ObjectiveIn the randomised scleroderma: Cyclophosphamide Or Transplantation (SCOT trial) (NCT00114530), myeloablation, followed by haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), led to improved clinical outcomes compared with monthly cyclophosphamide (CYC) treatment in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Herein, the study aimed to determine global molecular changes at the whole blood transcript and serum protein levels ensuing from HSCT in comparison to intravenous monthly CYC in 62 participants enrolled in the SCOT study.MethodsGlobal transcript studies were performed at pretreatment baseline, 8 months and 26 months postrandomisation using Illumina HT-12 arrays. Levels of 102 proteins were measured in the concomitantly collected serum samples.ResultsAt the baseline visit, interferon (IFN) and neutrophil transcript modules were upregulated and the cytotoxic/NK module was downregulated in SSc compared with unaffected controls. A paired comparison of the 26 months to the baseline samples revealed a significant decrease of the IFN and neutrophil modules and an increase in the cytotoxic/NK module in the HSCT arm while there was no significant change in the CYC control arm. Also, a composite score of correlating serum proteins with IFN and neutrophil transcript modules, as well as a multilevel analysis showed significant changes in SSc molecular signatures after HSCT while similar changes were not observed in the CYC arm. Lastly, a decline in the IFN and neutrophil modules was associated with an improvement in pulmonary forced vital capacity and an increase in the cytotoxic/NK module correlated with improvement in skin score.ConclusionHSCT contrary to conventional treatment leads to a significant ‘correction’ in disease-related molecular signatures.

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Motivation Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and other publicly available data store their metadata in the format of unstructured English text, which is very difficult for automated reuse. Results We employed text mining techniques to analyze the metadata of GEO and developed Restructured GEO database (ReGEO). ReGEO reorganizes and categorizes GEO series and makes them searchable by two new attributes extracted automatically from each series’ metadata. These attributes are the number of time points tested in the experiment and the disease being investigated. ReGEO also makes series searchable by other attributes available in GEO, such as platform organism, experiment type, associated PubMed ID as well as general keywords in the study’s description. Our approach greatly expands the usability of GEO data, demonstrating a credible approach to improve the utility of vast amount of publicly available data in the era of Big Data research.

Background: The influences of age and sex on properties of lumbar erector spinae have not been previously studied. Changes in the performance of lumbar erector spinae properties associated with age represent a valuable indicator of risk for lower-back-related disease.Objective: To investigate the lumbar erector spinae properties with regard to age and sex to provide a reference dataset.Methods: We measured muscle tone and stiffness of the lumbar erector spinae (at the L3–4 level) in healthy men and women (50 young people, aged 20–30 years; 50 middle-aged people, aged 40–50 years; and 50 elderly people, aged 65–75 years) using a MyotonPRO device.Results: In general, there are significant differences in muscle tone and stiffness among young, middle-aged, and elderly participants, and there were significant differences in muscle tone and stiffness between men and women, and there was no interaction between age and sex. The muscle tone and stiffness of the elderly participants were significantly higher than those of the middle-aged and young participants (P < 0.01), and the muscle tone and stiffness of the middle-aged participants were significantly higher than those of the young participants (P < 0.01). In addition, the muscle tone and stiffness of men participants were significantly higher than that of women participants (P < 0.01).Conclusion: Our results indicate that muscle tone and stiffness of the lumbar erector spinae increase with age. The muscle tone and stiffness of the lumbar erector spinae in men are significantly higher than in women. The present study highlights the importance of considering age and sex differences when assessing muscle characteristics of healthy people or patients.