Violence against Women and Stress-Related Disorders: Seeking for Associated Epigenetic Signatures, a Pilot Study

BACKGROUND

Violence against women is a relevant health and social problem with negative consequences on women's health. The interaction between genome and environmental factors, such as violence, represents one of the major challenges in molecular medicine. The Epigenetics for WomEn (EpiWE) project is a multidisciplinary pilot study that intends to investigate the epigenetic signatures associated with intimate partner and sexual violence-induced stress-related disorders.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In 2020, 62 women exposed to violence (13 women suffering from sexual violence and 49 from Intimate Partner Violence, IPV) and 50 women with no history of violence were recruited at the Service for Sexual and Domestic Violence. All women aged 18-65 were monitored for their physical and psychological conditions. Blood samples were collected, and DNAs were extracted and underwent the epigenetic analysis of 10 stress-related genes.

RESULTS

PTSD prevalence in victims was assessed at 8.1%. Quantitative methylation evaluation of the ten selected trauma/stress-related genes revealed the differential iper-methylation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, dopamine receptor D2 and insulin-like growth factor 2 genes. These genes are among those related to brain plasticity, learning, and memory pathways.

CONCLUSIONS

The association of early detection of posttraumatic distress and epigenetic marker identification could represent a new avenue for addressing women survivors toward resilience. This innovative approach in gender-based violence studies could identify new molecular pathways associated with the long-term effects of violence and implement innovative protocols of precision medicine.

MassARRAY-based simultaneous detection of hotspot somatic mutations and recurrent fusion genes in papillary thyroid carcinoma: the PTC-MA assay

PURPOSE

We exploited the MassARRAY (MA) genotyping platform to develop the "PTC-MA assay", which allows the simultaneous detection of 13 hotspot mutations, in the BRAF, KRAS, NRAS, HRAS, TERT, AKT1, PIK3CA, and EIF1AX genes, and six recurrent genetic rearrangements, involving the RET and TRK genes in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC).

METHODS

The assay was developed using DNA and cDNA from 12 frozen and 11 formalin-fixed paraffin embedded samples from 23 PTC cases, together with positive and negative controls.

RESULTS

The PTC-MA assay displays high sensitivity towards point mutations and gene rearrangements, detecting their presence at frequencies as low as 5%. Moreover, this technique allows quantification of the mutated alleles identified at each tested locus.

CONCLUSIONS

The PTC-MA assay is a novel MA test, which is able to detect fusion genes generated by genomic rearrangements concomitantly with the analysis of hotspot point mutations, thus allowing the evaluation of key diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic markers of PTC in a single experiment without any informatics analysis. As the assay is sensitive, robust, easily achievable, and affordable, it is suitable for the diagnostic practice. Finally, the PTC-MA assay can be easily implemented and updated by adding novel genetic markers, according to clinical requirements.

[Art therapy for hospitalised congenital heart disease patients: a method of psychological intervention at the IRCCS Policlinico San Donato Milanese Hospital]

The current work is the presentation of a new project at the IRCSS San Donato Milanese University hospital, in the sphere of Psychocardiology. Hospitalised children and adolescents often face psychosocial difficulties and the psychological condition of their parents frequently has an impact on their wellbeing. A strong need to take care, beyond the mere cure, is necessary in the hospital settings - that is a need to pay attention also to psychological aspects apart from the medical ones. Art therapy could be an answer for this need: the literature has outlined its efficacy in hospital, also due to the higher inclination of children and adolescents toward creativity. By providing and analysing the drawings of 10 young patients with congenital heart disease (CHD), this study outlines how the art therapy program gives these patients the opportunity to freely and directly express fears and anxieties about medical procedures and their disease. Moreover, through the creation of a tangible product, psychologists can better evaluate the psychological troubles of young patients and provide them and their parents with more focused and personalized support. This study also focuses on the perception of the utility that parents have of this new therapeutic intervention, offered at the Department of Paediatric Cardiac Surgery, confirming that art therapy is perceived as being effective and is definitely a good instrument in helping to "take care" of children and adolescents suffering from CHD.

The relationship between urban airborne pollution and short-term mortality: quantitative and qualitative aspects

The influence of airborne pollution on mortality rates has been examined since the well known severe pollution episodes of Pennsylvania (1948) and London (1952). Three main epidemiological approaches are available: transversal studies, time series studies, prospective studies. The most frequently used method is the time series analysis, which retrospectively determines daily mortality rates as compared to daily pollution levels in a defined period. The vast majority of studies applying this approach confirm the existence of a positive correlation between mortality and airborne pollution. The relative risk of death during the most severely polluted days as compared to the least polluted days ranges between 1.02 and 1.13. Airborne pollution affects mortality as related to cardiovascular and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases mainly in subjects previously affected by these pathologies. The dose-response mortality-pollution curve shows linear increments of mortality at low pollution levels, weak increments at high pollution levels. This phenomenon is attributed to the existence of subjects highly susceptible to pollution induced adverse health effects. These subjects, dying at low pollution levels, are not available to increase mortality rates at high pollution levels. Mortality is mainly related to the concentration of single pollutants, such as suspended particle matter, sulfur oxides, nitric oxides and ozone. Elderly are highly susceptible to pollution-induced mortality increases. Therefore, the study of mortality-pollution correlation is of particular interest in cities characterized by a relative prevalence of the elderly in the population. The latency period between pollution increases and related mortality increases falls in the 1-3 days interval range. The pollution-mortality relationship is influenced by many factors, such as the occurrence of exceedingly high or low environmental temperatures, influenza epidemics, etc. Many hypotheses has been raised to support the causality of the mortality-pollution association, including a direct effect of pollutants on cardiovascular and respiratory apparatus, and the release of inflammatory mediators affecting blood viscosity and pneumocytes homeostasis. On the whole, available data suggest that pollution is able to increase mortality only if associated to other risk factors determining an increased susceptibility in the exposed population.