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To facilitate understanding of human cardiomyocyte (CM) subtype specification, and the study of ventricular CM biology in particular, we developed a broadly applicable strategy for enrichment of ventricular cardiomyocytes (VCMs) derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). A bacterial artificial chromosome transgenic H9 hESC line in which GFP expression was driven by the human ventricular-specific myosin light chain 2 (MYL2) promoter was generated, and screened to identify cell-surface markers specific for MYL2-GFP-expressing VCMs. A CD77+/CD200- cell-surface signature facilitated isolation of >97% cardiac troponin I-positive cells from H9 hESC differentiation cultures, with 65% expressing MYL2-GFP. This study provides a tool for VCM enrichment when using some, but not all, human pluripotent stem cell lines. Tools generated in this study can be utilized toward understanding CM subtype specification, and enriching for VCMs for therapeutic applications.

BackgroundFabry disease is frequently characterized by gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea. Migalastat is an orally-administered small molecule approved to treat the symptoms of Fabry disease in patients with amenable mutations.MethodsWe evaluated minimal clinically important differences (MCID) in diarrhea based on the corresponding domain of the patient-reported Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS) in patients with Fabry disease and amenable mutations (N = 50) treated with migalastat 150 mg every other day or placebo during the phase 3 FACETS trial (NCT00925301).ResultsAfter 6 months, significantly more patients receiving migalastat versus placebo experienced improvement in diarrhea based on a MCID of 0.33 (43% vs 11%; p = .02), including the subset with baseline diarrhea (71% vs 20%; p = .02). A decline in kidney peritubular capillary globotriaosylceramide inclusions correlated with diarrhea improvement; patients with a reduction > 0.1 were 5.6 times more likely to have an improvement in diarrhea than those without (p = .031).ConclusionsMigalastat was associated with a clinically meaningful improvement in diarrhea in patients with Fabry disease and amenable mutations. Reductions in kidney globotriaosylceramide may be a useful surrogate endpoint to predict clinical benefit with migalastat in patients with Fabry disease.Trial registrationNCT00925301 ; June 19, 2009.

To facilitate understanding of human cardiomyocyte (CM) subtype specification, and the study of ventricular CM biology in particular, we developed a broadly applicable strategy for enrichment of ventricular cardiomyocytes (VCMs) derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). A bacterial artificial chromosome transgenic H9 hESC line in which GFP expression was driven by the human ventricular-specific myosin light chain 2 (MYL2) promoter was generated, and screened to identify cell-surface markers specific for MYL2-GFP-expressing VCMs. A CD77+/CD200- cell-surface signature facilitated isolation of >97% cardiac troponin I-positive cells from H9 hESC differentiation cultures, with 65% expressing MYL2-GFP. This study provides a tool for VCM enrichment when using some, but not all, human pluripotent stem cell lines. Tools generated in this study can be utilized toward understanding CM subtype specification, and enriching for VCMs for therapeutic applications.

BackgroundFabry disease is frequently characterized by gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea. Migalastat is an orally-administered small molecule approved to treat the symptoms of Fabry disease in patients with amenable mutations.MethodsWe evaluated minimal clinically important differences (MCID) in diarrhea based on the corresponding domain of the patient-reported Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS) in patients with Fabry disease and amenable mutations (N = 50) treated with migalastat 150 mg every other day or placebo during the phase 3 FACETS trial (NCT00925301).ResultsAfter 6 months, significantly more patients receiving migalastat versus placebo experienced improvement in diarrhea based on a MCID of 0.33 (43% vs 11%; p = .02), including the subset with baseline diarrhea (71% vs 20%; p = .02). A decline in kidney peritubular capillary globotriaosylceramide inclusions correlated with diarrhea improvement; patients with a reduction > 0.1 were 5.6 times more likely to have an improvement in diarrhea than those without (p = .031).ConclusionsMigalastat was associated with a clinically meaningful improvement in diarrhea in patients with Fabry disease and amenable mutations. Reductions in kidney globotriaosylceramide may be a useful surrogate endpoint to predict clinical benefit with migalastat in patients with Fabry disease.Trial registrationNCT00925301 ; June 19, 2009.

BACKGROUND: Fabry disease is frequently characterized by gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea. Migalastat is an orally-administered small molecule approved to treat the symptoms of Fabry disease in patients with amenable mutations.METHODS: We evaluated minimal clinically important differences (MCID) in diarrhea based on the corresponding domain of the patient-reported Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS) in patients with Fabry disease and amenable mutations (N = 50) treated with migalastat 150 mg every other day or placebo during the phase 3 FACETS trial (NCT00925301).RESULTS: After 6 months, significantly more patients receiving migalastat versus placebo experienced improvement in diarrhea based on a MCID of 0.33 (43% vs 11%; p = .02), including the subset with baseline diarrhea (71% vs 20%; p = .02). A decline in kidney peritubular capillary globotriaosylceramide inclusions correlated with diarrhea improvement; patients with a reduction > 0.1 were 5.6 times more likely to have an improvement in diarrhea than those without (p = .031).CONCLUSIONS: Migalastat was associated with a clinically meaningful improvement in diarrhea in patients with Fabry disease and amenable mutations. Reductions in kidney globotriaosylceramide may be a useful surrogate endpoint to predict clinical benefit with migalastat in patients with Fabry disease.TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT00925301 ; June 19, 2009.

BACKGROUND: Fabry disease is frequently characterized by gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea. Migalastat is an orally-administered small molecule approved to treat the symptoms of Fabry disease in patients with amenable mutations.METHODS: We evaluated minimal clinically important differences (MCID) in diarrhea based on the corresponding domain of the patient-reported Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS) in patients with Fabry disease and amenable mutations (N = 50) treated with migalastat 150 mg every other day or placebo during the phase 3 FACETS trial (NCT00925301).RESULTS: After 6 months, significantly more patients receiving migalastat versus placebo experienced improvement in diarrhea based on a MCID of 0.33 (43% vs 11%; p = .02), including the subset with baseline diarrhea (71% vs 20%; p = .02). A decline in kidney peritubular capillary globotriaosylceramide inclusions correlated with diarrhea improvement; patients with a reduction > 0.1 were 5.6 times more likely to have an improvement in diarrhea than those without (p = .031).CONCLUSIONS: Migalastat was associated with a clinically meaningful improvement in diarrhea in patients with Fabry disease and amenable mutations. Reductions in kidney globotriaosylceramide may be a useful surrogate endpoint to predict clinical benefit with migalastat in patients with Fabry disease.TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT00925301 ; June 19, 2009.

The epidemic form of the hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) has been associated with a verocytotoxin producing Escherichia coli infection. Endothelial cell damage of glomeruli and arterioles of the kidney plays a central role in the pathogenesis of HUS. A number of observations in vivo and in vitro indicate that inflammatory mediators contribute to this process. In this study we investigated the binding of 125I-verocytotoxin-1 (VT-1) to freshly isolated human nonadherent monocytes as well as the nature of the ligand to which VT-1 binds on monocytes. On the average, freshly isolated monocytes have 0.07 x 105 specific binding sites for 125I-VT-1 per cell. Preincubation of nonadherent monocytes with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) caused a 23- to 30-fold increase of specific binding sites for VT-1 as shown by Scatchard plot analysis. Thin-layer chromatography of extracted neutral glycolipids of the cells and subsequent binding of 125I-VT-1 showed that human monocytes bind VT-1 to a globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) species that is different from that found on endothelial cells, probably a short-chain fattyacyl Gb3 or an α-OH-Gb3. In addition, we evaluated the functional consequences of VT-1 binding to human monocytes by investigating the effects of VT-1 on the total protein synthesis and, specifically, the production of the cytokines interleukin-1β (IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor- α (TNF-α), IL-6, and IL-8. We observed that VT-1 did not inhibit overall protein synthesis, nor under basal conditions, neither after stimulation with LPS, in contrast to previous observations with endothelial cells. Furthermore, we found that VT-1 induces the synthesis of the cytokines IL- 1β, TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-8 in nonstimulated monocytes by a LPS-independent cell activation. The increase in the production of cytokines was parallelled by an increase in mRNA, as was demonstrated for IL-6 by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. These data suggest that inflammatory mediators locally pro