American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2014
Multicenter Study Comparative StudyClinical and Epidemiologic Phenotypes of Childhood Asthma.
Clinical and epidemiologic approaches have identified two distinct sets of classifications for asthma and wheeze phenotypes. ⋯ Clinical phenotypes were well supported by LCA analysis. The hypothesis-free LCA phenotypes were a useful reference for comparing clinical phenotypes. Thereby, we identified children with clinically conspicuous but undiagnosed disease. Because of their high area under the curve values, clinical phenotypes such as (recurrent) unremitting wheeze emerged as promising alternative asthma definitions for epidemiologic studies.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2014
Multicenter StudyEffects of a Functional Variant c.353T>C in Snai1 on Risk of Two Contextual Diseases: COPD and Lung Cancer.
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays a key role in the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer. ⋯ The functional germline variant c.353T>C (p.Val118Ala) of Snai1 confers consistently decreased risks of lung cancer and COPD, and this variant affects lung cancer risk through a mediation effect of COPD.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jan 2014
Gene Correction of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Repairs the Cellular Phenotype in Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis.
Hereditary pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (hPAP) caused by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) receptor α-chain (CSF2RA) deficiency is a rare, life-threatening lung disease characterized by accumulation of proteins and phospholipids in the alveolar spaces. The disease is caused by a functional insufficiency of alveolar macrophages, which require GM-CSF signaling for terminal differentiation and effective degradation of alveolar proteins and phospholipids. Therapeutic options are extremely limited, and the pathophysiology underlying the defective protein degradation in hPAP alveolar macrophages remains poorly understood. ⋯ These data establish PAP-iPSC-derived monocytes and macrophages as a valid in vitro disease model of CSF2RA-deficient PAP, and introduce gene-corrected iPSC-derived monocytes and macrophages as a potential autologous cell source for innovative therapeutic strategies. Transplantation of such cells to patients with hPAP could serve as a paradigmatic proof for the potential of iPSC-derived cells in clinical gene therapy.