Frontiers in glycomics: bioinformatics and biomarkers in disease. An NIH white paper prepared from discussions by the focus groups at a workshop on the NIH campus, Bethesda MD (September 11-13, 2006)

Key issues relating to glycomics research were discussed after the workshop entitled "Frontiers in Glycomics: Bioinformatics and Biomarkers in Disease" by two focus groups nominated by the organizers. The groups focused on two themes: (i) glycomics as the new frontier for the discovery of biomarkers of disease and (ii) requirements for the development of informatics for glycomics and glycobiology. The mandate of the focus groups was to build consensus on these issues and develop a summary of findings and recommendations for presentation to the NIH and the greater scientific community. A list of scientific priorities was developed, presented, and discussed at the workshops. Additional suggestions were solicited from workshop participants and collected using the workshop mailing list. The results are summarized in this White Paper, authored by the co-chairs of the focus groups.     

基因库(GenBank)的电子邮件检索

基因库（ＧｅｎＢａｎｋ）是由美国国立卫生研究院、美国国立医学图书馆以及美国国家生物技术信息中心建立发行的,所有已知核酸和蛋白质序列及其文献和生物学注释的公共数据库。可以通过ＷＷ Ｗ 、ＦＴＰ、Ｅ－ ｍ ａｉｌ获取其中的数据,本文主要介绍了查询服务器的检索方法。     

心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除造成新生大鼠心脏结构异常

目的通过对心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除大鼠进行磁共振分析及病理学分析,探究心肌特异性敲除Isca1对大鼠心脏结构影响。方法繁育心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除大鼠,PCR技术鉴定大鼠基因型及基因敲除效率,对新出生0.5d及2.5d心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除大鼠进行核磁共振影像分析,对新出生2.5d心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除大鼠心肌组织进行H&E染色及透射电镜分析。结果心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除大鼠敲除效率大于78%;与野生型相比,0.5d心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除大鼠心脏未见显著扩张;2.5d心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除大鼠心脏右室呈扩张趋势;2.5d心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除大鼠肌纤维排列不齐,出现排列紊乱,无层次或极向,部分心肌纤维出现溶解断裂,肌节和Z线模糊,出现肌膜损伤,线粒体嵴断裂,肿胀明显。结论心肌组织特异性Isca1敲除造成新生大鼠心脏结构异常。     

Complex biomedical systems: from basic science to translation

The Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) of the University of Southern California (BME@USC) has a longstanding tradition of advancing biomedicine through the development and application of novel engineering ideas. More than 80 primary and affiliated faculty members conduct cutting-edge research in a wide variety of areas, such as neuroengineering, biosystems and biosignal analysis, medical devices (including biomicroelectromechanical systems (bioMEMS) and bionanotechnology), biomechanics, bioimaging, and imaging informatics. Currently, the department hosts six internationally recognized research centers: the Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems Engineering Research Center (funded by the National Science Foundation), the Biomedical Simulations Resource [funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)], the Medical Ultrasonic Transducer Center (funded by NIH), the Center for Neural Engineering, the Center for Vision Science and Technology (funded by an NIH Bioengineering Research Partnership Grant), and the Center for Genomic and Phenomic Studies in Autism (funded by NIH). BME@USC ranks in the top tier of all U.S. BME departments in terms of research funding per faculty.     

Overview of the Consortium of Hospitals Advancing Research on Tobacco (CHART)

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The Consortium of Hospitals Advancing Research on Tobacco (CHART) is a network of six projects and a research coordinating unit funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research. The CHART projects will assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions initiated during hospitalization and continued post-discharge. Methods/design Along with a seventh project funded previously under the NIH Challenge grants, the CHART projects will assess smoking cessation strategies delivered to approximately 10,000 hospitalized smokers across a geographically diverse group of nearly 20 private, public, academic, and community hospitals. The CHART research coordinating unit at Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research provides organizational and data coordination support, facilitating the development of common measures for combining data from multiple CHART projects. DISCUSSION: The targeted enrollment in CHART, if achieved, will represent the largest, most diverse pooled dataset of hospitalized smokers receiving smoking cessation assistance, and is designed to contribute to the dissemination and implementation of smoking cessation interventions provided by hospital systems.     

The pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. An interpretive history of the cholesterol controversy, part IV: the 1984 coronary primary prevention trial ends it--almost

As of the early 1980s, despite the wealth of evidence from experimental animal models, the extensive epidemiologic evidence, the powerful genetic evidence, and the strongly suggestive clinical intervention trial results, most clinicians still remained unpersuaded regarding the relevance of the lipid hypothesis. What was needed was a well-designed, large-scale, long-term, double-blind study demonstrating a statistically significant impact of treatment on coronary heart disease events. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) had laid the groundwork for such a study as early as 1970, but the study was not completed and the results published until 1984. This study, the Coronary Primary Prevention Trial, showed that treatment with a bile acid binding resin reduced major coronary events in hypercholesterolemic men by 19%, with a P value of 0.05. The NIH followed this up with a national Consensus Development Conference on Lowering Blood Cholesterol to Prevent Heart Disease. For the first time, the NIH now went on record advocating screening for hypercholesterolemia and urging aggressive treatment for those at high risk. The Institute initiated a national cooperative program to that end, the National Cholesterol Education Program. For the first time, preventing coronary heart disease became a national public health goal.     

Technology advancement for studying gene expression and gene function: a workshop report

Society News

Technology advancement for studying gene expression and gene function: a workshop reportSponsored by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Center for Human Genome Research, National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA     

Progress in complementary and alternative medicine research: Yale Research Symposium on Complementary and Integrative Medicine

Integrative Medicine at Yale and the Yale Center for Continuing Medical Education (CME) sponsored the Yale Research Symposium on Complementary and Integrative Medicine in March 2010 at the university's School of Medicine. Delivering the keynote address, Dr. Josephine P. Briggs, Director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), highlighted recent progress made in the field of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).     

Description of the data from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) and single-nucleotide polymorphism genotyping for Genetic Analysis Workshop 14

The data provided to the Genetic Analysis Workshop 14 (GAW 14) was the result of a collaboration among several different groups, catalyzed by Elizabeth Pugh from The Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR) and the organizers of GAW 14, Jean MacCluer and Laura Almasy. The DNA, phenotypic characterization, and microsatellite genomic survey were provided by the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA), a nine-site national collaboration funded by the National Institute of Alcohol and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) with the overarching goal of identifying and characterizing genes that affect the susceptibility to develop alcohol dependence and related phenotypes. CIDR, Affymetrix, and Illumina provided single-nucleotide polymorphism genotyping of a large subset of the COGA subjects. This article briefly describes the dataset that was provided.     

Use of cyclosporin a in establishing epstein-barr virus-transformed human lymphoblastoid cell lines

Summary We have investigated the potential for using cyclosporin A to increase the efficiency with which Epstein-Barr virus-transformed human lymphoblast lines can be prepared. Use of this immunosuppressive drug has permitted the development of a procedure with success rates exceeding 95% despite the processing of very large numbers of samples. This work was supported by National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke Grants NS16367 (Huntington's Disease Center Without Walls) and NS 20012.     

Second edition of 'The Bethesda System for reporting cervical cytology' - atlas, website, and Bethesda interobserver reproducibility project

A joint task force of the American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently completed a 2-year effort to revise the Bethesda System "blue book" atlas and develop a complementary web-based collection of cervical cytology images. The web-based collection of images is housed on the ASC website, which went live on November 5th, 2003; it can be directly accessed at http://www.cytopathology.org/NIH/.     

猪丙型肝炎病毒核心蛋白结合蛋白6同源基因的克隆化研究

利用不同种属动物之间重要基因序列高度同源的理论,应用分子生物学与生物信息学技术和方法。克隆猪丙型肝炎病毒(HCY)核心蛋白结合蛋白6(HCBP6)的同源基因。首先应用酵母双杂交技术,以表达HCV核心蛋白的表达栽体作为曾饵,对于百万级的肝细胞cDNA文库酵母进行配合、筛选,首先获得人HCBP6的全长鳊码基因。然后应用美国国立生物工程中心(NCBI)建立的核苷酸序列数据库(CenBank)的同源基因的检索,搜索与之同源的来源于猪的表达序列标签(EST)。然后根据基因同泺性的原则,确定猪HCBP6的同源基因。获得了与HCC核心蛋白结合蛋白的36个基因片段,其中之一命名为HCBP6。根据基因同源性搜索,获得了来源于猪的EST基因序列片段。最终确立了猪HCBP6的同源基因。利用不同物种之间基因同泺性的原理、NCBI数据库GenBank同源基因的搜索,获得了猪HCBP6同源基因。生物信息学技术在后基因组时代具有重要地位和作用。     

Future opportunities for life science programs in space

Most space-related life science programs are expensive and time-consuming, requiring international cooperation and resources with trans-disciplinary expertise. A comprehensive future program in "life sciences in space" needs, therefore, well-defined research goals and strategies as well as a sound ground-based program. The first half of this review will describe four key aspects such as the environment in space, previous accomplishments in space (primarily focusing on amphibian embryogenesis), available resources, and recent advances in bioinformatics and biotechnology, whose clear understanding is imperative for defining future directions. The second half of this review will focus on a broad range of interdisciplinary research opportunities currently supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institute of Health (NIH), and National Science Foundation (NSF). By listing numerous research topics such as alterations in a diffusion-limited metabolic process, bone loss and skeletal muscle weakness of astronauts, behavioral and cognitive ability in space, life in extreme environment, etc., we will attempt to suggest future opportunities.     

NIH disease funding levels and burden of disease

Background

An analysis of NIH funding in 1996 found that the strongest predictor of funding, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), explained only 39% of the variance in funding. In 1998, Congress requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) evaluate priority-setting criteria for NIH funding; the IOM recommended greater consideration of disease burden. We examined whether the association between current burden and funding has changed since that time.

Methods

We analyzed public data on 2006 NIH funding for 29 common conditions. Measures of US disease burden in 2004 were obtained from the World Health Organization''s Global Burden of Disease study and national databases. We assessed the relationship between disease burden and NIH funding dollars in univariate and multivariable log-linear models that evaluated all measures of disease burden. Sensitivity analyses examined associations with future US burden, current and future measures of world disease burden, and a newly standardized NIH accounting method.

Results

In univariate and multivariable analyses, disease-specific NIH funding levels increased with burden of disease measured in DALYs (p = 0.001), which accounted for 33% of funding level variation. No other factor predicted funding in multivariable models. Conditions receiving the most funding greater than expected based on disease burden were AIDS ($2474 M), diabetes mellitus ($390 M), and perinatal conditions ($297 M). Depression ($719 M), injuries ($691 M), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ($613 M) were the most underfunded. Results were similar using estimates of future US burden, current and future world disease burden, and alternate NIH accounting methods.

Conclusions

Current levels of NIH disease-specific research funding correlate modestly with US disease burden, and correlation has not improved in the last decade.     

Subcutaneous recombinant gamma interferon in cancer patients: toxicity,pharmacokinetics, and immunomodulatory effects

Summary Recombinant gamma interferon (r-IFN) was administered s. c. daily to 26 patients with advanced cancer. Patients were assigned to one of six doses: 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 million units (MU)/m² per d. The major toxicities were an influenza-like syndrome and fever, seen in all patients. Dose limiting toxicity occurred in 4 of 4 patients treated at 8 MU/m². One patient with nodular poorly differentiated lymphocytic lymphoma had a mixed response, and two patients with renal cell cancer have had stabilization of disease for >10 and >12 months. Pharmacokinetic analysis, by radioimmunoassay, revealed mean serum r-IFN concentrations up to 17 ng/ml, with maximal serum levels noted 6 to 13 h after injection. In vivo immunomodulation was assessed by natural killer (NK) cytotoxicity, monocyte activation as determined by cell surface expression of HLA-Dr, and peripheral blood mononuclear cell phenotype analysis by flow cytometry. The mean T₄/T₈ ratio increased from 2.1 pretreatment to 4.1 after 24 h of treatment, but returned to baseline after 7 and 28 days of treatment. Augmentation of NK function was noted after 7 days of treatment. Monocyte cell surface expression of HLA-Dr increased after 28 days of treatment at the three lowest doses. In conclusion, daily s. c. r-IFN can be easily administered on an outpatient basis with minimal local skin toxicity, results in prolonged serum levels, and is associated with immunological changes of potential antitumor significance. Further study of the in vivo immunomodulatory effects induced by r-IFN is indicated to help define the optimal treatment regimen.Recipient of a Clinical Investigator Award CA 01030 from the National Cancer Institute, NIH, DHHS. Supported by the Clinical Research Division of the Schering Corporation. A portion of this work was conducted at the Clinical Research Center of the University of Washington, supported by the NIH Grant RR-37. Additional support provided by the National Cancer Institute Grant CA 09515     

X线全身照射对2型糖尿病KKAy小鼠造血免疫系统功能的影响

目的观察X线全身照射对2型糖尿病模型KKAy小鼠的造血免疫系统功能的损伤作用,并与对照C57小鼠进行比较。方法KKAy小鼠,分为对照组和照射组,照射组小鼠经X线全身照射,剂量4Gy,C57小鼠作为对照。照射后15d检测小鼠的外周血常规,流式细胞术检测骨髓中造血祖细胞、造血干细胞和长期造血干细胞的比例,脾中B细胞和T细胞的比例,胸腺中CD4CD8双阳性T细胞、CD4单阳性T细胞和CD8单阳性T细胞的比例。通过粒细胞集落形成能力实验评价小鼠造血祖细胞的功能。结果照射前KKAy小鼠的HSC和LT-HSC的比例低于C57小鼠。4Gy全身照射后,KKAy小鼠的外周血WBC、RBC、PLT、HGB和LYM%分别下降了68.42%、12.17%、8.78%、30.12%、70.84%;骨髓中HPC、HSC和LT-HSC的比例分别下降了34.02%、29.49%、35.74%;脾B细胞和T细胞的比例分别下降了57.85%、58.81%;胸腺CD4CD8双阳性细胞的比例下降了51.70%。KKAy小鼠的骨髓HSC、LT-HSC、外周血RBC和HGB的降低幅度显著低于C57小鼠。结论4Gy全身照射损伤KKAy小鼠的造血免疫系统功能,KKAy小鼠可能比C57小鼠表现出对电离辐射较强的耐受性。     

脑血管内皮细胞Prmt5在脑血管发育过程中的表达及其下游靶分子

目的:研究内皮细胞中蛋白精氨酸甲基转移酶5(PRMT5)在脑血管发育及血脑屏障建成的关键时期的表达变化及其潜在下游靶分子。方法:原位观察PRMT5在小鼠不同发育时期脑血管内皮上的分布;流式分选获得原代脑血管内皮,利用real-time PCR分析Prmt5的表达;体外培养小鼠内皮细胞敲降Prmt5后,利用Western印迹、real-time PCR、ChIP等方法检测其对经典下游分子的影响。结果:PRMT5在胚胎期各时间点的脑血管内皮细胞质均有表达,小鼠出生后主要表达在脑血管内皮细胞核,在胚胎期18.5 d时表达量显著升高;小鼠脑血管内皮细胞体外细胞系中基因敲降Prmt5后,其经典对称甲基化组蛋白产物H4R3me2s及H3R2me2s均明显下降,Bmp4表达显著上调;免疫共沉淀实验提示Bmp4启动子区域组蛋白具有H3R2me2s修饰,Prmt5基因敲降后,该组蛋白修饰显著减少。结论:脑血管发育过程中PRMT5在脑血管内皮细胞中表达的位置和水平均发生变化,脑血管内皮细胞中PRMT5可以调节H4R3和H3R2对称二甲基化水平,Bmp4启动子区域组蛋白具有H3R2me2s修饰,且PRMT5可以抑制Bmp4表达。     

Organizing the Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy versus Stenting Trial (CREST): National Institutes of Health, Health Care Financing Administration, and industry funding

The Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy versus Stenting Trial (CREST) is a prospective, randomized, multicenter clinical trial of carotid endarterectomy (CEA) versus carotid artery stenting (CAS) as prevention for stroke in patients with symptomatic stenosis greater than or equal to 50%. CREST is sponsored by the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), with additional support by a device manufacturer, and will provide data to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for evaluation of a stent device. Because of budget constraints for CREST, Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) reimbursement for hospital costs incurred by CREST patients will be essential. The involvement of academic scientists, industry, and three separate government agencies (NIH, FDA, HCFA) has presented many challenges in conducting the trial. A review of the pathways followed to meet these challenges may be helpful to others seeking to facilitate sharing of the costs and burdens of conducting innovative clinical research.     

The role of scientific institutions in the promotion of biotechnology to the public (school,the mass-media,entrepreneurs etc)

This article gives an account of the group for the advancement of scientific awareness created in the National Institute for cancer research/advanced Biotechnology Center of Genoa (Italy).     

布鲁氏茵病防治基础研究现状与展望

布鲁氏菌病（简称布病）是由布鲁氏菌属细菌侵入机体引起的人畜共患传染病．近年来,布病疫情在世界范围内呈反弹趋势,我国尤甚．进入2000年以后,人间布病在我国成为报告发病数上升速度最快的传染病之一,令我国布病防治形势严峻．为了明确我国布病防治工作的现状和需求、最新研究现状和研究动态以及面临的挑战和机遇,深入研讨分析我国布病防治研究中的重大科学和关键技术问题,凝练和提出今后我国布病防治研究发展中亟需关注、解决的重要基础科学问题,在国家自然科学基金委员会资助下,由中国疾病预防控制中心地方病控制中心主办,哈尔滨医科大学、中国疾病预防控制中心传染病预防控制所和内蒙古地方病防治研究中心共同协办,于2013年6月21日召开了由来自全国布病防治与基础研究领域专家共同参加的“布鲁氏菌病防治基础研究发展战略研讨会”．会议在我国布病疫情最重的省份内蒙古自治区呼和浩特市召开,中国疾病预防控制中心传染病预防控制所、军事医学科学院疾病预防控制所、石河子大学、中国兽医药品监察所等19家从事布病防治与基础研究的科研院所、高等院校、疾病防治机构的40余位专家参加了此次会议．现结合文献资料以及本次会议的内容,对国内外布病流行现状、研究进展,以及影响我国布病防治的亟需解决的科学问题和建议作一综述．