The elusive gene for keratolytic winter erythema
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Keratolytic winter erythema (KWE), also known as Oudtshoorn skin disease, is characterised by a cyclical disruption of normal epidermal keratinisation affecting primarily the palmoplantar skin with peeling of the palms and soles, which is worse in the winter. It is a rare monogenic, autosomal dominant condition of unknown cause. However, due to a founder effect, it occurs at a prevalence of 1/7 200 among South African Afrikaans-speakers. In the mid-1980s, samples were collected from affected families for a linkage study to pinpoint the location of the KWE gene. A genome-wide linkage analysis, using microsatellite markers, identified the KWE critical region on chromosome 8p23.1-p22. Subsequent genetic studies focused on screening candidate genes in this critical region; however, no pathogenic mutations that segregated exclusively with KWE were identified. The cathepsin B (CTSB) and farnesyl-diphosphate farnesyltransferase 1 (FDFT1) genes revealed no potentially pathogenic variants, nor did they show differential gene expression in affected skin. Mutation detection in additional candidate genes also failed to identify the KWE-associated variant, suggesting that the causal variant may be in an uncharacterised functional region. Bioinformatic analysis revealed highly conserved regions within the KWE critical region and a custom tiling array was designed to cover this region and to search for copy number variation. Although the study did not identify a variant that segregates exclusively with KWE, it provided valuable insight into the complex KWE-linked region. Next-generation sequencing approaches are being used to comb the region, but the causal variant for this interesting hyperkeratotic palmoplantar phenotype still remains elusive.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".