Saturday, March 19, 2016

AVC chez un patient de 25 ans atteint d’une maladie de Friedreich

Cyrielle Coignion, Cyril Goizet, Xavier Vandamme, Revue Neurologique, Volume 172, Supplement 1, April 2016, Page A124, ISSN 0035-3787, doi:10.1016/j.neurol.2016.01.293.

L’atteinte cardiaque serait responsable de 59 % des décès chez ces patients. L’idébénone pourrait avoir un effet protecteur en améliorant la fonction cardiaque. L’association maladie de Friedreich et accidents vasculaires cérébraux est possible par le biais d’une cardiomyopathie hypertrophique et d’une FA qu’il est nécessaire de dépister afin de mettre en place un traitement cardioprotecteur.

Both idebenone and idebenol are localized near the lipid-water interface of the membrane and increase its fluidity

Victoria Gómez-Murcia, Alejandro Torrecillas, Ana M. de Godos, Senena Corbalán-García, Juan C. Gómez-Fernández, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Biomembranes, Volume 1858, Issue 6, June 2016, Pages 1071-1081, ISSN 0005-2736, doi:10.1016/j.bbamem.2016.02.034.

"Idebenone is an interesting drug but care should be taken in calling it a coenzyme Q analogue."

Idebenone is sometimes assumed to be an analog of ubiquinone, although their way of interaction with the components of the electron transport chain in mitochondria differs. Whereas ubiquinone-10 carries electrons from complex I and complex II to complex III, idebenone receives electrons from complex I. idebenone shares with ubiquinone the same quinone group, it might also be expected to act as a potent antioxidant, although other studies do not exclude the idea that idebenone may detoxify ROS in a different way to ubiquinone. Since idebenone and idebenol have similar locations, this may explain why this pair does not play exactly the same role as the couple ubiquinone-10/ubiquinol-10 in the mitochondria.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Patent application title: MITOCHONDRIAL PROTEINS CONSTRUCTS AND USES THEREOF

Publication date: 2016-03-17 Patent application number: 20160075745

The method according to claim 19, wherein said functional protein is frataxin, respectively OTC, and said mitochondrial disorder is Friedreich's ataxia or any other disorder associated with deficiency of frataxin or with defective frataxin or, respectively, a disorder associated with a deficiency of OTC or with defective OTC.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

New Clinical Trial: Rosuvastatin (Crestor) in Friedreich Ataxia

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02705547 First received: March 5, 2016

Study Type: Interventional
Study Design: Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: Open Label
Primary Purpose: Treatment

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19103
Principal Investigator: David Lynch, MD PhD

This is an open-label study of Rosuvastatin (Crestor) in patients with FRDA. Study subjects will receive 10 mg of Rosuvastatin daily for 3 months.Daily administration of oral tablets of Rosuvastatin, 10 mg.

Context: Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease of children and adults for which there is presently no therapy. It has previously been reported that patients with FRDA have lower than expected HDL levels, and recent work by Dr. Blair at the University of Pennsylvania has found that serum ApoA-1 levels in FRDA patients are lower than those in controls. ApoA-1 levels are controlled by HMG-CoA activity, which is elevated in FRDA, and we hope to examine whether HMG-CoA levels can be inhibited by giving statins to patients with FRDA. Inhibition of this pathway has been proposed as a treatment for a variety of neurodegenerative disorders, and we will examine if FRDA may be one of them by looking at various biomarkers in the disease.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Frataxin Deficiency Promotes Excess Microglial DNA Damage and Inflammation that Is Rescued by PJ34

Shen Y, McMackin MZ, Shan Y, Raetz A, David S, Cortopassi G. PLoS ONE 11(3): e0151026. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151026

OPEN ACCESS

We hypothesized that frataxin deficiency increases DNA damage and DNA repair genes specifically in microglia, activating them. siRNA-mediated frataxin knockdown in microglial BV2 cells clearly elevated DNA damage and the expression of DNA repair genes MUTYH and PARP-1


Monday, March 7, 2016

Near-infrared spectroscopy for medical applications: Current status and future perspectives

Akikazu Sakudo, Clinica Chimica Acta, Available online 12 February 2016, ISSN 0009-8981, doi:10.1016/j.cca.2016.02.009.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cytochrome c oxidase deficiency, metabolic myopathy, Friedreich's ataxia, mitochondrial myopathy as well as neuromuscular diseases and peripheral artery diseases (PAD) and spinal cord injury can be assessed by NIR spectroscopy to detect abnormal oxygen consumption and vasodilation.

Friday, March 4, 2016

An Overview of Direct Somatic Reprogramming: The Ins and Outs of iPSCs (Review )

Siddharth Menon, Siny Shailendra, Andrea Renda, Michael Longaker and Natalina Quarto; Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2016, 17(1), 141; doi:10.3390/ijms17010141 (OPEN ACCESS)

Current techniques produce disease phenotypes, however, the extent of recapitulating all aspects of the disease is still limited. Overall, the vast potential of iPSCs in cell-based therapeutics, drug discovery and disease modeling is clear, though significantly hindered by the lack of understanding of the long-term risks. Until more is understood about the mechanisms of induced pluripotency and differentiation, and the development of extensive screening procedures for genetic aberrations resulting in stable genomes, the use of iPSCs technology remains inadequate for most translational medicine and clinical applications.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The medical experience of a patient with a rare disease and her family

Roberta Garau. Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases201611:19. DOI: 10.1186/s13023-016-0401-7

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This letter considers the main challenges that people with rare diseases and their families face: delay in diagnosis, lack of appropriate support and information, and impaired access to treatment.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Moving beyond DNA: A brief history of epigenetics

Posted February 18, 2016 in Episona Blog by Mike Karsian

The search for new therapies for Friedreich's Ataxia based on epigenetics is more and more relevant , but, what does epigenetics mean?. In this post we can find a brief informative explanation in layman words about epigenetics, and the chronology of discoveries in which current knowledge is based.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Targeted RNA or BDNF gene transfer protects against frataxin deficiency

Ian Fyfe, Research Highlight: Nature Reviews Neurology (2016), doi:10.1038/nrneurol.2016.19, Published online 26 February 2016

In two recently published studies, the pathological consequences of this FXN mutation have been successfully counteracted in in vitro and in vivo models with the use of different approaches, each with therapeutical potential.

-In the first study, David Corey and colleagues introduced synthetic anti‑GAA duplex RNA molecules into patient-derived cells that had the FXN mutation, this increased expression of frataxin by up to sixfold. They believe that their findings are a starting point for the development of RNA-based drugs, and are looking to take the next step.

-The second study, led by Javier Diaz-Nido, did not involve targeting the FXN gene, but aimed to block the apoptosis. Neurotrophic factors are potent suppressors of neuronal apoptosis, they were able to protect neurons from death triggered by frataxin gene silencing”. Now, they plan to test whether there is a synergy between two gene therapy strategies: one based on frataxin gene replacement and the other based on neurotrophic factor gene delivery

ORIGINAL ARTICLES:
-Katsu-Jiménez, Y. et al. Gene transfer of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) prevents neurodegeneration triggered by frataxin deficiency. Mol. Ther.
-Li, L. et al. Activating frataxin expression by repeat-targeted nucleic acids. Nat. Comm.