| 1. |
- Akimoto, Chizuru, et al.
(author)
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A blinded international study on the reliability of genetic testing for GGGGCC-repeat expansions in C9orf72 reveals marked differences in results among 14 laboratories
- 2014
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In: Journal of Medical Genetics. - : BMJ. - 0022-2593 .- 1468-6244. ; 51:6, s. 419-424
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background The GGGGCC-repeat expansion in C9orf72 is the most frequent mutation found in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Most of the studies on C9orf72 have relied on repeat-primed PCR (RP-PCR) methods for detection of the expansions. To investigate the inherent limitations of this technique, we compared methods and results of 14 laboratories. Methods The 14 laboratories genotyped DNA from 78 individuals (diagnosed with ALS or FTD) in a blinded fashion. Eleven laboratories used a combination of amplicon-length analysis and RP-PCR, whereas three laboratories used RP-PCR alone; Southern blotting techniques were used as a reference. Results Using PCR-based techniques, 5 of the 14 laboratories got results in full accordance with the Southern blotting results. Only 50 of the 78 DNA samples got the same genotype result in all 14 laboratories. There was a high degree of false positive and false negative results, and at least one sample could not be genotyped at all in 9 of the 14 laboratories. The mean sensitivity of a combination of amplicon-length analysis and RP-PCR was 95.0% (73.9-100%), and the mean specificity was 98.0% (87.5-100%). Overall, a sensitivity and specificity of more than 95% was observed in only seven laboratories. Conclusions Because of the wide range seen in genotyping results, we recommend using a combination of amplicon-length analysis and RP-PCR as a minimum in a research setting. We propose that Southern blotting techniques should be the gold standard, and be made obligatory in a clinical diagnostic setting.
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| 2. |
- Beer, Christian, et al.
(author)
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Harmonized European Long-Term Climate Data for Assessing the Effect of Changing Temporal Variability on Land-Atmosphere CO2 Fluxes
- 2014
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In: Journal of Climate. - 0894-8755 .- 1520-0442. ; 27:13, s. 4815-4834
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Temporal variability of meteorological variables and extreme weather events is projected to increase in many regions of the world during the next century. Artificial experiments using process-oriented terrestrial ecosystem models make it possible to isolate effects of temporal variability from effects of gradual climate change on terrestrial ecosystem functions and the system state. Such factorial experiments require two long-term climate datasets: 1) a control dataset that represents observed and projected climate and 2) a dataset with the same long-term mean as the control dataset but with altered short-term variability. Using a bias correction method, various climate datasets spanning different periods are harmonized and then combined with the control dataset with consistent time series for Europe during 1901-2100. Then, parameters of a distribution transformation function are estimated for individual meteorological variables to derive the second climate dataset, which has similar long-term means but reduced temporal variability. The transformation conserves the number of rainy days within a month and the shape of the daily meteorological data distributions, which is important to ensure that, for example, drought duration does not modify the suitability of localized vegetation type to precipitation regimes. The median absolute difference between daily data of both datasets is 5% to 20%. On average, decadal extreme values are reduced by 2% to 35%. Driving a terrestrial ecosystem model with both climate datasets shows a general higher gross primary production under reduced temporal climate variability. This effect of climate variability on productivity demonstrates the potential of the climate datasets for studying various effects of temporal variability on ecosystem state and functions over large domains.
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| 3. |
- Blunden, Jessica, et al.
(author)
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State of the climate in 2013
- 2014
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In: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. - 0003-0007. ; 95
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- © 2014, American Meteorological Society. All rights reserved. In 2013, the vast majority of the monitored climate variables reported here maintained trends established in recent decades. ENSO was in a neutral state during the entire year, remaining mostly on the cool side of neutral with modest impacts on regional weather patterns around the world. This follows several years dominated by the effects of either La Niña or El Niño events. According to several independent analyses, 2013 was again among the 10 warmest years on record at the global scale, both at the Earth’s surface and through the troposphere. Some regions in the Southern Hemisphere had record or near-record high temperatures for the year. Australia observed its hottest year on record, while Argentina and New Zealand reported their second and third hottest years, respectively. In Antarctica, Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station reported its highest annual temperature since records began in 1957. At the opposite pole, the Arctic observed its seventh warmest year since records began in the early 20th century. At 20-m depth, record high temperatures were measured at some permafrost stations on the North Slope of Alaska and in the Brooks Range. In the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, anomalous meridional atmospheric circulation occurred throughout much of the year, leading to marked regional extremes of both temperature and precipitation. Cold temperature anomalies during winter across Eurasia were followed by warm spring temperature anomalies, which were linked to a new record low Eurasian snow cover extent in May. Minimum sea ice extent in the Arctic was the sixth lowest since satellite observations began in 1979. Including 2013, all seven lowest extents on record have occurred in the past seven years. Antarctica, on the other hand, had above-average sea ice extent throughout 2013, with 116 days of new daily high extent records, including a new daily maximum sea ice area of 19.57 million km2 reached on 1 October. ENSO-neutral conditions in the eastern central Pacific Ocean and a negative Pacific decadal oscillation pattern in the North Pacific had the largest impacts on the global sea surface temperature in 2013. The North Pacific reached a historic high temperature in 2013 and on balance the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was among the 10 highest on record. Overall, the salt content in nearsurface ocean waters increased while in intermediate waters it decreased. Global mean sea level continued to rise during 2013, on pace with a trend of 3.2 mm yr-1 over the past two decades. A portion of this trend (0.5 mm yr-1) has been attributed to natural variability associated with the Pacific decadal oscillation as well as to ongoing contributions from the melting of glaciers and ice sheets and ocean warming. Global tropical cyclone frequency during 2013 was slightly above average with a total of 94 storms, although the North Atlantic Basin had its quietest hurricane season since 1994. In the Western North Pacific Basin, Super Typhoon Haiyan, the deadliest tropical cyclone of 2013, had 1-minute sustained winds estimated to be 170 kt (87.5 m s-1) on 7 November, the highest wind speed ever assigned to a tropical cyclone. High storm surge was also associated with Haiyan as it made landfall over the central Philippines, an area where sea level is currently at historic highs, increasing by 200 mm since 1970. In the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide all continued to increase in 2013. As in previous years, each of these major greenhouse gases once again reached historic high concentrations. In the Arctic, carbon dioxide and methane increased at the same rate as the global increase. These increases are likely due to export from lower latitudes rather than a consequence of increases in Arctic sources, such as thawing permafrost. At Mauna Loa, Hawaii, for the first time since measurements began in 1958, the daily average mixing ratio of carbon dioxide exceeded 400 ppm on 9 May. The state of these variables, along with dozens of others, and the 2013 climate conditions of regions around the world are discussed in further detail in this 24th edition of the State of the Climate series.
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| 4. |
- Carvalhais, Nuno, et al.
(author)
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Global covariation of carbon turnover times with climate in terrestrial ecosystems
- 2014
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 514:7521, s. 213-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The response of the terrestrial carbon cycle to climate change is among the largest uncertainties affecting future climate change projections(1,2). The feedback between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate is partly determined by changes in the turnover time of carbon in land ecosystems, which in turn is an ecosystem property that emerges from the interplay between climate, soil and vegetation type(3-6). Here we present a global, spatially explicit and observation-based assessment of whole-ecosystem carbon turnover times that combines new estimates of vegetation and soil organic carbon stocks and fluxes. We find that the overall mean global carbon turnover time is 23(4)(+7) years (95 per cent confidence interval). Onaverage, carbon resides in the vegetation and soil near the Equator for a shorter time than at latitudes north of 75 degrees north (mean turnover times of 15 and 255 years, respectively). We identify a clear dependence of the turnover time on temperature, as expected from our present understanding of temperature controls on ecosystem dynamics. Surprisingly, our analysis also reveals a similarly strong association between turnover time and precipitation. Moreover, we find that the ecosystem carbon turnover times simulated by state-of-the-art coupled climate/carbon-cycle models vary widely and that numerical simulations, on average, tend to underestimate the global carbon turnover time by 36 per cent. The models show stronger spatial relationships with temperature than do observation-based estimates, but generally do not reproduce the strong relationships with precipitation and predict faster carbon turnover in many semiarid regions. Our findings suggest that future climate/carbon-cycle feedbacks may depend more strongly on changes in the hydrological cycle than is expected at present and is considered in Earth system models.
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| 5. |
- Diekstra, Frank P., et al.
(author)
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C9orf72 and UNC13A Are Shared Risk Loci for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Dementia : A Genome-Wide Meta-Analysis
- 2014
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In: Annals of Neurology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0364-5134 .- 1531-8249. ; 76:1, s. 120-133
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objective: Substantial clinical, pathological, and genetic overlap exists between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). TDP-43 inclusions have been found in both ALS and FTD cases (FTD-TDP). Recently, a repeat expansion in C9orf72 was identified as the causal variant in a proportion of ALS and FTD cases. We sought to identify additional evidence for a common genetic basis for the spectrum of ALS-FTD. Methods: We used published genome-wide association studies data for 4,377 ALS patients and 13,017 controls, and 435 pathology-proven FTD-TDP cases and 1,414 controls for genotype imputation. Data were analyzed in a joint meta-analysis, by replicating topmost associated hits of one disease in the other, and by using a conservative rank products analysis, allocating equal weight to ALS and FTD-TDP sample sizes. Results: Meta-analysis identified 19 genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in C9orf72 on chromosome 9p21.2 (lowest p = 2.6 x 10(-12)) and 1 SNP in UNC13A on chromosome 19p13.11 (p = 1.0 x 10(-11)) as shared susceptibility loci for ALS and FTD-TDP. Conditioning on the 9p21.2 genotype increased statistical significance at UNC13A. A third signal, on chromosome 8q24.13 at the SPG8 locus coding for strumpellin (p = 3.91 x 10(-7)) was replicated in an independent cohort of 4,056 ALS patients and 3,958 controls (p = 0.026; combined analysis p = 1.01 x 10(-7)). Interpretation: We identified common genetic variants in C9orf72, but in addition in UNC13A that are shared between ALS and FTD. UNC13A provides a novel link between ALS and FTD-TDP, and identifies changes in neurotransmitter release and synaptic function as a converging mechanism in the pathogenesis of ALS and FTD-TDP.
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| 6. |
- Rosenbohm, Angela, et al.
(author)
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Can lesions to the motor cortex induce amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?
- 2014
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In: Journal of Neurology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0340-5354 .- 1432-1459. ; 261:2, s. 283-290
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A recent staging effort for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has demonstrated that the TDP-43 neuropathology may initiate focally in the motor cortex in the majority of patients. We searched our data bank for patients with lesions of the motor cortex which preceded disease onset. We performed a search of our patient- and MRI-data bank and screened 1,835 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for frontal lobe/motor cortex lesions. We found 18 patients with definite ALS who had documented and defined lesions of the motor cortex, which preceded the initial ALS symptoms by 8-42 years. In the vast majority (15/18) of the patients, the onset of ALS was closely related to the focal lesion since it started in a body region reflecting the damaged cortical area. The findings suggest that initial lesions to the motor cortex may be a contributing initiating factor in some patients with ALS or determine the site of onset in individuals pre-disposed to ALS.
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