthalate (DIDP), di-iso-nonylphthalate (DINP), and di-n-octylphthalate (DnOP) for 24 h and simultaneously analyzed mRNA and miRNA expression via RNA sequencing.

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Homeostatic PD-1 signaling restrains EOMES-dependent oligoclonal expansion of liver-resident CD8 T cells.

Cell Rep

August 2023

Institute for Medical Immunology (IMI), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Gosselies, Belgium; ULB Center for Research in Immunology (U-CRI), ULB, Brussels, Belgium; Immunobiology Lab, ULB, Gosselies, Belgium. Electronic address:

The co-inhibitory programmed death (PD)-1 signaling pathway plays a major role in the context of tumor-specific T cell responses. Conversely, it also contributes to the maintenance of peripheral tolerance, as patients receiving anti-PD-1 treatment are prone to developing immune-related adverse events. Yet, the physiological role of the PD-1/PDL-1 axis in T cell homeostasis is still poorly understood.

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Article Synopsis
  • The thyroid tissue develops from the ventral pharyngeal endoderm, and defects in its formation lead to congenital thyroid diseases.
  • Recent research has highlighted the key roles of FGF and BMP signaling in specifying thyroid precursors, though their interactions with thyroid transcription factors were not well understood.
  • Studies using zebrafish embryos revealed a population of Pax2a-expressing thyroid progenitors that respond distinctly to FGF and BMP signals, indicating a conserved model of thyroid cell specification across species, including mammals.
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Article Synopsis
  • Cancer cell resistance to therapy leads to high mortality rates among patients, with epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) linked to this resistance.
  • A study using a mouse model revealed that EMT cancer cells show strong resilience against various anti-cancer treatments due to the action of RHOJ, a small GTPase predominantly found in these cells.
  • RHOJ enhances the tumor cells' ability to handle DNA damage from chemotherapy by promoting their response to stress and maintaining DNA repair mechanisms, indicating its critical role in EMT-associated therapy resistance.
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Thyroid-on-a-Chip: An Organoid Platform for In Vitro Assessment of Endocrine Disruption.

Adv Healthc Mater

March 2023

Department of Instructive Biomaterials Engineering, MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine, Maastricht University, Maastricht, 6229 ER, The Netherlands.

Thyroid is a glandular tissue in the human body in which the function can be severely affected by endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Current in vitro assays to test endocrine disruption by chemical compounds are largely based on 2D thyroid cell cultures, which often fail to precisely evaluate the safety of these compounds. New and more advanced 3D cell culture systems are urgently needed to better recapitulate the thyroid follicular architecture and functions and help to improve the predictive power of such assays.

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CODA: a combo-Seq data analysis workflow.

Brief Bioinform

January 2023

Department of Toxicogenomics, GROW School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, 6229 ER Maastricht, The Netherlands.

The analysis of the combined mRNA and miRNA content of a biological sample can be of interest for answering several research questions, like biomarkers discovery, or mRNA-miRNA interactions. However, the process is costly and time-consuming, separate libraries need to be prepared and sequenced on different flowcells. Combo-Seq is a library prep kit that allows us to prepare combined mRNA-miRNA libraries starting from very low total RNA.

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Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma: advances in molecular profiling and targeted therapy.

Curr Opin Oncol

January 2023

Department of Oncologic Medicine, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium.

Purpose Of Review: Anaplastic thyroid carcinomas (ATCs) are rare cancers with a globally very poor prognosis, because of their immensely aggressive behaviour, resulting in predominantly advanced stage of disease at diagnosis. Response to available therapies is still disappointing. Aim of the present review is to illustrate the diverse new strategies under investigation, to improve the poor outcome of these patients.

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Chromosomal instability (CIN) results in the accumulation of large-scale losses, gains and rearrangements of DNA. The broad genomic complexity caused by CIN is a hallmark of cancer; however, there is no systematic framework to measure different types of CIN and their effect on clinical phenotypes pan-cancer. Here we evaluate the extent, diversity and origin of CIN across 7,880 tumours representing 33 cancer types.

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Various surgical methods to prevent postoperative cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leaks during transsphenoidal surgery have been reported. However, comparative studies are scarce. We aimed to compare the efficacy of a fibrin-coated collagen fleece (TachoSil) versus a dural sealant (DuraSeal) to prevent postoperative CSF leakage.

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Severe COVID-19 disease is associated with dysregulation of the myeloid compartment during acute infection. Survivors frequently experience long-lasting sequelae, but little is known about the eventual persistence of this immune alteration. Herein, we evaluated TLR-induced cytokine responses in a cohort of mild to critical patients during acute or convalescent phases (n = 97).

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Cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) is a master integrator that couples mitogenic/oncogenic signaling with the cell division cycle. It is deregulated in most cancers and inhibitors of CDK4 have become standard of care drugs for metastatic estrogen-receptor positive breast cancers and are being evaluated in a variety of other cancers. We previously characterized the T-loop phosphorylation at T172 of CDK4 as the highly regulated step that determines the activity of cyclin D-CDK4 complexes.

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Compound heterozygous null mutations of NOBOX in sisters with delayed puberty and primary amenorrhea.

Mol Genet Genomic Med

October 2021

Fertility Clinic, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Erasme Hospital, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.

Background: Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) is a heterogeneous clinical syndrome defined by a premature loss of ovarian function that associates menstrual disturbances and hypergonatropic hypogonadism. POI is a major cause of female infertility affecting 1% of women before the age of 40 and up to 0.01% before the age of 20.

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Diabetes and Cannabinoid CB1 receptor deficiency promote similar early onset aging-like changes in the skin.

Exp Gerontol

October 2021

Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, 3004-504 Coimbra, Portugal; Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; The Portuguese Diabetes Association (APDP), Lisbon, Portugal. Electronic address:

Background: The cannabinoid receptor type-1 (CBR) is a major regulator of metabolism, growth and inflammation. Yet, its potential role in the skin is not well understood. Our aim was to evaluate the role of CBR in aging-like diabetic skin changes by using a CBR knockout mouse model.

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UTP is a regulator of in vitro and in vivo angiogenic properties of cardiac adipose-derived stem cells.

Purinergic Signal

December 2021

Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, IRIBHM, Université Libre de Bruxelles, ULB, Building C (5th floor), Campus Erasme, 808 Route de Lennik, 1070, Brussels, Belgium.

The ability of cardiac adipose-derived stem cells (cADSC) to differentiate into multiple cell types has opened new perspectives in cardiac cell-based regenerative therapies. P2Y nucleotide receptors have already been described as regulators of adipogenic differentiation of cADSC and bone marrow-derived stem cells. In this study, we defined UTP as a regulator of cADSC endothelial differentiation.

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Objective: To find the genetic etiology of premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) in a patient with primary amenorrhea and hypergonadotropic hypogonadism.

Design: Case report.

Setting: University hospital.

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Background: Long-term maintenance of functional activity of thyroid cells is an essential requirement for basic in vitro studies on the physiology and pathology of the thyroid. An important prerequisite of thyrocytes' functional activity in vivo and in vitro is their follicle organization.

Aim: This study aimed at developing a method of cultivation of functionally active rat thyroid follicles in Matrigel under three-dimensional conditions.

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1q21.1 distal copy number variants are associated with cerebral and cognitive alterations in humans.

Transl Psychiatry

March 2021

NORMENT, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital and Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

Low-frequency 1q21.1 distal deletion and duplication copy number variant (CNV) carriers are predisposed to multiple neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia, autism and intellectual disability. Human carriers display a high prevalence of micro- and macrocephaly in deletion and duplication carriers, respectively.

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The family of P2Y nucleotide receptors is composed of eight members differentiated by their pharmacology and their coupling to specific G-proteins and transduction mechanisms. The laboratory studying these nucleotide receptors at IRIBHM institute (Free University of Brussels) has participated actively in their cloning. We used classical cloning by homology strategies relying on polymerase chain reactions with degenerate primers or on DNA libraries screening with P2Y receptors-related primers or probes, respectively.

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The spreading of alien and invasive species poses new challenges for the ecosystem services, the sustainable production of food, and human well-being. Unveiling and targeting the immune system of invasive species can prove helpful for basic and applied research. Here, we present evidence that a nematode ()-based molluscicide exerts dose-dependent lethal effects on the golden apple snail, .

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Background: While chemerin has been shown to increase proliferation and migration of systemic vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) contributing therefore to the development of hypertension, this remains to be clarified for the pulmonary circulation.

Methods: Expression of chemerin and its three receptors (CMKRL1, CCRL2, GPR1) was examined by immunohistochemistry and RTq-PCR in lungs, pulmonary artery, and thoracic aorta from Wistar rats. Primary cultured rat pulmonary artery and thoracic aorta SMCs treated with recombinant chemerin (tested from 5.

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SCREENED: A Multistage Model of Thyroid Gland Function for Screening Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals in a Biologically Sex-Specific Manner.

Int J Mol Sci

May 2020

Department of Medicine and Surgery-DIMEC, Unit of Biomedical, Biotechnological and Translational Sciences (S.BI.BI.T.), Laboratory of Regenerative Morphology and Bioartificial Structures (Re.Mo.Bio.S. Lab.), University of Parma, 43121 Parma, Italy.

Endocrine disruptors (EDs) are chemicals that contribute to health problems by interfering with the physiological production and target effects of hormones, with proven impacts on a number of endocrine systems including the thyroid gland. Exposure to EDs has also been associated with impairment of the reproductive system and incidence in occurrence of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases during ageing. SCREENED aims at developing in vitro assays based on rodent and human thyroid cells organized in three different three-dimensional (3D) constructs.

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