The recent global COVID-19 public health emergency is caused by SARS-CoV-2 infections and can manifest extremely variable clinical symptoms. Host human genetic variability could influence susceptibility and response to infection. It is known that ACE2 acts as a receptor for this pathogen, but the viral entry into the target cell also depends on other proteins. The aim of this study was to investigate the variability of genes coding for these proteins involved in the SARS-CoV-2 entry into the cells. We analyzed 131 COVID-19 patients by exome sequencing and examined the genetic variants of TMPRSS2, PCSK3, DPP4, and BSG genes. In total we identified seventeen variants. In PCSK3 gene, we observed a missense variant (c.893G>A) statistically more frequent compared to the EUR GnomAD reference population and a missense mutation (c.1906A>G) not found in the GnomAD database. In TMPRSS2 gene, we observed a significant difference in the frequency of c.331G>A, c.23G>T, and c.589G>A variant alleles in COVID-19 patients, compared to the corresponding allelic frequency in GnomAD. Genetic variants in these genes could influence the entry of the SARS-CoV-2. These data also support the hypothesis that host genetic variability may contribute to the variability in infection susceptibility and severity.

We prospectively studied the pharmacokinetics (PK) and clinical outcomes of intravenous busulfan (Bu) in 71 children with preexisting liver damage who underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for thalassemia. Intravenous Bu was administered every 6 hours as part of a conditioning regimen with PK-based dose adjustment to target a conservative area under the concentration-versus-time curve (AUC) range (900-1350 Mol*min). The first-dose Bu clearance (CL) was significantly higher than the subsequent daily CL that remained unchanged in the ensuing days. One-third of patients required dose escalation based on dose 1 AUC, whereas dose reduction was needed in the subsequent days. At doses 5, 9, and 13, 78%, 81%, and 87% of patients, respectively, achieved the target range of AUC. A population PK analysis confirmed that the first-dose CL was 20% higher and that body weight was the most important covariate to explain PK variability. Patients with variant GSTA1*B had a 10% lower Bu CL than wild-type. These results suggest that the disease-specific behavior of intravenous Bu PK should be considered for PK-guided dose adjustment in patients with thalassemia, and the use of a conservative AUC range resulted in low toxicity, good engraftment, and good survival rate. (Blood. 2010;115(22):4597-4604)

La is an abundant, mostly nuclear, RNA-binding protein that interacts with regions rich in pyrimidines. In the nucleus it has a role in the metabolism of several small RNAs. A number of studies, however, indicate that La protein is also implicated in cytoplasmic functions such as translation. The association of La in vivo with endogenous mRNAs engaged with polysomes would support this role, but this point has never been addressed yet. Terminal oligopyrimidine (TOP) mRNAs, which code for ribosomal proteins and other components of the translational apparatus, bear a TOP stretch at the 5 end, which is necessary for the regulation of their translation. La protein can bind the TOP sequence in vitro and activates TOP mRNA translation in vivo. Regulation of translation can be achieved by modulation of the activity of general translation factors or by specific interactions of regulatory proteins with control sequences located in the 5Ј-or 3Ј-untranslated regions (UTR) 1 of mRNAs. The interaction of specific proteins with typical structural elements located in different mRNAs characterizes classes of functionally related mRNAs that are subjected to a concerted control as suggested in the recently proposed hypothesis of the posttranscriptional operons (1). A classical example is the interaction of the iron-responsive element-binding protein with the iron-responsive element of different mRNAs for proteins involved in iron metabolism (2). Similarly, in erythroid cells, two different members of the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) family, hnRNP E1 and hnRNP E2, participate in controlling the stabilization of human ␣-globin mRNA (3, 4) and the translational silencing of lipoxigenase mRNA (5). This indicates that one protein in different complexes can participate in different but functionally related post-transcriptional control pathways in the same cell and at the same stage of differentiation. Another case of concerted regulation of many mRNAs is represented by the interaction of La protein with the class of terminal oligopyrimidine (TOP) mRNAs, which code for functionally related proteins and are coordinately controlled at the translational level (6 -8).La is an evolutionary conserved and abundant RNA-binding protein (9, 10) present mostly in the nucleus where it is found associated with newly synthesized RNA polymerase III transcripts and is implicated in the termination and initiation of transcription by this polymerase (11-15), in tRNA processing (16,17) and in transport and nuclear retention of some polymerase III transcripts (18 -20). However, despite the mainly nuclear localization, cytoplasmic functions have been ascribed to La. Several studies have documented that La promotes the translation of certain viral RNA by binding to the 5Ј-UTR (21-24) and cellular mRNAs, similar to the X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein mRNA and the human immunoglobulin heavy chain-binding protein mRNA in vivo and in vitro (25,26). The common feature characterizing all of these La binding RNAs is the presence of a stret...

It is known that melanoma develops as a consequence of multifactorial alterations. To date several studies indicate the effective implication of p16 as a tumor suppressor gene with a major role in either the development or progression of human melanoma. Deregulation of melanoma cell growth has been widely associated with mutations in the p16-cyclin D/cdk4-pRb pathway. Recently anticancer therapies are focused on restoration of p16 CDK inhibitory function and other proteins unregulated in melanoma cell cycle pathway (e.g., c-myc, p27). A combined strategy for restoration of normal homeostasis in the melanoma skin with targeted delivery of apoptosis-inducing agents does not seems to be far obtained. New class of antitumoral agents are emerging: histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors have attracted much interest because of their ability to arrest cell growth, induce cell differentiation, and in some cases, induce apoptosis of cancer cells. Recently, attention has been focused on the ability of HDAC inhibitors to induce perturbation in cell cycle regulatory protein (e.g., p21(CIP1)) and down-regulation of survival signalling pathway. In the present study, we have examined the effect of valproic acid (VPA) on M14 human melanoma cell line. Here we observed that VPA induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis sensitising melanoma cells to cis-platin and etoposide treatment. IC(50) dose (2.99 mM) of VPA was able to induce G(1) arrest (up to 75%) in association with upregulation of p16, p21 and cyclin-D1 related to Rb ipo-phosphorilation. In addition VPA activated apoptosis (50%) in M14 cells, when given alone or in combination with antitumoral agents. The ability of valproic acid to reestablished the G(1) pathway in melanoma cells suggests a potential application of VPA in melanoma therapeutic protocols.

Oxidative damage is thought to play a role in the predisposition to schizophrenia. We determined if the polymorphisms of the GSTP1, GSTM1, GSTT1 and GSTA1 genes, which affect the activity of these enzymes against oxidative stress, have a role as susceptibility genes for schizophrenia, analyzing 138 schizophrenic patients and 133 healthy controls. We found that the combination of the absence of GSTM1 gene with the of the GSTM1 gene with the polymorphism GSTA1*B/*B, and the presence of the GSTT1 gene, represents a risk factor for schizophrenia, indicating that the combination of different GST polymorphisms has a role in the predisposition to schizophrenia, probably affecting the capacity of the cell to detoxify the oxidized metabolites of catecholamines.