Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Publisher : Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins, c1950-. Latest Publisher : Bethesda, MD : American Association of Immunologists
Résumé : International audience
Hepatic periportal fibrosis, which affects 5–10% of subjects infected by Schistosoma mansoni, is caused by the T cell-dependent granuloma that develop around schistosome eggs. Experimental models of infection have shown that granuloma and fibrosis are tightly regulated by cytokines. However, it is unknown why advanced periportal fibrosis occurs only in certain subjects. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the cytokine response of S. mansoni-infected subjects with advanced liver disease in an attempt to relate susceptibility to periportal fibrosis with an abnormal production of cytokines that regulate granuloma and fibrosis. Fibrosis was evaluated by ultrasound on 795 inhabitants of a Sudanese village in which S. mansoni is endemic: advanced periportal fibrosis was observed in 12% of the population; 35% of the affected subjects exhibited signs of portal hypertension. Age (odds ratio (OR), 11.5), gender (OR, 4.2), and infection levels (OR, 2.2) were significantly (p < 0.01) associated with hepatic fibrosis. Cytokines produced by egg-stimulated blood mononuclear cells from 99 subjects were measured (75 with no or mild fibrosis; 24 subjects with advanced fibrosis). Multivariate analysis of cytokine levels showed that high IFN-γ levels were associated with a marked reduction of the risk of fibrosis (p = ‫OR, 0.1); in contrast, high TNF-α levels were associated with an increased risk (p = 0.05; OR, 4.6) of periportal fibrosis. Moreover, infection levels were negatively associated with IFN-γ production. These results with observations in experimental models strongly suggest that IFN-γ plays a key role in the protection of S. mansoni-infected patients against periportal fibrosis, whereas TNF-α may aggravate the disease.
ISSN: 0022-1767

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/
hal-01211587
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01211587
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01211587/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01211587/file/929.full.pdf
DOI : 10.4049/jimmunol.169.2.929

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Landes Bioscience
Résumé : International audience
In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. A key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process vs. those that measure flux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process); thus, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation needs to be differentiated from stimuli that result in increased autophagic activity, defined as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (in most higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the field understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field.
Autophagy

hal-00735751
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00735751
PUBMED : 22966490

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé :  
Improvement of wood quality related traits is currently hampered by costly chemical and technological assays and the necessity to wait until the trees are nearly mature to evaluate wood properties. The availability of a vast quantity of genomic data opens now a new avenue to identify early selection criteria based on molecular information and therefore increase selection efficiency. Association mapping is becoming a method of choice to identify QTN (quantitative trait nucleotide) that contribute to complex trait variation. The implementation of this approach requires on the one hand knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying trait variation and polymorphism within candidate genes, and on the other hand the availability of phenotypically well characterized genetic material. We are developing this strategy in the frame of the French maritime pine breeding program, an economically important forest tree species in the South Western Europe. About 500 trees from the breeding population were evaluated for wood physical and chemical properties through the analysis of 2,800 half-sib progenies and 1,500 clones in 8 field tests. These same trees are being genotyped at 185 SNPs obtained from the sequencing of 41 candidate genes, and an additional set of 200 eSNPs detected in 147 EST-contigs (to be used as control). Statistical association between the breeding values of the 500 trees and their respective genotypes will be tested using mixed models accounting for relatedness among individuals of the breeding population.
IUFRO-CTIA joint conference, "Adaptation, Breeding and Conservation in the Era of Forest Tree Genomics and Environmental Change"
Québec City, Canada

hal-01032075
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032075