Estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and bcl-2 are markers with prognostic significance in CIN III

There are no known biological markers or technologies to predict the natural history of an individual CIN III. The probability of progression is considered greater with the persistence of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and age. p53 polymorphism has been associated with cervical carcinogenesis. Hormone-induced cervical cancer is mediated by estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR). In cervical cancer, increased bcl-2 and Bax immunoreactivity is generally associated with a better prognosis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the value of HPV 16 and HPV 18 typing and p53 codon polymorphism genotyping by polymerase chain reaction and ER, PR, bcl-2, and Bax expression by immunohistochemistry in predicting the CIN III clinical behavior of CIN III lesions. We studied the expression of these prognostic factors in the CIN III adjacent to squamous cell microinvasive carcinomas of the cervix (MIC) from 29 patients with FIGO stage IA1 cervical cancer and in 25 patients with CIN III and no documented focus of invasion. In the MIC group, only the CIN III was considered at least 2 mm away from the microinvasive complex. The ER, PR, bcl-2, and Bax immunoreactivity was scored as positive (>10% staining cells) and negative (<10% staining cells). No significant difference was observed between MIC and CIN III group concerning HPV infection and p53 polymorphism. The ER, PR, bcl-2, and Bax immunohistochemical expression was stronger and more frequent in the CIN III group. After multivariable analysis, coexpression of ER, PR, and bcl-2 was the only independent factor in defining low risk of progression for CIN III. Our study suggests that coexpression of ER, PR, and bcl-2 may be a useful tool in identifying the CIN III lesions with low risk of progression to cervical cance

The influence of semantic and phonological factors on syntactic decisions: An event-related brain potential study

During language production and comprehension, information about a word's syntactic properties is sometimes needed. While the decision about the grammatical gender of a word requires access to syntactic knowledge, it has also been hypothesized that semantic (i.e., biological gender) or phonological information (i.e., sound regularities) may influence this decision. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while native speakers of German processed written words that were or were not semantically and/or phonologically marked for gender. Behavioral and ERP results showed that participants were faster in making a gender decision when words were semantically and/or phonologically gender marked than when this was not the case, although the phonological effects were less clear. In conclusion, our data provide evidence that even though participants performed a grammatical gender decision, this task can be influenced by semantic and phonological factors

Impact of melt rheology on zein foam properties

Zein, the main protein fraction in maize, is left as a by-product from bio-ethanol production. The protein has been investigated as a material for a long time, but mainly in the form of films. In contrast, foamed zein is presented in this article. Zein foams may perhaps be used, e.g. as trays for biodegradable food packages or as scaffolds for tissue engineering. A batch method for manufacturing solid foams was successfully developed, the foams being manufactured by evaporation of solvent from zein resins. In order to be suitable for foam formation, a resin must possess gas-retaining properties, which can be predicted by extensional rheology. The presence of plasticizer in some of the resins decreased their extensional viscosity, and this in turn affected the foaming process. Although all the resins displayed strain-hardening behaviour, there was coalescence of pores in all the foams. Insufficient extensional viscosity resulted in the collapse of pore walls during foam expansion. Structure analysis showed, e.g. that most pores were elongated along the main axis of the mould in which the foams were manufactured. The plasticizer content in the resins had no significant effect on the mechanical properties of the foams

The transcriptional repressor protein NsrR senses nitric oxide directly via a [2Fe-2S] cluster

The regulatory protein NsrR, a member of the Rrf2 family of transcription repressors, is specifically dedicated to sensing nitric oxide (NO) in a variety of pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria. It has been proposed that NO directly modulates NsrR activity by interacting with a predicted [Fe-S] cluster in the NsrR protein, but no experimental evidence has been published to support this hypothesis. Here we report the purification of NsrR from the obligate aerobe Streptomyces coelicolor. We demonstrate using UV-visible, near UV CD and EPR spectroscopy that the protein contains an NO-sensitive [2Fe-2S] cluster when purified from E. coli. Upon exposure of NsrR to NO, the cluster is nitrosylated, which results in the loss of DNA binding activity as detected by bandshift assays. Removal of the [2Fe-2S] cluster to generate apo-NsrR also resulted in loss of DNA binding activity. This is the first demonstration that NsrR contains an NO-sensitive [2Fe-2S] cluster that is required for DNA binding activity

Genetic analysis of a major international collection of cultivated apple varieties reveals previously unknown historic heteroploid and inbred relationships

Domesticated apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) is a major global crop and the genetic diversity held within the pool of cultivated varieties is important for the development of future cultivars. The aim of this study was to investigate the diversity held within the domesticated form, through the analysis of a major international germplasm collection of cultivated varieties, the UK National Fruit Collection, consisting of over 2,000 selections of named cultivars and seedling varieties. We utilised Diversity Array Technology (DArT) markers to assess the genetic diversity within the collection. Clustering attempts, using the software STRUCTURE revealed that the accessions formed a complex and historically admixed group for which clear clustering was challenging. Comparison of accessions using the Jaccard similarity coefficient allowed us to identify clonal and duplicate material as well as revealing pairs and groups that appeared more closely related than a standard parent-offspring or full-sibling relations. From further investigation, we were able to propose a number of new pedigrees, which revealed that some historically important cultivars were more closely related than previously documented and that some of them were partially inbred. We were also able to elucidate a number of parent-offspring relationships that had resulted in a number of important polyploid cultivars. This included reuniting polyploid cultivars that in some cases dated as far back as the 18th century, with diploid parents that potentially date back as far as the 13th century

Hsp21potentiates antifungal drug tolerance in Candida albicans

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Search for Charged Higgs Bosons in e+e- Collisions at \sqrt{s} = 189 GeV

A search for pair-produced charged Higgs bosons is performed with the L3 detector at LEP using data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.6 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 176.4 pb^-1. Higgs decays into a charm and a strange quark or into a tau lepton and its associated neutrino are considered. The observed events are consistent with the expectations from Standard Model background processes. A lower limit of 65.5 GeV on the charged Higgs mass is derived at 95 % confidence level, independent of the decay branching ratio Br(H^{+/-} -> tau nu)

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal

Depth resolved lattice-charge coupling in epitaxial BiFeO3 thin film

For epitaxial films, a critical thickness (t(c)) can create a phenomenological interface between a strained bottom layer and a relaxed top layer. Here, we present an experimental report of how the t(c) in BiFeO3 thin films acts as a boundary to determine the crystalline phase, ferroelectricity, and piezoelectricity in 60 nm thick BiFeO3/SrRuO3/SrTiO3 substrate. We found larger Fe cation displacement of the relaxed layer than that of strained layer. In the time-resolved X-ray microdiffraction analyses, the piezoelectric response of the BiFeO3 film was resolved into a strained layer with an extremely low piezoelectric coefficient of 2.4 pm/V and a relaxed layer with a piezoelectric coefficient of 32 pm/V. The difference in the Fe displacements between the strained and relaxed layers is in good agreement with the differences in the piezoelectric coefficient due to the electromechanical couplingope