Allergy and atopy from infancy to adulthood: Messages from the German birth cohort MAS.

Objective: We present an overview of important results obtained during the first 20 years of the Multicenter Allergy Study (MAS), one of the first and longest-running population-based birth cohorts focusing on asthma and allergy.

Data Source/study Selections: The MAS is an observational population-based allergy-risk enriched cohort of 1,314 newborns enrolled in Germany in 1990. Assessments of various lifestyle and environmental exposures took place at 19 points, including 9 clinical visits for physical examinations and biosampling up to age 20 years.

Eleven loci with new reproducible genetic associations with allergic disease risk.

Background: A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified 99 loci that contain genetic risk variants shared between asthma, hay fever, and eczema. Many more risk loci shared between these common allergic diseases remain to be discovered, which could point to new therapeutic opportunities.

Objective: We sought to identify novel risk loci shared between asthma, hay fever, and eczema by applying a gene-based test of association to results from a published GWAS that included data from 360,838 subjects.

Author Correction: Excitotoxic inactivation of constitutive oxidative stress detoxification pathway in neurons can be rescued by PKD1.

The original version of this Article contained an error in the spelling of the author Álvaro Sebastián-Serrano, which was incorrectly given as Álvaro Sebastián Serrano. This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

Single-Molecule Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) of Circular RNA CDR1as.

Individual mRNA molecules can be imaged in fixed cells by hybridization with multiple, singly labeled oligonucleotide probes, followed by computational identification of fluorescent signals. This approach, called single-molecule RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization (smRNA FISH), allows subcellular localization and absolute quantification of RNA molecules in individual cells. Here, we describe a simple smRNA FISH protocol for two-color imaging of a circular RNA, CDR1as, simultaneously with an unrelated messenger RNA.

Excitotoxic inactivation of constitutive oxidative stress detoxification pathway in neurons can be rescued by PKD1.

Excitotoxicity, a critical process in neurodegeneration, induces oxidative stress and neuronal death through mechanisms largely unknown. Since oxidative stress activates protein kinase D1 (PKD1) in tumor cells, we investigated the effect of excitotoxicity on neuronal PKD1 activity. Unexpectedly, we find that excitotoxicity provokes an early inactivation of PKD1 through a dephosphorylation-dependent mechanism mediated by protein phosphatase-1 (PP1) and dual specificity phosphatase-1 (DUSP1).

Estimating and testing direct genetic effects in directed acyclic graphs using estimating equations.

In genetic association studies, it is important to distinguish direct and indirect genetic effects in order to build truly functional models. For this purpose, we consider a directed acyclic graph setting with genetic variants, primary and intermediate phenotypes, and confounding factors. In order to make valid statistical inference on direct genetic effects on the primary phenotype, it is necessary to consider all potential effects in the graph, and we propose to use the estimating equations method with robust Huber-White sandwich standard errors.

A Transgenic Dual-Luciferase Reporter Mouse for Longitudinal and Functional Monitoring of T Cells .

Adoptive T-cell therapy (ATT) efficacy is limited when targeting large solid tumors. The evaluation of ATT outcomes using accessory treatment would greatly benefit from an monitoring tool, allowing the detection of functional parameters of transferred T cells. Here, we generated transgenic bioluminescence imaging of T cells (BLITC) mice expressing an NFAT-dependent click-beetle luciferase and a constitutive luciferase, which supports concomitant analysis of migration and activation of T cells.

Shared genetic origin of asthma, hay fever and eczema elucidates allergic disease biology.

Asthma, hay fever (or allergic rhinitis) and eczema (or atopic dermatitis) often coexist in the same individuals, partly because of a shared genetic origin. To identify shared risk variants, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS; n = 360,838) of a broad allergic disease phenotype that considers the presence of any one of these three diseases. We identified 136 independent risk variants (P < 3 × 10), including 73 not previously reported, which implicate 132 nearby genes in allergic disease pathophysiology.

Genome-wide association study identifies the SERPINB gene cluster as a susceptibility locus for food allergy.

Genetic factors and mechanisms underlying food allergy are largely unknown. Due to heterogeneity of symptoms a reliable diagnosis is often difficult to make. Here, we report a genome-wide association study on food allergy diagnosed by oral food challenge in 497 cases and 2387 controls.

Comparison of single-marker and multi-marker tests in rare variant association studies of quantitative traits.

In genetic association studies of rare variants, low statistical power and potential violations of established estimator properties are among the main challenges of association tests. Multi-marker tests (MMTs) have been proposed to target these challenges, but any comparison with single-marker tests (SMTs) has to consider that their aim is to identify causal genomic regions instead of variants. Valid power comparisons have been performed for the analysis of binary traits indicating that MMTs have higher power, but there is a lack of conclusive studies for quantitative traits.

Deletion of Nlrp3 protects from inflammation-induced skeletal muscle atrophy.

Background: Critically ill patients develop atrophic muscle failure, which increases morbidity and mortality. Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) is activated early in sepsis. Whether IL-1β acts directly on muscle cells and whether its inhibition prevents atrophy is unknown.

Renoprotection: focus on TRPV1, TRPV4, TRPC6 and TRPM2.

Members of the transient receptor potential (TRP) cation channel receptor family have unique sites of regulatory function in the kidney which enables them to promote regional vasodilatation and controlled Ca influx into podocytes and tubular cells. Activated TRP vanilloid 1 receptor channels (TRPV1) have been found to elicit renoprotection in rodent models of acute kidney injury following ischaemia/reperfusion. Transient receptor potential cation channel, subfamily C, member 6 (TRPC6) in podocytes is involved in chronic proteinuric kidney disease, particularly in focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS).

Genetic association analysis based on a joint model of gene expression and blood pressure.

Recent work on genetic association studies suggests that much of the heritable variation in complex traits is unexplained, which indicates a need for using more biologically meaningful modeling approaches and appropriate statistical methods. In this study, we propose a biological framework and a corresponding statistical model incorporating multilevel biological measures, and illustrate it in the analysis of the real data provided by the Genetic Analysis Workshop (GAW) 19, which contains whole genome sequence (WGS), gene expression (GE), and blood pressure (BP) data. We investigate the direct effect of single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) on BP and GE, while considering the non-directional dependence between BP and GE, by using copula functions to jointly model BP and GE conditional on SNVs.

Role of Cystathionine Gamma-Lyase in Immediate Renal Impairment and Inflammatory Response in Acute Ischemic Kidney Injury.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is known to act protectively during renal ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI). However, the role of the endogenous H2S in acute kidney injury (AKI) is largely unclear. Here, we analyzed the role of cystathionine gamma-lyase (CTH) in acute renal IRI using CTH-deficient (Cth(-/-)) mice whose renal H2S levels were approximately 50% of control (wild-type) mice.

Lhx2 is a direct NF-κB target gene that promotes primary hair follicle placode down-growth.

In the epidermis of mice lacking transcription factor nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) activity, primary hair follicle (HF) pre-placode formation is initiated without progression to proper placodes. NF-κB modulates WNT and SHH signaling at early stages of HF development, but this does not fully account for the phenotypes observed upon NF-κB inhibition. To identify additional NF-κB target genes, we developed a novel method to isolate and transcriptionally profile primary HF placodes with active NF-κB signaling.

Meta-analysis identifies seven susceptibility loci involved in the atopic march.

Eczema often precedes the development of asthma in a disease course called the 'atopic march'. To unravel the genes underlying this characteristic pattern of allergic disease, we conduct a multi-stage genome-wide association study on infantile eczema followed by childhood asthma in 12 populations including 2,428 cases and 17,034 controls. Here we report two novel loci specific for the combined eczema plus asthma phenotype, which are associated with allergic disease for the first time; rs9357733 located in EFHC1 on chromosome 6p12.

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 21,000 cases and 95,000 controls identifies new risk loci for atopic dermatitis.

Genetic association studies have identified 21 loci associated with atopic dermatitis risk predominantly in populations of European ancestry. To identify further susceptibility loci for this common, complex skin disease, we performed a meta-analysis of >15 million genetic variants in 21,399 cases and 95,464 controls from populations of European, African, Japanese and Latino ancestry, followed by replication in 32,059 cases and 228,628 controls from 18 studies. We identified ten new risk loci, bringing the total number of known atopic dermatitis risk loci to 31 (with new secondary signals at four of these loci).

The proepicardium keeps a potential for glomerular marker expression which supports its evolutionary origin from the pronephros.

The proepicardium is the embryonic primordium of the epicardium. This transient structure is essential for cardiac development giving rise to the epicardium and supplying the heart with vascular and cardiac connective tissue progenitors. However, their nature and evolutionary origin are poorly-known.

Calcium-activated potassium channels in ischemia reperfusion: a brief update.

Ischemia and reperfusion (IR) injury constitutes one of the major causes of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The discovery of new therapies to block/mediate the effects of IR is therefore an important goal in the biomedical sciences. Dysfunction associated with IR involves modification of calcium-activated potassium channels (KCa) through different mechanisms, which are still under study.

Mixed messages: Re-initiation factors regulate translation of animal mRNAs.

When ribosomes encounter upstream open reading frames (uORFs) during scanning of the 5' untranslated region (5' UTR), translation of the downstream ORF requires re-initiation. In a recent paper in Nature, Schleich et al. describe metazoan factors which specifically promote re-initiation.

Rare and private variations in neural crest, apoptosis and sarcomere genes define the polygenic background of isolated Tetralogy of Fallot.

Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) is the most common cyanotic congenital heart disease. Its genetic basis is demonstrated by an increased recurrence risk in siblings and familial cases. However, the majority of TOF are sporadic, isolated cases of undefined origin and it had been postulated that rare and private autosomal variations in concert define its genetic basis.

Outlier-based identification of copy number variations using targeted resequencing in a small cohort of patients with Tetralogy of Fallot.

Copy number variations (CNVs) are one of the main sources of variability in the human genome. Many CNVs are associated with various diseases including cardiovascular disease. In addition to hybridization-based methods, next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are increasingly used for CNV discovery.