1,721,063 research outputs found
Merkel Cell Polyomavirus role in Merkel Cell Carcinoma
No full textEn 2008, le génome d’un nouveau virus a été caractérisé au sein d’un cancer cutané rare survenant préférentiellement chez l’immunodéprimé, le carcinome de Merkel. Ce nouveau virus appartenait à la famille des Polyomaviridae qui comprend des virus dont le caractère cancérigène chez l’animal est avéré depuis plus de 50 ans. Dénommé Polyomavirus de Merkel puisqu’il semblait lié à la survenue du cancer du même nom, il constituait le premier Polyomavirus impliqué de manière consistante dans un cancer humain. Cette implication reposant sur une étude unique limitée à 10 cas, l’objectif de notre travail de thèse était de confirmer le rôle étiologique du Polyomavirus de Merkel dans le carcinome de Merkel.Nous avons montré que le génome du Polyomavirus de Merkel était présent dans les trois quarts des cas de carcinome de Merkel, mais également que le virus infecte la population générale de manière quasi-ubiquitaire et de nombreux tissus en dehors de la peau. Les faits que chez les sujets atteints de carcinome de Merkel, l’ADN viral soit présent à des taux décelables de manière chronique dans différents tissus et que les titres d’anticorps sériques spécifiques du virus soient élevés suggèrent que ces sujets développent une infection chronique active. Celle-ci pourrait faciliter la survenue de mutations et d’intégrations de l’ADN viral qui sont spécifiquement associées aux carcinomes de Merkel. Ces modifications secondaires du génome viral aboutissent à la production d’oncoprotéines virales par les cellules tumorales, mais à l’abolition des capacités réplicatives donc lytiques du virus et constitueraient ainsi le support de la transformation tumorale.Nucleotidic sequences defining the genome of a new virus, the Merkel Cell Polyomavirus, has been discovered in 2008 in Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare form of cutaneous cancer developing mostly in immunosupressed individuals. Whereas this new virus belongs to the Polyomaviridae family, which includes known oncogenic viruses in animals, it was the first study consistently implicating a Polyomavirus in human cancer. Because scientific arguments were only based on a ten-case-single report, the primary goal of our work was to confirm the role of the Merkel Cell Polyomavirus in Merkel Cell Carcinoma.Our work demonstrated that Merkel Cell Polyomavirus DNA was indeed present in three quarters of Merkel Cell Carcinoma cases, but also that Merkel Cell Polyomavirus was a near ubiquitous virus infecting various tissues among healthy individuals. Nonetheless, viral DNA is chronically detected in various tissues from Merkel Cell Carcinoma cases, which harbour elevated seric titters of specific antibodies. Those facts suggest that Merkel Cell Polyomavirus develop an active and chronic infection that could favour genomic mutation and integration events specifically associated to Merkel Cell Carcinoma. Those modifications, inducing both expression of truncated viral oncoproteins and abolishment of cell lysis mediated by viral replication, may support cell transformation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
JC polyomavirus genomic rearrangements in progressive multifocal leucoencephalopathy
No full textLe polyomavirus humain JC (JCV) est un virus ubiquitaire qui infecte de façon persistante et asymptomatique la majorité de la population, entrainant occasionnellement une excrétion urinaire. Dans le contexte d'immunodépression, le JCV peut infecter les cellules gliales du système nerveux central (SNC), provoquant une maladie démyélinisante fatale, la Leucoencéphalopathie Multifocale Progressive (LEMP). Le génome du JCV est un ADN double brin circulaire de 5 kb composé de 2 régions codantes opposées -précoce et tardive- séparées par une région non codante de contrôle (NCCR). En comparaison à la séquence NCCR urinaire archétypale les séquences obtenues du SNC de patients atteints de LEMP sont constituées de réarrangements dont le rôle n'est pas entièrement connu. Pour étudier l'effet de ces réarrangements en culture cellulaire, la technologie des minicercles d'ADN a été adaptée afin de produire 4 vecteurs bidirectionnels exprimant deux gènes rapporteurs fluorescents sour le contrôle d'une NCCR archétypale (NCCR at) ou réarrangée (NCCR rr) comportant une délétion de 66 pb. Après transfection de cellules humaines gliales U-87MG et rénales HEK293, l'expression des rapporteurs à partir des NCCR at et rr a été mesurée par cytométrie en flux. Dans les cellules HEK293, l'expression des régions codantes précoce et tardive à partir de la NCCR at est similaire tandis que dans les cellules U-87MG, l'expression précoce est 2.1 fois supérieure à l'expression tardive (p <0.001). Par ailleurs, l'expression tardive à partir de la NCCR rr est similaire à l'expression précoce dans les cellules HEK293 et U-87MG. Ces résultats suggèrent que la délétion de 66 pb restaure l'expression tardive dans la lignée de glioblastome. L'utilisation d'un modèle in vitro a permis de mettre en évidence un lien particulier entre la séquence NCCR et l'expression dépendant du type cellulaire. En plus de la variabilité inter compartiment déjà décrite pour un même patient atteint de LEMP, la variabilité intra compartiment a été évaluée au moyen d'une technique de « single molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing » à partir de 23 liquides céphalorachidiens (LCR), 1 biopsie cérébrale et 19 prélèvements urinaires de patients atteints de LEMP ainsi que 5 prélèvement urinaires de patients non atteints de LEMP. L'ensemble du génome du JCV a été amplifié en 2 fragments chevauchants aux deux extrémités, chacun constitué de la NCCR et de l'une ou l'autre des régions codantes. Les amplicons ont été séquencés par la technique SMRT PacBio. L'analyse phylogénétique montre une répartition des souches cérébrales parmi 6 génotypes différents, révélant l'absence de pathogénicité spécifique de type. Les séquences NCCR cérébrales comportent diverses délétions touchant principalement les sections b, d, et f ainsi que des insertions des sections c et e dupliquées. Chez la majorité des patients atteints de LEMP (18/23), la population virale cérébrale est composée d'au moins 2 formes de NCCR distinctes dont la structure suggère un lien d'apparition chronologique entre ces deux variants. Par ailleurs, des substitutions d'acide aminé au niveau de 7 emplacements déjà décrits dans la protéine VP1 ont été identifiées exclusivement dans les souches cérébrales. Hormis plusieurs mutations en rapport avec des polymorphismes de souches, 2 nouvelles substitutions ont été observées à partir du LCR de deux patients différents situées respectivement dans le domaine hélicase de la séquence AgLT (Tyr407Asn) et dans le domaine N-terminal du gène VP2 (Pro65Ala). Ces mutations pourraient jouer un rôle dans la pathogénicité en modifiant les capacités réplicatives virales, en créant un changement de structure de la particule virale ou en favorisant l'échappement à la réponse immune. Ce travail fournit un argument supplémentaire en faveur de l'implication des réarrangements de la NCCR dans la neuropathogénicité du JCV et apporte un éclairage nouveau sur les populations virales associées à la LEMP.JC Polyomavirus (JCV) is a ubiquitous human virus which causes asymptomatic persistent infections, and occasional urine shedding. In immune depression conditions, JCV causes a fatal disease, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), by infecting oligodendroglial cells of the central nervous system (CNS). The JCV double-stranded circular 5 kb genome is composed of two opposite coding regions - early and late - transcribed from opposite strands of DNA, and separated by the regulator non-coding control region (NCCR). The hallmark of NCCR prototype sequences recovered from PML brain lesions is the presence of rearrangements (rr) of unknown function, compared with urine archetype (at) NCCR sequences. To analyse the effects of such mutations on early and late expression in tissue-specific cultured cells, we produced bidirectional reporter vectors expressing two distinct fluorescent reporters under control of either rr or at JCV NCCR. We adapted the technology involving DNA circles devoid of bacterial plasmid backbone and generated four expression vector maxicircles, to investigate the effects of a single 66 bp deletion differentiating rr and at NCCR. After transfection of U-87MG (human glioblastoma cell line) and HEK293 (human kidney cell line), fluorescent reporter expressions from at and rr NCCR were analysed by cytometry analysis. In HEK293 cells, early and late expressions from at NCCR were similar, whereas in U-87 MG cells, early expression was 2.1-fold higher than late expression (p <0.001, Welch's t-test). This suggests that late expression from at NCCR is impaired in this glioblastoma cell line. Interestingly, late expression from mutated rr NCCR was similar to early expression in both HEK293 and U-87 MG cells, indicating that the 66 bp deletion restored late expression in the glioblastoma cell line. By using this in vitro model, we evidenced a relevant link between JCV NCCR sequence and cell-type dependent expression. In addition to the inter-compartment variability within patients, we further investigated the previously reported intra-compartment variability. By using a single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing technology (PacBio, Pacific Biosciences) in order to obtain 3 kb amplicon sequences in a single read, we analysed precisely the JCV genomic populations in 23 cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), 1 cerebral biopsy (CB) and 19 urine samples of PML patients and 5 urine samples from non PML patients. JCV full-length genome was amplified in 2 overlapping opposite fragments, each encompassing the NCCR and either the early or the late coding sequence. Phylogenetic analysis revealed distribution of PML strains among 6 distinct genotypes, suggesting absence of specific pathogenic JCV genotype. PML JCV NCCR from cerebral samples displayed various deletions affecting mainly b, d and f sections and insertions of duplicated c and e sections. In 18/23 cerebral samples, intra compartment variability consisted in detection of at least two JCV variants and suggested a chronological emergence relationship between the two rearranged forms. In VP1, previously reported aminoacid substitutions at 7 distinct positions of sialic acid binding regions and antigenic epitopes were observed exclusively in cerebral strains. Apart single nucleotide polymorphisms evidenced over the whole viral genome, we observed, in two distinct PML CSF strains, two novel missense mutations, located in the helicase domain of LTAg sequence (Tyr407Asn) and in the N terminal domain of VP2 coding gene (Pro65Ala) respectively. These mutations could play a role in PML pathogenesis by modifying viral and/or cellular replication and transcription, by changing viral particle conformational structure and by immune response escape. This work supports the role of JCV NCCR rearrangements in PML neuropathogenesis and provides further insights in the genesis of neurotropic strains in PML lesions
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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