Thursday, March 29, 2012

Research on plants for the understanding of diseases of nuclear and mitochondrial origin

Claudia Spampinato1 and Diego F. Gomez-Casati1,2
1Centro de Estudios Fotosintéticos y Bioquímicos (CEFOBI-CONICET), Universidad
Nacional de Rosario, Suipacha 531, 2000, Rosario, Argentina.
2Universidad Nacional de General San Martín (UNSAM), Av. Gral Paz 5445, San
Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Highlight:
these results allow us to propose Arabidopsis AtFH deficient lines as interesting models for investigate the biogenesis of Fe-S clusters, Fe-S- and heme-containing proteins; as well as for better understanding the FA human disease.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The promise of induced pluripotent stem cells in research and therapy.

Nature. 2012 Jan 18;481(7381):295-305. doi: 10.1038/nature10761.

Robinton DA, Daley GQ.
Stem Cell Transplantation Program, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Children's Hospital Boston and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.

Keywords: stem-cell biology, reprogramming technology, pluripotency, reprogramming factors, personalized regenerative cell therapies, embryonic stem cells, therapeutic potential.

Tandem repeats discovery service (TReaDS) applied to finding novel cis-acting factors in repeat expansion diseases

BMC Bioinformatics 2012, 13(Suppl 4):S3 doi:10.1186/1471-2105-13-S4-S3

Marco Pellegrini 1, Maria Elena Renda 1 and Alessio Vecchio 2
1 Istituto di Informatica e Telematica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Pisa I-56124, Italy
2 Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, Università di Pisa, Pisa I-56122, Italy

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Fuzzy tandem repeats as potential cis-regulatory elements in repeat expansion disorders

In [14] we noticed that the locus associated with the unstable trinucleotide repeat in the Frataxin protein mRNA coding sequence (whose abnormal expansion is cause of Frederich's ataxia) was included in a much longer fuzzy TR, detected using the proposed TRStalker system.

The present research originated from the hypothesis that this fact (a long fuzzy TR covering the unstable locus) could be observed in a large number of trinucleotide repeat disorders. Consequently, FTR could be exposed as a novel cis-regulatory element not yet studied in literature.

We employ the tool TReaDS in order to quickly collect and organize the output of several TR finding algorithms into a single easy to read report in support to this hypothesis.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The role of aberrant mitochondrial bioenergetics in diabetic neuropathy.

Neurobiol Dis. 2012 Mar 9. [Epub ahead of print]

Chowdhury SK, Smith DR, Fernyhough P.
Division of Neurodegenerative Disorders, St Boniface Hospital Research Centre, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

The role of mitochondrial dysfunction in the etiology of diabetic neuropathy is compared with other types of neuropathy with a distal dying-back pathology such as Friedreich ataxia, Charcot-Marie-Tooth ....

Stem cell Research in Friedreich Ataxia

igbmc, Translational Medicine and Neurogenetics
Hélène Puccio, Research Director Inserm

Excellent presentation about stem cells, present research status.

Highlights:
"Regenerative medicine: too early, not scientifically mature"
"CAREFULL: TOO EARLY TO THINK ABOUT THERAPEUTIC APPLICATION"

Monday, March 26, 2012

Drugs developed to treat diabetes, liraglutide and lixisenatide, cross the blood brain barrier and enhance neurogenesis

BMC Neuroscience 2012, 13:33 doi:10.1186/1471-2202-13-33

Kerry Hunter and Christian Holscher

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"Conclusions:
Our results suggest that these novel incretin analogues cross the BBB and show physiological activity and neurogenesis in the brain, which may be of use as a treatment of neurodegenerative diseases."

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Diabetes Mellitus in Children and Adolescents with Genetic Syndromes

Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes ; : -DOI: 10.1055/s-0032-1306330

Schmidt, F.; Kapellen, T. M.; Wiegand, S.; Herbst, A.; Wolf, J.; Fröhlich-Reiterer, E. E.; Rabl, W.; Rohrer, T.; Holl, R. W.; for the DPV-Wiss Study Group and the BMBF Competence Network Diabetes.

Keywords: Turner syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, Friedreich ataxia, Alström syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, Pediatric diabetology.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Interferon gamma upregulates frataxin and corrects the functional deficits in a Friedreich ataxia model

Hum. Mol. Genet. (2012) doi: 10.1093/hmg/dds110 First published online: March 23, 2012

Barbara Tomassini1, Gaetano Arcuri1, Silvia Fortuni1, Chiranjeevi Sandi2, Vahid
Ezzatizadeh2, Carlo Casali3, Ivano Condò1, Florence Malisan1, Sahar Al-Mahdawi2,
Mark Pook2 and Roberto Testi1

1 Laboratory of Immunology and Signal Transduction, University of Rome “Tor
Vergata”, 00133 Rome, Italy
2 Division of Biosciences, School of Health Sciences and Social Care, Brunel University,
Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK
3 Department of Neurology, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Polo Pontino, 04100
Latina, Italy

Importantly,in vivo treatment with IFN increases frataxin expression in DRG neurons, prevents their pathological changes and ameliorates the sensorimotor performance in FRDA mice. These results disclose new roles for IFN in cellular metabolism and have direct implications for the treatment of FRDA.


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Thursday, March 22, 2012

Mitochondrial quality control: a matter of life and death for neurons

The EMBO Journal (2012) 31, 1336 - 1349, doi:10.1038/emboj.2012.38

Elena I Rugarli 1,2 and Thomas Langer 2,3,4
1 Institute for Zoology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
2 Center for Molecular Medicine (CMMC) and Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
3 Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
4 Max-Planck-Institute for Biology of Aging, Cologne, Germany

Keywords: mitochondria, mitochondrial fusion, mitophagy, mitochondrial proteases, neurodegeneration

Monogenic Mitochondrial Disorders

N Engl J Med 2012; 366:1132-1141March 22, 2012

Werner J.H. Koopman, Ph.D., Peter H.G.M. Willems, Ph.D., and Jan A.M. Smeitink, Ph.D.
From the Department of Biochemistry, Nijmegen Center for Molecular Life Sciences (W.J.H.K., P.H.G.M.W.), and the Department of Pediatrics, Nijmegen Center for Mitochondrial Disorders (J.A.M.S.) — both at Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Review Article