BHD Research

Digital technology is important in every sector of society, particularly in health. The potential of the medical charity sector in digital health was the theme of this week’s AMRC Conference at Google DeepMind in London. The event showcased charity projects and partnerships in digital health and explored the potential for digital innovation in medical research. … Read more

VHL genetic alterations do not affect the production of HIF-α in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). However, their effects on tuberous sclerosis proteins (TSC1/2) and heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) expression are currently unknown. In a recent study, Damjanovic et al. (2016) evaluated the impact of VHL genetic alterations and HIF-α production on the expression of TSC proteins … Read more

The European Association of Urology (EAU) Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) guidelines panel has recently updated its recommendation on adjuvant therapy with sunitinib in non-metastatic RCC after surgical tumour removal (Bex et al., 2016). These clinical guidelines provide urologists with evidence-based information and recommendations for the management of RCC and the panel includes urological surgeons, oncologists, … Read more

Birt-Hogg-Dubé (BHD) syndrome is a rare disorder caused by mutations in FLCN and associated with increased risk of kidney cancer. It has been shown that FLCN-interacting protein 1 and 2 (FNIP1 and FNIP2) double knockout mice, like the FLCN knockout mice, develop renal carcinoma (Hasumi et al., 2015). However, the molecular mechanisms linking FNIP and … Read more

The germline FLCN missense mutations H255Y (Hasumi et al., 2009) and K508R (Toro et al., 2008) have been identified in patients with bilateral multifocal (BMF) kidney tumours and other clinical symptoms of Birt-Hogg-Dube (BHD) syndrome, or with BMF kidney tumours as the only manifestation. Building on their previous work identifying the H255Y mutation in human … Read more

2016 has been a busy year for BHD research. With the new year approaching, this week’s blog will review the studies we’ve particularly enjoyed writing about and revisit the year’s highlights. Iribe et al. (2016) assessed several RCC subtypes from BHD patients to determine if they had similar or distinct patterns of genetic abnormalities. Only a few chromophobe RCC … Read more

Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome is caused by mutations in the FLCN gene. The FLCN protein acts as a tumour suppressor and BHD patients have a high risk of developing renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The mechanisms of tumour formation in BHD have been investigated using mouse models and human RCC tissues. However, in vitro signalling studies of human renal cells with mutant FLCN … Read more

Clinical trials are crucial to help doctors and scientists understand how to safely treat a particular condition, to evaluate new treatments and to test drug safety and efficacy. They have an important role in every step of managing a condition with different clinical trials helping with prevention, diagnosis, treatments and follow-up support. However, accessing and … Read more

Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome is caused by mutations in the FLCN gene. FLCN interacts with mTOR and is expressed in most tissues, however, until recently its role in adipose tissue has been unknown. Earlier this year Yan et al. (2016) showed that loss of FLCN regulates browning of adipose tissue via AMPK.  Now, Wada et al. (2016) … Read more

Birt–Hogg–Dubé syndrome (BHD) is caused by germline mutations in the FLCN gene and characterized by fibrofolliculomas, lung cysts, spontaneous pneumothorax and renal tumours. The stretch hypothesis for pulmonary cyst formation proposes that cysts in BHD arise from defects in cell–cell adhesion, leading to repeated respiration-induced physical stretch-induced stress and, over time, expansion of alveolar spaces particularly in … Read more