חדשות המחקר
Meir Shamay: Latently KSHV-Infected Cells Promote Further Establishment of Latency upon Superinfection with KSHV (Int J Mol Sci . )
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a cancer-related virus which engages in two forms of infection: latent and lytic. Latent infection allows the virus to establish long-term persistent infection, whereas the lytic cycle is needed for the maintenance of the viral reservoir and for virus spread. By using recombinant KSHV viruses encoding mNeonGreen and mCherry fluorescent proteins, we show that various cell types that are latently-infected with KSHV can be superinfected, and that the new incoming viruses establish latent infection.
Ayelet Armon-Omer, Eti Amir, Saleh Khateeb, Itai Mizrachi, Monia Shalan, Uri Yatzkar: Unique Trans-fatty Acid Profile in Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Front Psychiatry .)
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common developmental disorder in children. Studies suggest an association between fatty acids composition and ADHD pathogenesis. We aimed to investigate whether children diagnosed with ADHD present unique fatty acid profiles in red blood cells (RBC), as compared to children without ADHD
Evgeny Farber, Anaam Hanut, Hagar Tadmor, Ana Ruth, Farid Nakhoul, Nakhoul Nakhoul: Autophagy and Diabetic Nephropathy (Harefuah .)
[Hebrew]
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is the leading cause of end stage renal disease; 40% of the patients worldwide will require replacement therapy after 20 years of DM. Early-stage diabetic nephropathy is characterized by hyper filtration with micro-and macro albuminuria. Later on end-stage renal disease (ESRD) can appear; 40% of diabetic patients develop micro-and macrovascular complications, with increased risk among patients with genetic predisposition, such as Haptoglobin 2-2 phenotype....The recently used new family of drugs SGL2Tis (sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors) reduces the typical glomerular hyper-filtration. Preclinical and clinical studies focusing on SGLT2I treatment have consistently demonstrated a reduction in albuminuria and maintenance of renal function. SGLT2 inhibition may lead to positive molecular changes in podocyte cells and proximal tubule cells by directly affect basal autophagy.
Andrei Braester, Alexander Shturman, Bennidor Raviv, Lev Dorosinsky, Eyal Rosental, Shaul Atar: What a Family Doctor Should Know about Incidental Finding of High Mean Platelet Volume, Metabolic Syndrome, and Pre-diabetes (Isr Med Assoc J . )
Mean platelet volume (MPV), an essential component of the complete blood count (CBC) indices, is underutilized in common practice. In recent years, MPV has drawn strong interest, especially in clinical research. During inflammation, the MPV has a higher value because of platelet activation.
This study verifies whether high MPV values discovered incidentally in healthy naïve patients indicates the development or the presence of cardiovascular risk factors, particularly metabolic syndrome and pre-diabetes.
Khalaf Kridin: Lichen Planus (Front Med (Lausanne) .)
Lichen planus (LP) is a T cell-mediated disease affecting the stratified squamous epithelia of the skin and/or mucus membrane. Histologically, the disease is characterized by a lichenoid inflammatory infiltrate and vacuolar degeneration of the basal layer of the epidermis...
Omry Koren: Reporting guidelines for human microbiome research: the STORMS checklist (Nat Med . )
The particularly interdisciplinary nature of human microbiome research makes the organization and reporting of results spanning epidemiology, biology, bioinformatics, translational medicine and statistics a challenge. Commonly used reporting guidelines for observational or genetic epidemiology studies lack key features specific to microbiome studies. Therefore, a multidisciplinary group of microbiome epidemiology researchers adapted guidelines for observational and genetic studies to culture-independent human microbiome studies, and also developed new reporting elements for laboratory, bioinformatics and statistical analyses tailored to microbiome studies. The resulting tool, called 'Strengthening The Organization and Reporting of Microbiome Studies' (STORMS), is composed of a 17-item checklist organized into six sections that correspond to the typical sections of a scientific publication, presented as an editable table for inclusion in supplementary materials. The STORMS checklist provides guidance for concise and complete reporting of microbiome studies that will facilitate manuscript preparation, peer review, and reader comprehension of publications and comparative analysis of published results.
Mohammad E Naffaa, Fadi Hassan, Avivit Golan-Cohen, Ilan Green, Amir Saab, Ziv Paz: Factors associated with drug survival on first biologic therapy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a population-based cohort study (Rheumatol Int . )
Lack of sufficient head-to-head trials comparing biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), makes the choice of the first bDMARD a matter of rheumatologist's preference. Longer drug survival on the first bDMARD usually correlates with early remission. We aimed to identify factors associated with longer drug survival
Hava Gil-Henn: Inhibition of Vasculogenic Mimicry and Angiogenesis by an Anti-EGFR IgG1-Human Endostatin-P125A Fusion Protein Reduces Triple Negative Breast Cancer Metastases (Cells .)
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive breast cancer subtype with limited therapeutic options. Metastasis is the major cause of TNBC mortality. Angiogenesis facilitates TNBC metastases. Many TNBCs also form vascular channels lined by tumor cells rather than endothelial cells, known as 'vasculogenic mimicry' (VM). VM has been linked to metastatic TNBC behavior and resistance to anti-angiogenic agents. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is frequently expressed on TNBC, but anti-EGFR antibodies have limited efficacy. We synthesized an anti-EGFR antibody-endostatin fusion protein, αEGFR IgG1-huEndo-P125A (αEGFR-E-P125A), designed to deliver a mutant endostatin, huEndo-P125A (E-P125A), to EGFR expressing tumors, and tested its effects on angiogenesis, TNBC VM, and motility in vitro, and on the growth and metastasis of two independent human TNBC xenograft models in vivo
Elon Glassberg: Sub-cutaneous Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine administration results in seroconversion among young adults (Vaccine. )
Route of vaccine administration plays a role in extent and quality of immunogenicity. 790 military personnel accidentally received the first of two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA anti Covid-19 vaccine using a needle intended for subcutaneous administration. A serological blood test (on day 21, prior to the second intramuscular dose) was performed, analyzing whether immunological response was elicited. 98.2% demonstrated seroconversion. IgG titers were negatively correlated with age and did not correlate with BMI. Our results could help reassure providers confronted with a similar mistake and may even imply a possibly new and effective administration route.
Elon Glassberg, Avi Benov: Low-Titer Group O Whole-Blood Resuscitation in the Prehospital Setting in Israel: Review of the First 2.5 Years' Experience (Transfus Med Hemother .)
The Israeli Defense Forces Medical Corps (IDF-MC) implemented the use of low-titer group O whole blood (LTOWB) as the first-choice resuscitation fluid in the IDF airborne Combat Search and Rescue Unit (IDF-CSAR) for aerial evacuation of both military and civilian casualties in June 2018 for injured patients with hemorrhagic shock and at least one of the following: systolic blood pressure <90 mm Hg, heart rate >130 beats/min, deterioration of consciousness without head injury or hemoglobin concentration ≤7 g/dL.
Yasmin Ghantous, Imad Abu El-Naaj: A robust and interpretable gene signature for predicting the lymph node status of primary T1/T2 oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (Int J Cancer .)
Oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) affects more than 30,000 individuals in the US annually, with smoking and alcohol consumption being the main risk factors. Management of early stage tumors usually includes surgical resection followed by postoperative radiotherapy in certain cases. The cervical lymph nodes (LN) are the most common site for local metastasis and elective neck dissection is usually performed if the primary tumor thickness is greater than 3.5 mm. However, postoperative histological examination often reveals that many patients with early stage disease are negative for neck nodal metastasis, posing a pressing need for improved risk stratification to either avoid over-treatment or prevent the disease progression. To this end, we aimed to identify a primary tumor gene signature that can accurately predict cervical LN metastasis in patients with early stage OSCC.
Sondra Turjeman, Omry Koren: ARGuing the case for (or against) probiotics (Trends Microbiol .)
Antibiotic resistance is one of the leading medical challenges with which we are currently faced. Antibiotics, while powerful medical tools, also wreak havoc on the endogenous microbiota. Many believe that probiotics can restore the microbiota following antibiotic treatment and might even suppress the spread of antibiotic-resistance genes, but a recent study (Montassier et al.) suggests otherwise.
Boris Fichtman, Amnon Harel: Generation and characterization of iPSC lines from two nuclear envelopathy patients with a homozygous nonsense mutation in the TOR1AIP1 gene (Stem Cell Res . )
AP1 is an inner nuclear membrane protein encoded by TOR1AIP1. A homozygous c.961C > T loss of function mutation in TOR1AIP1 that affects both isoforms of LAP1 was recently described. This mutation leads to the development of a severe multisystemic nuclear envelopathy syndrome. Here we describe the generation and characterization of two human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) lines derived from skin fibroblasts of two patients carrying the homozygous c.961C > T mutation. These novel lines can be used as a powerful tool to investigate the molecular mechanism by which LAP1 deficiency leads to the development of this severe hereditary disorder.