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Zhang posted an update 7 months, 2 weeks ago
Immunodeficiency 10 is an autosomal recessive disorder presenting with iris hypoplasia, muscular hypotonia and nonprogressive myopathy, recurrent bacterial infections, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, hypohidrosis and nail dysplasia caused by the mutation of stromal interaction molecule 1 gene (STIM1). Herein, we present a new case of STIM1 mediated immunodeficiency, carrying a novel frameshift mutation. Our patient presented with nephrotic syndrome, hypotonia, myopathy, recurrent bacterial infections, thrombocytopenia and autoimmune hemolytic anemia. She is now 23 months old and is on steroid, cyclosporine and monthly IVIG. She has had no recent significant infections and is receiving rehabilitation therapy to improve her motor skills. Rare genetic syndromes should be suspected in patients of consanguineous parents, who present with a set of different manifestations. Gathering all the patient’s manifestations together and looking them as one disease should be encouraged.Dystroglycan (DG) is a major cell membrane glycoprotein, which is encoded by the DAG1 gene. α-DG is one of DG subunits, belongs to O-mannosylated protein of mammals and was identified in brain, peripheral nerves and muscle. Dystroglycanopathies are a group of heterogeneous congenital muscular dystrophies, which can result from defective α-DG mannosylation. First line of α-DG glycosylation is catalyzed by protein O-mannosyltransferase family (PMT). In this study, the mutation was identified in the POMT2 gene, which encodes O-mannosyltransferase 2 protein and its mutations can be contributed to dystroglycanopathies. A very rare missense mutation in the POMT2 gene (NM_013382 exon9 c. 1106G>A) was identified by next generation sequencing (NGS) and was subsequently confirmed using Sanger sequencing in both affected siblings. There was no report of this mutation in the literature, therefore, the significance was uncertain. Our findings confirmed the pathogenicity of mutation and expanded the mutation spectrum of POMT2, which will be helpful in further molecular evaluations of muscular diseases.Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a kind of collagen disease and has an acquired autoimmune activation as represented by the production of autoantibodies. CD27 is a type I glycoprotein and a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor family. It binds to the CD70 ligand, CD27-CD70 signaling is implicated in the development of various autoimmune diseases, but its role in the regulation of extracellular matrix expression and its contribution to the phenotype of SSc both remain to be elucidated. This study aimed to investigate the associations between CD27 and SSc in the skins and sera. Immunohistochemistry were performed to determine the expression of CD27 in the skin. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were done to the sera of the 54 patients with SSc and 23 normal healthy controls. CD27 expression was significantly increased in the affected regions of the skin and the sera of patients of SSc. Thereafter, we evaluated the correlation between the serum soluble CD27 (sCD27) levels and the clinical symptoms. The study subjects with increased sCD27 levels had a significantly higher ratio of dcSSc and to showed higher modified Rodnan’s total skin thickness scores (mRSS) than those with normal sCD27 levels. These results suggest that sCD27 levels might be useful for diagnosis of SSc and its severity.A prenatal sonograph revealed a 26-week-old fetus with short limbs and a narrow chest in a 23-year-old woman with a history of fetal skeletal dysplasia. A single nucleotide polymorphism-based chromosomal microarray (CMA) indicated a normal karyotype, and no chromosomal segments with abnormal copy numbers were noted in the fetus. Whole exome sequencing identified compound heterozygous mutations in the DYNC2H1 gene responsible for a lethal type of bone growth disorder, short-rib thoracic dysplasia 3 with or without polydactyly (SRTD3), and revealed a missense mutation c.515C>A (p. Pro172Gln) of paternal origin and a missense mutation c.5983G>A (p. Ala1995Thr) of maternal origin. These variants were further confirmed by Sanger sequencing. To the extent known, the c.515C>A (p. Pro172Gln) mutation is novel for SRTD3, and the site is conserved across species. This study found a novel mutation of the DYNC2H1 gene for SRTD3 and it has increased the number of reported cases and expanded the spectrum of mutations causing this rare disease.Antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and extractable nuclear antigens (ENA) are instrumental biomarkers crucial in the detection of autoimmune disorders (AID) such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Sjogren syndrome, etc.. In the present study, an assessment of the most frequent ANA patterns associated with most detectable ENA that could be used as efficient prognostic markers in the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases was conducted. Data was retrospectively analyzed from AID patients, retrieved from the medical records of King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, KSA, from January 2016 to October 2018 who underwent ANA immunofluorescence of HEp-2 cells and their ENA detection was studied. Of the 453 total patients, 39/55 AID males (71%) and 332/398 AID females (83.4%) exhibited ANA positivity. The most common pattern was speckled S-ANA (32.4%) in females and homogenous H-ANA pattern (25.4%) in males. The histones were found at higher frequency in different ANA patterns. anti-Sjogren syndrome related antigen A (SSA), anti-ribonucleoprotein antibody (RNP-Sm), and histones were observed to be associated with homogenous and speckled nuclear patterns. Frequencies of ENA in all ANA patterns were found significant at p less then 0.05 in males and p less then 0.001 in females. Spearman’s rank correlation of ENA within and among the ANA patterns was non-significant. SSA was significantly correlated with RNP-Sm and Sm at p less then 0.05 and p less then 0.01, respectively. The extractable nuclear antigens SSA, RNP-Sm, and histones were found associated with the S-ANA and H-ANA patterns. These correlations are of relevance for the accurate diagnosis of autoimmune diseases.Matching is a common method of adjusting for confounding in observational studies. Studies in rare diseases usually include small numbers of exposed subjects, but the performance of matching methods in such cases has not been evaluated thoroughly. In this study, we compare the performance of several matching methods when number of exposed subjects is small. We used Monte Carlo simulations to compare the following methods Propensity score matching (PSM) with greedy or optimal algorithm, Mahalanobis distance matching, and mixture of PSM and exact matching. Decursin We performed the comparisons in datasets with six continuous and six binary variables, with varying effect size on group assignment and outcome. In each case, there were 1,500 unexposed subjects and a varying number of exposed N = 25, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, or 300. The probability of outcome in unexposed subjects was set to 5% (rare), 20% (common), or 50% (frequent). We compared the methods based on the bias of estimate of risk difference, coverage of 95% confidence intervals for risk difference, and balance of covariates.