Last week, I received by mail order a new paper by a researcher who has written about 30 papers so far, mainly about T reg cells and Il-10. She concludes Continue reading The desperate struggle for consistency
A new abstract shows
Perinatal data for singleton children who were prescribed anti-asthmatic medication (n = 61 256) were compared with corresponding data for all singleton children born in Sweden … (n = 1 338 319). … Being the first-born child, maternal age above 44 yr, involuntary childlessness for more than 1 yr, maternal smoking during pregnancy, maternal diabetes mellitus of any kind, pre-eclampsia, caesarean section, and instrumental vaginal delivery were all associated with an increased prescription of anti-asthmatic medication during childhood. Continue reading When will they ever learn?
(at least for scientists) is the possibility to annotate PDFs. Sorry, the screenshot originates from one the most stupid papers that I read over the past years but it nicely shows Continue reading The most significant improvement in Snow Leopard
The first GWAS of human vitamin serum D level finds the most important SNPs:
In a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 4,501 persons of European ancestry drawn from five cohorts, we identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the gene encoding group-specific component (vitamin D binding) protein, GC, on chromosome 4q12-13 that were associated with 25(OH)D concentrations: rs2282679 (P=2.0 x 10–30), in LD with rs7041, a nonsynonymous SNP (D432E; P=4.1 x 10-22), and rs1155563 (P = 3.8 x 10–25).
Funny, rs7041 is the same variant Continue reading rs4711, uh rs7041
I have heard it many times on congresses and there seems now even a meta-analysis of a possible preferential maternal transmission of asthma to children. And of course, there are important biological question behind (imprinting? maternal antibody transfer?) but unfortunately this is nothing else than a spurious effect.
The author’s view is well taken that we did the first modern family study 1992 Continue reading Clearly biased: Maternal recall of asthma in the family
at least for a few days ;-) and only for a few frequent traveller scientists – but nevertheless a historical picture. I can’t remember that silence since the movement of the airport München Riem to Erdinger Moos…
Hopefully the auto-loader at the bottom will pick some previous posts here about calcium, vitamin D and allergy; these may be necessary for the background of a new study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine last week
We looked for Cav1 channel expression in Th2 and Th1-cells by real-time PCR and Western blotting. We sequenced the isoforms expressed by Th2-cells and tested whether Cav1 antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (Cav1AS) affected Ca2+ signaling and cytokine production […] mouse Th2 but not Th1-cells expressed Cav1.2 and Cav1.3 channels. Th2-cells transfected with Cav1AS had impaired Ca2+ signaling and cytokine production, and lost their ability to induce airway inflammation upon adoptive transfer.
This highlights again the close connection of the calcium system to immunology. While the earlier TRPM4 story was basically about mast cells, we now arrived at Th2 cells, yea, yea.
It took some time. Science has a paper on Calcium-sensing receptor antagonists abrogate airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation in allergic asthma” by Yarova et al. writing about antagonists of the calcium-sensing receptor
We show that polycations and elevated extracellular calcium activate the human recombinant and native calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR), leading to intracellular calcium mobilization … These effects can be prevented by CaSR antagonists, termed calcilytics. Moreover, asthmatic patients and allergen- sensitized mice expressed more CaSR in ASMs than did their healthy counterparts … Thus, calcilytics may represent effective asthma therapeutics.
I don’t know, if the last statement is really warranted but – as written 5 years ago – there is a super tight connection of calcium and vitamin D to allergy.
… quoting Nature Medicine this week
All of this is well and good, but it will hardly be news to those who have pondered these issues. At the Nature journals, for example, data sharing has long been a requirement for publication, and we have gone as far as directly urging authors to fulfill their commitment to sharing when other researchers have requested our involvement.
Ok, I would like to get this full dataset …
What do all these places share? Spitalfriedhof Basel, Roopkund Lake, Catacombes de Paris and Central Yakuts are all examples where remains are available for genetic studies (even Tutankhamun was undergoing a paternity test recently).
More relevant will certainly be an empirical investigation if reduced selection is leading now to immune disease.
While some of my earlier co-workers continue to praise the achievements of GWAs, some other earlier co-authors now show that the common variants thrown on the current GWA chips are leading to false associations (politely called “synthetic” associations)
We propose as an alternative explanation that variants much less common than the associated one may create “synthetic associations†by occurring, stochastically, more often in association with one of the alleles at the common site versus the other allele. Although synthetic associations are an obvious theoretical possibility, they have never been systematically explored as a possible explanation for GWAS findings. Here, we use simple computer simulations to show the conditions under which such synthetic associations will arise and how they may be recognized. We show that they are not only possible, but inevitable…
The proof comes with a sickle cell anemia study Continue reading True, false, true, false, true, false, false
This week the journal “Allergy” printed a report of three cases where allergic sensitization in preterm infants is attributed to the human milk fortifier Similac.
The product contains: Nonfat milk, corn syrup solids, whey protein concentrate, and MCT oil (fractionated coconut or palm kernel oil) as sources of proteins, fat, and carbohydrate (Abbott Laboratories Pediatric Nutritional Products Guide, DIR/98A08, 2008, Mississauga, Canada).
Not listed above but in the Products Guide are 120 IU/100 ml D3 which may indeed function as a sensitizer.
A book review of “Why we get sick” at tennov.com writes
Bacteria can evolve as much in a day as we can in 1000 years and there are as many bacterial cells in each of our guts as there are people on earth. That even improbable mutations occur with frequency in populations of pathogens gives them a decided advantage […] As Nesse and Williams emphasize, the end of the war is nowhere in sight. The 20th century was the golden age of relief from infection, but it may be over and this may accurately be considered a “post-antimicrobiol era.”
The same fact in Mel Greaves’ writing (p 216)
Natural selection will have operated against individuals who inherited fatal conditions that strike early in life, and for those whose immune systems were bext equipped to restrain the ravages of plagues. The geneticist and polymath, J B S Haldane, was surely correct in suggesting that infections have been the most powerful ‘natural’ selective pressure acting on human populations.
Unaware of the Haldane quote Continue reading Why do we get asthma
It is interesting to see, how journals are trying to increase their market visibility – Nature has becoming famous for their investment in Second Life? Just recently I received an email that JACI – the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology – has now opened an account at Facebook. Continue reading Do we need scientific journals at social networks?
A new allergy study published last month
hypothesized that prenatal vitamin D supplementation could induce tolerogenic DC at birth. To evaluate this hypothesis in an epidemiological setting, we quantiï¬ed the gene expression levels of ILT3 and ILT4 in cord blood (CB) samples of a population-based birth cohort of farm and reference children.
ILT3/IL4 as a marker of tolerogenic DCs may be justified by data published by Chang but not by newer data Continue reading Tolerogenic effects of vitamin D?
Having done lung function testing on hundreds, even thousands of children, I believe that this is not an easy task – it’s not only about abdominal mechanics and airway diameter but also about physical fitness – and let’s be cruel – also about intelligence. Even worse, I remember a long discussion how to adjust lung function parameter appropriately – should we use standing or sitting height? Two new papers large ignore these questions. But read first what the Charge consortium writes Continue reading On the tasseography of lung function genes