While patients with liver disease are known to have a higher prevalence of glucose intolerance, preliminary studies suggest that hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection may be an additional risk factor for the development of diabetes mellitus. To further study the correlation of HCV infection and diabetes, we performed a retrospective analysis of 1,117 patients with chronic viral hepatitis and analyzed whether age, sex, race, hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, HCV infection, and cirrhosis were independently associated with diabetes. In addition, a case-control study was conducted to determine the seroprevalence of HCV infection in a cohort of 594 diabetics and 377 clinic patients assessed for thyroid disease. In the former study after the exclusion of patients with conditions predisposing to hyperglycemia, diabetes was observed in 21% of HCV-infected patients compared with 12% of HBV-infected subjects (P ‫؍‬ .0004). Multivariate analysis revealed that HCV infection (P ‫؍‬ .02) and age (P ‫؍‬ .01) were independent predictors of diabetes. In the diabetes cohort, 4.2% of patients were found to be infected with HCV compared with 1.6% of control patients (P ‫؍‬ .02). HCV genotype 2a was observed in 29% of HCV-RNA-positive diabetic patients versus 3% of local HCV-infected controls (P F .005). In conclusion, the data suggest a relatively strong association between HCV infection and diabetes, because diabetics have an increased frequency of HCV infection, particularly with genotype 2a. Furthermore, it is possible that HCV infection may serve as an additional risk factor for the development of diabetes, beyond that attributable to chronic liver disease alone. (HEPATOLOGY 1999;29:328-333.)

Obesity is a heritable disorder, with children of obese fathers at higher risk of developing obesity. Environmental factors epigenetically influence somatic tissues, but the contribution of these factors to the establishment of epigenetic patterns in human gametes is unknown. Here, we hypothesized that weight loss remodels the epigenetic signature of spermatozoa in human obesity. Comprehensive profiling of the epigenome of sperm from lean and obese men showed similar histone positioning, but small non-coding RNA expression and DNA methylation patterns were markedly different. In a separate cohort of morbidly obese men, surgery-induced weight loss was associated with a dramatic remodeling of sperm DNA methylation, notably at genetic locations implicated in the central control of appetite. Our data provide evidence that the epigenome of human spermatozoa dynamically changes under environmental pressure and offers insight into how obesity may propagate metabolic dysfunction to the next generation.

No abstract

A hypoxia-regulated HO-1 vector modification of MSCs enhances the tolerance of engrafted MSCs to hypoxia-reoxygen injury in vitro and improves their viability in ischemic hearts. This demonstration is the first showing that a physiologically inducible vector expressing of HO-1 genes improves the survival of stem cells in myocardial ischemia.

Previous studies have reported that chromosome synteny in Lepidoptera has been well conserved, yet the number of haploid chromosomes varies widely from 5 to 223. Here we report the genome (393 Mb) of the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia; Nymphalidae), a widely recognized model species in metapopulation biology and eco-evolutionary research, which has the putative ancestral karyotype of n ¼ 31. Using a phylogenetic analyses of Nymphalidae and of other Lepidoptera, combined with orthologue-level comparisons of chromosomes, we conclude that the ancestral lepidopteran karyotype has been n ¼ 31 for at least 140 My. We show that fusion chromosomes have retained the ancestral chromosome segments and very few rearrangements have occurred across the fusion sites. The same, shortest ancestral chromosomes have independently participated in fusion events in species with smaller karyotypes. The short chromosomes have higher rearrangement rate than long ones. These characteristics highlight distinctive features of the evolutionary dynamics of butterflies and moths.

No abstract

The line probe assay can be used in patients with chronic HCV infection in the United States. In patients with chronic hepatitis C referred to tertiary centers in the United States, type 1 is the most common HCV genotype. Disease activity and viremia levels do not differ among patients chronically infected with HCV types 1, 2, or 3.

Serum samples from 139 US patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were studied using six different genotyping systems, including both molecular and serologic methods, to determine the applicability of these approaches and the prevalence of various HCV subtypes. The concordance of genotyping results based on the various systems (except for core polymerase chain reaction genotyping) was good (93.5%). Subtypes 1a and 1b were prevalent (37.4%). Subtypes 2a (2.2%), 2b (8.6%), and 3a (5.8%) were less common. HCV genotypes could not be determined in 3.4%-16.5% of samples depending on the method used. HCV type 2 was associated with greater histologic activity but lower serum HCV RNA levels (P < .05), whereas type 3 was associated with lower serum alanine aminotransferase levels (P < .05). These data demonstrate a high concordance between HCV genotyping systems and provide a foundation for comparison of genotyping data between studies using different systems. HCV types 1a and 1b are both prevalent in the United States.