No effect of AR polyG polymorphism on spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy phenotype.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Disease severity varies considerably among patients with Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy (SBMA). Our aim was to investigate the role of androgen receptor (AR) polymorphic repeats in SBMA phenotype. METHODS: We analyzed the length of AR polyQ and polyG tracts in 159 SBMA patients. RESULTS: No relationship between polyG size or polyG/polyQ haplotypes and clinical phenotype was found. An independent negative correlation between polyQ-length and onset of weakness was confirmed (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The negative results of our study prompt to continue the search for potential disease modifiers in SBMA outside the AR gene.

Open-source, low-cost, high-reliability solutions for digital imaging systems: example of a "dicom router".

PURPOSE: The purpose of this article is to illustrate a case where acquisition of digital imaging know-how by a modern radiotherapy division has helped to solve a technical problem while allowing substantial savings through the use of free and open-source resources. The problem was related to the necessity to route, with complex policies, the images produced by different digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) sources within the department or in other divisions and/or hospitals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The problem was solved by using completely free, well-tested and stable technologies (PHP, Apache, MySQL, DCMTK OFFIS, Red Hat Linux 9A and Linux Fedora Core 4) and low-cost hardware to contain costs. In the development, we also considered integration of the routed images with the existing electronic clinical records. RESULTS: The system developed, called the dicom router, implemented two kinds of routing: manual and automatic, both oriented to link the images acquired with the existing electronic clinical records. System stability was enhanced in a second phase by using a low-cost hardware redundancy solution. The system has now been operating for 1 year and has proved the value of the technologies used. CONCLUSIONS: The need to operate with more than one provider creates a series of integration issues, so that it becomes economically appealing to acquire internally the knowledge needed to interact more precisely with providers of big information technology (IT) solutions. This need is well catered for by open-source technologies, which are well documented and available to everyone. By using them, in-house IT technicians are able to implement valuable technical solutions for small-to medium-sized informatization problems, which would otherwise remain unsolved except with great economic efforts.

Mutant ubiquitin UBB+1 is accumulated in sporadic inclusion-body myositis muscle fibers.

Mutant ubiquitin (UBB+1), a product of "molecular misreading," is toxic to cells because its ubiquitinated form inhibits the proteasome, contributing to accumulation of misfolded proteins and their ensuing toxicity. The authors demonstrate in 10 sporadic inclusion body myositis (s-IBM) muscle biopsies that UBB+1 is accumulated in aggregates containing amyloid-beta and phosphorylated-tau. In s-IBM, UBB+1 may be pathogenic by inhibiting proteasome, thereby promoting accumulation of cytotoxic misfolded amyloid-beta and phosphorylated-tau.