Phenylalanine Hydroxylase (PAH) Genotyping in PKU Argentine Patients

Abstract Phenylketonuria (PKU, OMIM 261600) is predominantly caused by mutations in the PAH gene. One hundred and three Argentine PKU patients were studied by Sanger sequencing; 101 were completely characterized (90.3% were compound heterozygotes). Fifty-four different pathogenic variants were identified. Mutations were distributed all along the PAH gene but concentrated in exon 7 (26%), 12 (12%), 11 (10%), and 6 (10%). 77% were missense, and 77% affected the enzyme catalytic domain, nine mutations accounted for 57% of 179 studied alleles: p.Arg261Gln (Allele frequency(AF):10.6%), c.1066-11G>A (AF:9,5%), p.Arg408Trp (AF:8,3%), p.Tyr414Cys (AF:5,5%), p.Ala403Val, p.Val388Met, and p.Arg158Gln (AF: 5% each), p.Leu48Ser, and p.Ile65Thr (AF:4% each). The predicted phenotype was assigned by Guldberg´s arbitrary value (AV) and compared with the clinical phenotype based in tolerance to Phe intake. 29.1% (n:30) were hyperphenylalaninemias, 18.5% (n:19) mild-PKU, 27.2% (n:28) moderate-PKU and 25.2 % (n:26) classical-PKU. Genotype/phenotype correlation was statistically significant (p<0.001) Overall concordance was 62,5%: 93.3% in hyperphenylalaninemia, 64.7% in mild-PKU and 65.4% in classical patients. The moderate-PKU showed a weak concordance (17%) with milder AV prediction than clinical assessment. 74% of discordant moderate patients harbored p.Arg261Gln, and p.Val388Met. Our cohort is highly heterogeneous, with predominant Mediterranean influence (mainly Spanish), but with differences with other Latin-American countries.

Discourse analysis of the written press reports regarding rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis.

The management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriasis/psoriatic arthritis (PS/PsA) has radically changed during the last decade modifying physicians' perception about those diseases. However, if communication and transfer of information, from doctors to patients, is not efficient, patients' perception could be influenced by other sources of information. The aim of this study is to analyze newspaper articles about RA or Ps/PsA published in the Argentinean written press between 1995 and 2010. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of all press articles that mentioned RA or Ps/PsA either on the headlines or in the text of the digital versions of the three main Argentinean newspapers from 1995 to 2010 were analyzed. A total of 166 press articles were analyzed; of these, 65.7 % of the articles were informative and the remaining were testimonials. Ninety-five articles were considered positives (57.2 %). Informative articles were positive with more frequency than the testimonials (64.2 vs. 43.9 %, p 0.02). Press articles that mentioned a new treatment were positive more frequently than those that did not mention it (78.3 vs. 49.2 %, p 0.001). Balanced articles included the opinion of, at least, one specialist in 84.2 versus the 48.1 % of the not balanced (p 0.02). Articles about RA and Ps/APs in Argentina tended to be positive all along the study period. A positive result was more frequent in those articles, which informed about a new treatment. The inclusion of the opinion of a professional is not associated with a positive result, although it is to a balanced article.

Familial combined hyperlipidemia in Mexicans: association with upstream transcription factor 1 and linkage on chromosome 16q24.1.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the largely unknown genetic component of the common lipid disorder, familial combined hyperlipidemia (FCHL) in Mexicans, we analyzed the upstream transcription factor 1 (USF1) gene that was recently associated with FCHL and high triglycerides (TG) in Finns. We also analyzed the Mexican FCHL families for 26 microsatellite markers residing in the seven chromosomal regions on 2p25.1, 9p23, 10q11.23, 11q13, 16q24.1, 19q13, and 21q21, previously linked to FCHL in whites. METHODS AND RESULTS: We genotyped 314 individuals in 24 Mexican families for 13 SNPs spanning an 88-kb region, including USF1. The FCHL and TG traits showed significant evidence for association with 3 SNPs, hCV1459766, rs3737787, and rs2073658, and haplotype analyses further supported these findings (probability values of 0.05 to 0.0009 for SNPs and their haplotypes). Of these SNPs, hCV1459766 is located in the F11 receptor (F11R) gene, located next to USF1, making it difficult to exclude. Importantly, the association was restricted to a considerably smaller region than in the Finns (14 kb versus 46 kb), possibly because of a different underlying linkage disequilibrium structure. In addition, 1 of the 7 regions, 16q24.1, showed suggestive evidence for linkage (a lod score of 2.6) for total cholesterol in Mexicans. CONCLUSIONS: This study, the first to extensively investigate the genetic component of the common FCHL disorder in Mexicans, provides independent evidence for the role of USF1 in FCHL in an outbred population and links the 16q24.1 region to an FCHL-component trait in Mexicans.