Background:Binding of serum components by surface M-related proteins, encoded by the emm genes, in streptococci constitutes a major virulence factor in this important group of organisms. The present study demonstrates fibrinogen binding by S.iniae, a Lancefield non-typeable pathogen causing devastating
Background:Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignancy worldwide and treatment options are depended on the stage of the tumour. In general, the prognosis of HCC patients with extra-hepatic metastasis is poor. The most common sites of extra-hepatic metastasis are the
Background:The precise role of capsule endoscopy in the diagnostic algorithm of obscure gastrointestinal bleeding has yet to be determined. Despite the higher diagnostic yield of capsule endoscopy, the actual impact on clinical outcome remains poorly defined. The aim of this
Background:With the completion of the Human Genome Project and recent advancements in mutation detection technologies, the volume of data available on genetic variations has risen considerably. These data are stored in online variation databases and provide important clues to the
Background:Genomes of lower organisms have been observed with a large amount of horizontal gene transfers, which cause difficulties in their evolutionary study. Bacteriophage genomes are a typical example. One recent approach that addresses this problem is the unsupervised clustering of
Background:Area-based studies of childhood injuries strongly suggest that neighborhood socio-demographic and economic circumstances impact on various - though not all - types of injuries. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the stability over time of the association
Background:Pharmacological and genetic studies suggest the importance of the dopaminergic, serotonergic, and noradrenergic systems in the pathogenesis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Disruptive Behavior Disorder (DBD). We have, in a population-based sample, studied associations between dimensions of the
Background:A fundamental characteristic of cells is the ability to divide. To date, most parameters of bacterial cultures, including cell division, have been measured as cell population averages, assuming that all bacteria divide at a uniform rate. Results:We monitored the division
Backgroud. Patients with chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at an increased risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) and it is estimated that one in six persons diagnosed with IBD will develop CRC. This fact suggests that genetic variations in inflammatory
Background:Most clinicians and teachers agree that knowledge about ECG is of importance in the medical curriculum. Students at Karolinska Institutet have asked for more training in ECG-interpretation during their undergraduate studies. Clinical tutors, however, have difficulties in meeting these demands
Background:The increasing amount of published literature in biomedicine represents an immense source of knowledge, which can only efficiently be accessed by a new generation of automated information extraction tools. Named entity recognition of well-defined objects, such as genes or proteins,
Background:The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been increasing rapidly throughout the world during the past decade. The use of CAM in the general Japanese population has been previously reported to be as high as 76%. This study
Background:In DNA microarray experiments, discovering groups of genes that share similar transcriptional characteristics is instrumental in functional annotation, tissue classification and motif identification. However, in many situations a subset of genes only exhibits consistent pattern over a subset of conditions.
Background:The DNA microarray technology allows the measurement of expression levels of thousands of genes under tens/hundreds of different conditions. In microarray data, genes with similar functions usually co-express under certain conditions only [1]. Thus, biclustering which clusters genes and conditions
Background:In the period following wars and other forms of armed conflict, health and quality of life of mothers is a major concern as they have the closest contact with children. The present study was performed to examine the impact of
Background:For winter 2003/2004 in Scotland, it was recommended that all those aged 65 and over be eligible to receive 23-valent polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine (23vPPV), which has been shown to be effective in reducing the risk of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD).
Background:The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of drug-related morbidity and mortality, with incidence data implicating a wide range of HCV transmission risk practices. The Blood-Borne Virus Transmission Risk Assessment Questionnaire (BBV-TRAQ) is a content valid instrument that
Background:Genes that are co-expressed tend to be involved in the same biological process. However, co-expression is not a very reliable predictor of functional links between genes. The evolutionary conservation of co-expression between species can be used to predict protein function
Background:Enzymatic mutation detection methods are based on the cleavage of heteroduplex DNA by a mismatch-specific endonuclease at mismatch sites and the analysis of the digestion product on a DNA sequencer. Important limitations of these methods are the availability of a
Background:The shape of the dose-response curve at low doses differs from the linear quadratic model. The effect of a radio-adaptive response is the centre of many studies and well known inspite that the clinical applications are still rarely considered.Methods:We studied
