Abduction paresis with rostral pontine and/or mesencephalic lesions: Pseudoabducens palsy and its relation to the so-called posterior internuclear ophthalmoplegia of Lutz

Background  

The existence of a prenuclear abduction paresis is still debated.     

A consensus prognostic gene expression classifier for ER positive breast cancer

Background  

A consensus prognostic gene expression classifier is still elusive in heterogeneous diseases such as breast cancer.     

Both selective and neutral processes drive GC content evolution in the human genome

Background  

Mammalian genomes consist of regions differing in GC content, referred to as isochores or GC-content domains. The scientific debate is still open as to whether such compositional heterogeneity is a selected or neutral trait.     

Shortest triplet clustering: reconstructing large phylogenies using representative sets

Background  

Understanding the evolutionary relationships among species based on their genetic information is one of the primary objectives in phylogenetic analysis. Reconstructing phylogenies for large data sets is still a challenging task in Bioinformatics.     

DoBo: Protein domain boundary prediction by integrating evolutionary signals and machine learning

Background  

Accurate identification of protein domain boundaries is useful for protein structure determination and prediction. However, predicting protein domain boundaries from a sequence is still very challenging and largely unsolved.     

Establishment of a Cre/loxP recombination system for N-terminal epitope tagging of genes in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Tetrahymena</Emphasis>

Background  

Epitope tagging is a powerful strategy to study the function of proteins. Although tools for C-terminal protein tagging in the ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila have been developed, N-terminal protein tagging in this organism is still technically demanding.     

The architecture of chicken chromosome territories changes during differentiation

Background  

Between cell divisions the chromatin fiber of each chromosome is restricted to a subvolume of the interphase cell nucleus called chromosome territory. The internal organization of these chromosome territories is still largely unknown.     

Integrated network analysis of transcriptomic and proteomic data in psoriasis

Background  

Psoriasis is complex inflammatory skin pathology of autoimmune origin. Several cell types are perturbed in this pathology, and underlying signaling events are complex and still poorly understood.     

An in silico study of the molecular basis of B-RAF activation and conformational stability

Background  

B-RAF kinase plays an important role both in tumour induction and maintenance in several cancers and it is an attractive new drug target. However, the structural basis of the B-RAF activation is still not well understood.     

Gene expression analysis indicates extensive genotype-specific crosstalk between the conjugative F-plasmid and the E. coli chromosome

Background  

Plasmids are an important component of the bacterial genome, but the crosstalk between genes encoded on the chromosome and on the plasmid is still poorly understood.     

Increased expression of Matrix Metalloproteinase 9 in liver from NZB/W F1 mice received antibody against human parvovirus B19 VP1 unique region protein

Background  

Human parvovirus B19 infection has been postulated to the anti-phospholipid syndrome (APS) in autoimmunity. However, the influence of anti-B19-VP1u antibody in autoimmune diseases is still obscure.     

Structural and functional diversification in the teleost S100 family of calcium-binding proteins

Background  

Among the EF-Hand calcium-binding proteins the subgroup of S100 proteins constitute a large family with numerous and diverse functions in calcium-mediated signaling. The evolutionary origin of this family is still uncertain and most studies have examined mammalian family members.     

Modeling lymphocyte homing and encounters in lymph nodes

Background  

The efficiency of lymph nodes depends on tissue structure and organization, which allow the coordination of lymphocyte traffic. Despite their essential role, our understanding of lymph node specific mechanisms is still incomplete and currently a topic of intense research.     

Prediction of protein-protein interaction sites using an ensemble method

Background  

Prediction of protein-protein interaction sites is one of the most challenging and intriguing problems in the field of computational biology. Although much progress has been achieved by using various machine learning methods and a variety of available features, the problem is still far from being solved.     

Cancer initiation and progression: an unsimplifiable complexity

Background  

Cancer remains one of the most complex diseases affecting humans and, despite the impressive advances that have been made in molecular and cell biology, how cancer cells progress through carcinogenesis and acquire their metastatic ability is still widely debated.     

Understanding protein evolutionary rate by integrating gene co-expression with protein interactions

Background  

Among the many factors determining protein evolutionary rate, protein-protein interaction degree (PPID) has been intensively investigated in recent years, but its precise effect on protein evolutionary rate is still heavily debated.     

Prediction of the burial status of transmembrane residues of helical membrane proteins

Background  

Helical membrane proteins (HMPs) play a crucial role in diverse cellular processes, yet it still remains extremely difficult to determine their structures by experimental techniques. Given this situation, it is highly desirable to develop sequence-based computational methods for predicting structural characteristics of HMPs.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">In vitro</Emphasis>effects of relaxin on gene expression in porcine cumulus-oocyte complexes and developing embryos

Background  

Relaxin hormone peptide is found in porcine follicular and utero-tubal fluids, but its possible actions during early embryo development are still undetermined. Here, we investigated the effects of porcine relaxin during oocyte maturation and embryo development, and gene expression in the pig.     

Single-step autoantibody profiling in antiphospholipid syndrome using a multi-line dot assay

Introduction  

Diagnosis of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) still remains a laboratory challenge due to the great diversity of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) and their significance regarding APS-diagnostic criteria.