Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found a sexual dimorphism of depression based on the different expression of a molecule that could be developed as a therapeutic strategy. “There is a big sex difference in depression. Women are much more likely to have depression than men. They tend to have different subsets of symptoms. They tend to respond better to different antidepressants, and the depression tends to be more severe,” Orna Issler, the first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the Nash Family Department of Neuroscience, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told BioWorld. Their project, directed by Eric Nestler, a professor of neuroscience and director of the Friedman Brain Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, had the aim to understand the biology of these sex differences of depression and to find therapeutic targets for it.
Several studies have indicated that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath can be altered by lung cancer and serve as identifiable biomarkers. A limitation of using these VOCs as clinical biomarkers has been the fact that hundreds of such molecules are present in exhaled breath and it is experimentally challenging to monitor the molecular concentration changes of all the VOCs and further use them in lung cancer detection.
In a study published on Nov. 30, 2022, in PLOS One, researchers at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, analyzed the metabolic carbonyl compounds present in exhaled breath of the patients and developed a machine learning approach involving relevant VOC selection and use in cancer patient classification model training.
Alport syndrome (AS) is a hereditary disease affecting type IV collagen that is caused – in 80% of cases – by the COL4A5 gene. In 10% to 20% of AS cases, a mutation cannot be detected.
Recent findings have suggested glycosylated apolipoprotein J (ApoJ-Glyc) levels to be a marker for the diagnosis of myocardial ischemia. Analysis of this marker was performed in a cohort of patients with chest pain suggestive of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) (N=404). ApoJ-Glyc serum levels were analyzed with a novel ELISA assay that targets a specific glycosylated variant of ApoJ (ApoJ-GlycA6). It was found that 291 patients were diagnosed as having a nonischemic event, while 113 were classified as having an ischemic event, 33 as STEMI, 48 as non-STEMI, 27 as unstable angina pectoris and 5 as unclassifiable ACS patients.
Pegylated interferon-α (PegIFNα) is a treatment option for chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients, but it often has undesirable side effects and not all patients respond to treatment. Tripartite motif-containing protein 26 (TRIM26) has been reported to have an impact on hepatitis C virus replication; researchers aimed to investigate the role of TRIM26 in CHB as well as its potential impact on response to PegIFNα in two cohorts of patients with CHB (N=945) treated for 48 weeks with a follow-up period of 24 weeks.
Biallelic mutations in the PYGM gene, which encodes for glycogen phosphorylase, cause McArdle disease, with a few cases documented to have hereditary macular dystrophies (HMDs) as an association. In the current study, a research team at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), in Toronto, aimed to identify the disease-causing variants in an autosomal recessive family with HMD.
Primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG) is characterized by anatomic blockage of the drainage angle of the eye leading to elevated eye pressure and optic neuropathy, and its molecular pathogenesis is still not well studied.
Small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) play a crucial role in RNA splicing and cell functioning. The transcription of these RNAs is initiated by small nuclear RNA activation protein complex (SNAPc), and SNAPC4 is the subunit in charge of SNAPc-DNA binding. Previous studies have found that SNAPC4 deficiency led to decreased expression of these RNAs in animal models.
Researchers from Children's Hospital Los Angeles presented data from a study that linked a homozygous missense mutation in ARSK to a new subtype of the lysosomal storage disease mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS).
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