Background Country-specific patient rare disease registries are rarely used to make international comparisons because of protocol discrepancies in data collation. Here, we attempt to overcome this limitation by using the inherited disease Cystic Fibrosis (CF) as a paradigm. CF provides a good example because its common form (homozygous F508del-CFTR) occurs across all European social strata appe...

UNLABELLED In order to increase knowledge of the pathogenic effect of the 5T-12TG allele of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, we evaluated its presence in 24 hypertrypsinaemic newborns with borderline sweat tests. Among 20 CFTR-identified alterations, the 5T-12TG haplotype was the second most frequent mutation (14.6%) over F508del. CONCLUSION Our study sugge...

Cystic fibrosis is a multi-faceted disease resulting from the dysfunction of the CFTR channel. Understanding the structural basis of channel function and the structural origin of the defect is imperative in the development of therapeutic strategies. Here, we describe molecular modeling tools that, in conjunction with complementary experimental tools, lead to significant findings on CFTR channel...

BACKGROUND MicroRNA (miRNA) and messenger RNA (mRNA) expression differs in cystic fibrosis (CF) versus non-CF bronchial epithelium. Here, the role of miRNA in basal regulation of the transcription factor ATF6 was investigated in bronchial epithelial cells in vitro and in vivo. METHODS Using in silico analysis, miRNAs predicted to target the 3'untranslated region (3'UTR) of the human ATF6 mRNA...

RATIONALE The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and Calcium-activated Chloride Conductance (CaCC) each play critical roles in maintaining normal hydration of epithelial surfaces including the airways and colon. TGF-beta is a genetic modifier of cystic fibrosis (CF), but how it influences the CF phenotype is not understood. OBJECTIVES We tested the hypothesis that TGF-...

The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) is generally responsible for the cAMP/PKA regulated anion conductance at the apical membranes of secretory epithelial cells. Mutations in CFTR underlie cystic fibrosis (CF), in which the most common variant, F508del, causes protein misfolding and its proteasome-mediated degradation. A new pathway that contributes to mutant CFTR degr...

In this study, we present data indicating a robust and specific domain interaction between the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) first cytosolic loop (CL1) and nucleotide binding domain 1 (NBD1) that allows ion transport to proceed in a regulated fashion. We used co-precipitation and ELISA to establish the molecular contact and showed that binding kinetics were not alte...

Among the diverse physiological functions exerted by calcium signaling in living cells, its role in the regulation of protein biogenesis and trafficking remains incompletely understood. In cystic fibrosis (CF) disease the most common CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) mutation, F508del-CFTR generates a misprocessed protein that is abnormally retained in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)...