Connected speech in progressive supranuclear palsy: a possible role in differential diagnosis

BACKGROUND

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is an atypical Parkinsonism characterized by motor and neuropsycological disorders. Language could be impaired in PSP patients, also in Richardson variant (PSP-RS). The analysis of connected speech is used in neurodegenerative disorder to investigate different levels of language organization, including phonetic, phonological, lexico-semantic, morpho-syntactic, and pragmatic processing.

OBJECTIVE

In our study, we aimed to investigate the language profile, especially connected speech, in early-stage PSP-RS and Parkinson's disease (PD) patients without predominant speech or language disorders.

METHODS

Language was assessed using the Screening for Aphasia in NeuroDegeneration (SAND); connected speech analysis was conducted from the picture description subtest.

RESULTS

We enrolled 48 patients, 22 PD and 26 PSP (18 PSP-RS and 8 non-RS). PSP-RS patients presented an impairment in language domain, particularly regarding connected speech. PSP-RS patients presented worse performances than PD in different scores. The output of PSP-RS patients was characterized by a reduction in number of sentences and subordinates with respect to PD; PSP presented also more repaired sequences and phonological and lexico-semantic errors than PD. Number of sentences and number of subordinates of the picture description task were identified as predictors of PSP diagnosis.

CONCLUSION

In summary, the SAND scale is able to identify language impairment in PSP patients. The analysis of connected speech could highlight some important aspects of language impairment in PSP-RS patients, and it could be helpful in the differential diagnosis with PD.

Functional analysis of novel DEAF1 variants identified through clinical exome sequencing expands DEAF1-associated neurodevelopmental disorder (DAND) phenotype

Deformed epidermal autoregulatory factor-1 (DEAF1), a transcription factor essential for central nervous system and early embryonic development, has recently been implicated in a series of intellectual disability-related neurodevelopmental anomalies termed, in this study, as DEAF1-associated neurodevelopmental disorder (DAND). We identified six potentially deleterious DEAF1 variants in a cohort of individuals with DAND via clinical exome sequencing (CES) and in silico analysis, including two novel de novo variants: missense variant c.634G > A p.Gly212Ser in the SAND domain and deletion variant c.913_915del p.Lys305del in the NLS domain, as well as c.676C > T p.Arg226Trp, c.700T > A p.Trp234Arg, c.737G > C p.Arg246Thr, and c.791A > C p.Gln264Pro. Luciferase reporter, immunofluorescence staining, and electrophoretic mobility shift assays revealed that these variants had decreased transcriptional repression activity at the DEAF1 promoter and reduced affinity to consensus DEAF1 DNA binding sequences. In addition, c.913_915del p.K305del localized primarily to the cytoplasm and interacted with wild-type DEAF1. Our results demonstrate that variants located within the SAND or NLS domains significantly reduce DEAF1 transcriptional regulatory activities and are thus, likely to contribute to the underlying clinical concerns in DAND patients. These findings illustrate the importance of experimental characterization of variants with uncertain significance identified by CES to assess their potential clinical significance and possible use in diagnosis.

The biophysical and biochemical properties of the autoimmune regulator (AIRE) protein

AIRE (for autoimmune regulator) is a multidomain protein that performs a fundamental function in the thymus and possibly in the secondary lymphoid organs: the regulation, especially in the sense of activation, of the process of gene transcription in cell lines deputed to the presentation of self-antigens to the maturing T lymphocytes. The apoptosis of the elements bearing T-cell receptors with critical affinity for the exhibited self-antigens prevents the escape of autoreactive clones and represents a simple and efficient mechanism of deletional self-tolerance. However, AIRE action relies on an articulated complex of biophysical and biochemical properties, in most cases attributable to single subspecialized domains. Here a thorough review of the matter is presented, with a privileged look at the pathogenic changes of AIRE that interfere with such properties and lead to the impairment in its chief function.

Photoperiodic control of FT-like gene ClFT initiates flowering in Chrysanthemum lavandulifolium

The FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene plays crucial roles in regulating the transition from the vegetative phase to the reproductive phase. In this study, we isolated an FT homologous gene (denoted as ClFT) from Chrysanthemum lavandulifolium. The sequencing analysis indicated that the promoter of the ClFT gene contains many elements, such as light response, abscisic acid, drought-inducibility response and CIRCADIAN clock elements. The expression patterns of ClFT in different tissues/organs at different developmental stages and its responses to different photoperiods were observed. ClFT is expressed in all tested organs/tissues, with the highest expression level being observed in the leaves of plants with visible floral buds under the short day (SD) condition. Next, we studied the rhythmic expression of ClFT during different photoperiod treatments and found that the level of ClFT increases with additional hours of continuous dark. ClFT accumulates when the continuous dark period is 12 h, regardless of the duration of light period. The ectopic expression of the ClFT gene in wild type Arabidopsis (Col-0) results in early flowering, with high expression levels of endogenous LFY and SOC1 being observed in transgenic Arabidopsis. All results indicated that the ClFT gene plays an evolutionarily conserved role in promoting flowering in inductive short days in C. lavandulifolium and that this gene could serve as a vital target for the genetic manipulation of flowering time in chrysanthemums.