The Ross operation provides excellent survival in adults and children willing to accept a risk of reoperation. Male sex and a primary diagnosis of aortic insufficiency had a negative effect on late results.
Background
Telomere length is a heritable trait and short telomere length has been associated with multiple chronic diseases. We investigated the relationship of relative leukocyte telomere length (RTL) with cardiometabolic risk and performed the first GWAS and meta-analysis to identify variants influencing RTL in a population of Sikhs from South Asia.
Methods and Results
Our results revealed a significant independent association of shorter RTL with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and heart disease. Our discovery GWAS (n=1,616) was followed by Stage 1 replication of 25 top signals (P<10−6) in an additional Sikhs (n=2,397). On combined discovery and Stage 1 meta-analysis (n= 4013), we identified a novel RTL locus at chromosome 16q21 represented by an intronic variant (rs74019828) in the CSNK2A2 gene (β −0.38, P=4.5×10−8). We further tested 3 top variants by genotyping in UKCVD (Caucasians n=2,952) for Stage 2. Next we performed in silico replication of 139 top signals (p<10−5) in UKTWIN, NHS, PLCO and MDACC (n=10,033) and joint meta-analysis (n=16,998). The observed signal in CSNK2A2 was confined to South Asians and could not be replicated in Caucasians due to significant difference in allele frequencies (P<0.001). CSNK2A2 phosphorylates TRF1 and plays an important role for regulation of telomere length homoeostasis.
Conclusions
By identification of a novel signal in telomere pathway genes, our study provides new molecular insight into the underlying mechanism that may regulate telomere length and its association with human aging and cardiometabolic pathophysiology.
Blood tests are needed to aid in the early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), and monitoring pancreatitis development into malignancy especially in high risk patients. This study exhibits efforts and progress toward developing such blood tests, using electrospray-mass spectrometry (MS) serum profiling to distinguish patients with early-stage PDAC or pancreatitis from each other and from controls. Identification of significant serum mass peak differences between these individuals was performed using t tests and “leave one out” cross validation. Serum mass peak distributions of control individuals were distinguished from those of patients with chronic pancreatitis or early-stage PDAC with P values <10−15, and patients with chronic pancreatitis were distinguished from those of patients with early-stage PDAC with a P value <10−12. Sera from 12 out of 12 patients with PDAC stages I, IIA and IIB were blindly validated from controls. Tandem MS/MS identified a cancer phenotype with elements of PDAC involved in early-stage PDAC/control discrimination. These studies indicate electrospray-MS mass profiling can detect serum changes in patients with pancreatitis or early-stage pancreatic cancer. Such technology has the potential to aid in early detection of pancreatic cancer, biomarker development, and in monitoring development of pancreatitis into PDAC.
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