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Niemann-Pick disease type A (NPD-A) is a lysosomal storage disorder characterized by neurodegeneration and early death. It is caused by loss-of-function mutations in the gene encoding for acid sphingomyelinase (ASM), which hydrolyzes sphingomyelin into ceramide. Here, we evaluated the safety of cerebellomedullary (CM) cistern injection of adeno-associated viral vector serotype 9 encoding human ASM (AAV9-hASM) in nonhuman primates (NHP). We also evaluated its therapeutic benefit in a mouse model of the disease (ASM-KO mice). We found that CM injection in NHP resulted in widespread transgene expression within brain and spinal cord cells without signs of toxicity. CM injection in the ASM-KO mouse model resulted in hASM expression in cerebrospinal fluid and in different brain areas without triggering an inflammatory response. In contrast, direct cerebellar injection of AAV9-hASM triggered immune response. We also identified a minimally effective therapeutic dose for CM injection of AAV9-hASM in mice. Two months after administration, the treatment prevented motor and memory impairment, sphingomyelin (SM) accumulation, lysosomal enlargement, and neuronal death in ASM-KO mice. ASM activity was also detected in plasma from AAV9-hASM CM-injected ASM-KO mice, along with reduced SM amount and decreased inflammation in the liver. Our results support CM injection for future AAV9-based clinical trials in NPD-A as well as other lysosomal storage brain disorders.

Citral is a mixture of neral and geranial, which are of great interest to the fragrance industry due to its lemon-scented aroma. A newly characterized nerol dehydrogenase of Persicaria minor (PmNeDH) from our recent findings has shown a capacity to convert citral from nerol. Differential gene expression analysis revealed that the expression level of PmNeDH was highly upregulated during early treatment of several stress-related phytohormones i.e. methyl jasmonate (MeJA), salicylic acid (SA) and abscisic acid (ABA). SA and ABA were shown to have a prolonged effect on PmNeDH expression level until second day of treatment. The findings were in agreement with the cis-regulatory elements predicted from the gene promoter. The phylogenetic relationship of PmNeDH with its homologs from the medium-chain dehydrogenases/reductases (MDR) superfamily was also mentioned. In this study, we proposed a possible biological function of PmNeDH gene in P. minor, which might play significant roles in plant defence mechanism.

Singapore is a rapidly ageing society, underpinned by national policies to promote successful and active ageing. Whilst older worker participation in the workforce is encouraged, policymakers are challenged to ensure that work competency is not compromised with any normal age- and/or health-related changes. This paper will briefly outline how policymakers responded to the needs of two subgroups of older workers aged 70 years and above (taxi drivers; crane operators) who desire to continue working in the last two decades. Whilst a mandatory retirement age policy exists for older taxi drivers in Singapore, there is none for older crane operators. Despite this, stricter relicensing protocols were introduced for both types of workers, with active collaboration involving additional occupational therapy services for functional work competency assessments to complement the routine medical fitness screening. Comparisons will be made of these two relicensing frameworks, including the mention of any relevant studies to align with the call of evidence-based practices. In mid-2020, the relicensing policy for older taxi drivers was revised based on findings of a retrospective national database study. Currently, a 4-year national database study on older crane operators aged 70 years and above is being undertaken with preliminary findings to be reported.

Niemann-Pick disease Type A (NPA) is a neuronopathic lysosomal storage disease (LSD) caused by the loss of acid sphingomyelinase (ASM). The goals of the current study are to ascertain the levels of human ASM that are efficacious in ASM knockout (ASMKO) mice, and determine whether these levels can be attained in non-human primates (NHPs) using a multiple parenchymal injection strategy. Intracranial injections of different doses of AAV1-hASM in ASMKO mice demonstrated that only a small amount of enzyme (10 mg hASM/g tissue was reached. In monkeys, injection of 12 tracts of AAV1-hASM resulted in efficacious levels of enzyme in broad regions of the brain that was aided, in part, by axonal transport of adeno-associated virus (AAV) and movement through the perivascular space. This study demonstrates that a combination cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar injection protocol could provide therapeutic levels of hASM to regions of the NHP brain that are highly affected in NPA patients. The information from this study might help design new AAV-mediated enzyme replacement protocols for NPA and other neuronopathic LSDs in future clinical trials.

Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, a well-characterized epilepsy syndrome, is most commonly accompanied by the pathological feature of hippocampal sclerosis. Patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-HS) typically present in childhood to early adolescence. We describe a cohort of patients who presented with their first epileptic seizure in late adulthood with atypical features. We characterized five patients with late-onset MTLE-HS by describing their demographics, electroclinical features, imaging, autoantibody status, and response to antiseizure medication (ASM) therapy. All five patients had their first seizure after the age of 50 with no history of initial precipitating incidents. None of our patients had positive serum or CSF autoantibodies and they have all remained seizure-free for a minimum of two years on ASMs alone. Two patients had motor vehicle crashes associated with seizures whilst three patients experienced seizures in sleep. A milder form of MTLE, previously described as benign TLE, does exist in routine clinical practice. These patients respond well to ASM therapy, but potentially harmful consequences such as motor vehicle crashes can occur in the untreated.

The dataset presented in this article describes microarray experiment of Auxin-binding protein 57, Abp57-overexpressing transgenic rice. The gene expression profiles were generated using Affymetrix GeneChip® Rice (Cn) Gene 1.0 ST Arrays. Total RNA from seedlings tissue of transgenic rice and wildtype, which serve as control were used as starting materials for microarray experiment. Detailed experimental methods and data analysis were described here. The raw and normalized microarray data were deposited into Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) under accession number GSE99055.

Agarwood is a resinous part of the non-timber Aquilaria tree, which is a highly valuable product for medicine and fragrance purposes. To protect the endangered Aquilaria species, mass plantation of Aquilaria trees has become a sustainable way in Asian countries to obtain the highly valuable agarwood. As only physiologically triggered Aquilaria tree can produce agarwood, effective induction methods are long sought in the agarwood industry. In this paper, we attempt to provide an overview for the past efforts toward the understanding of agarwood formation, the evolvement of induction methods and their further development prospects by integrating it with high-throughput omics approaches.

Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) hold promise for gene-specific knockdown in diseases that involve RNA or protein gain-offunction effects. In the hereditary degenerative disease myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), transcripts from the [...]

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a neuromuscular disease caused by a deficiency of survival motor neuron (SMN) due to mutations in the SMN1 gene. In this study, an adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector expressing human SMN (AAV8-hSMN) was injected at birth into the CNS of mice modeling SMA. Western blot analysis showed that these injections resulted in widespread expression of SMN throughout the spinal cord, and this translated into robust improvement in skeletal muscle physiology, including increased myofiber size and improved neuromuscular junction architecture. Treated mice also displayed substantial improvements on behavioral tests of muscle strength, coordination, and locomotion, indicating that the neuromuscular junction was functional. Treatment with AAV8-hSMN increased the median life span of mice with SMA-like disease to 50 days compared with 15 days for untreated controls. Moreover, injecting mice with SMA-like disease with a human SMN-expressing self-complementary AAV vector--a vector that leads to earlier onset of gene expression compared with standard AAV vectors--led to improved efficacy of gene therapy, including a substantial extension in median survival to 157 days. These data indicate that CNS-directed, AAV-mediated SMN augmentation is highly efficacious in addressing both neuronal and muscular pathologies in a severe mouse model of SMA., Introduction Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an autosomal recessive neuromuscular disorder caused by mutations in the survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene and loss of encoded SMN protein (1). The [...]

Niemann-Pick type A disease is a lysosomal storage disorder caused by a deficiency in acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) activity. Previously we showed that storage pathology in the ASM knockout (ASMKO) mouse brain can be corrected by adeno-associated virus serotype 2 (AAV2)-mediated gene transfer. The present experiment compared the relative therapeutic efficacy of different recombinant AAV serotype vectors (1, 2, 5, 7, and 8) using histological, biochemical, and behavioral endpoints. In addition, we evaluated the use of the deep cerebellar nuclei (DCN) as a site for injection to facilitate global distribution of the viral vector and enzyme. Seven-week-old ASM knockout mice were injected within the DCN with different AAV serotype vectors encoding human ASM (hASM) and then killed at either 14 or 20 weeks of age. Results showed that AAV1 was superior to serotypes 2, 5, 7, and 8 in its relative ability to express hASM, alleviate storage accumulation, and correct behavioral deficits. Expression of hASM was found not only within the DCN, but also throughout the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, and spinal cord. This finding demonstrates that targeting the DCN is an effective approach for achieving widespread enzyme distribution throughout the CNS. Our results support the continued development of AAV based vectors for gene therapy of the CNS manifestations in Niemann-Pick type A disease. axonal transport | deep cerebellar nuclei | gene therapy | lysosomal storage diseases | adeno-associated virus