Chromosomal rearrangements play a causal role in haematological and mesenchymal malignancies. Importantly, the resulting gene fusions can serve as specific therapeutic targets, as exemplified by the development of imatinib (Gleevec), which specifically inhibits the BCR-ABL gene fusion product that defines chronic myeloid leukaemia. Recently, gene fusions involving the prostate-specific gene tra...

To date, little evidence of miRNAexpression/ deregulation in multiple myeloma has been reported. To characterize miRNA in the context of the major multiple myeloma molecular types, we generated miRNA expression profiles of highly purified malignant plasma cells from 40 primary tumors. Furthermore, transcriptional profiles, available for all patients, were used to investigate the occurrence of m...

The Gloeobacter violaceus ligand-gated ion channel (GLIC) has been extensively studied by X-ray crystallography and other biophysical techniques. This provided key insights into the general gating mechanism of pentameric ligand-gated ion channel (pLGIC) signal transduction. However, the GLIC is activated by lowering the pH and the location of its putative proton activation site(s) still remain(...

Twenty-seven years after switching to a fully-funded privately-managed pension system, Chilean lawmakers are concerned that only 58% of the labor force made contributions in 2000. I develop a dynamic model of the joint husband and wife labor and saving decisions to study whether mandatory contributions affects incentives to choose self-insurance over social insurance. Households face a dual lab...

v-ets erythroblastosis virus E26 oncogene homolog 1 (ETS-1) plays crucial roles in a spectrum of malignancies. ETS-1 has gained attention in cancer research for its importance in cell migration, invasion and proliferation. In the present study, we focused on the effect of ETS-1 on epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is characterized by reduced E-cadherin expression and increased N-ca...

The ETS (E26 Transformation-specific Sequence) factors are comprised of a family of transcription factors that share a highly conserved DNA binding domain. Although originally described for their role as protooncogenes in the development of several types of human cancer, they have subsequently been shown to regulate a wide variety of biological processes including cellular growth and differenti...

Trisomy of the 21{st} chromosome leads to an over dosage of several regulatory genes in Down syndrome (DS). Though allelic and genotypic combinations formed between genes are interesting, till date, this particular area has never been explored in DS. In the present investigation four SNPs in two transcription factors, Single minded 2 (SIM2) and V-ets erythroblastosis virus E26 oncogene homolog2...

Although the regulation of smooth muscle cell (SMC) gene expression by cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) is now recognized, the mechanisms underlying these effects are not fully understood. In this study, we report that PKG-I stimulates myocardin/serum response factor (SRF)-dependent gene expression in vascular SMCs. The expression of PKG in PKG-deficient cells enhanced myocardin-induced SM22...

Evaluation of the Underground Economy in Quebec: A Microeconomic Approach The main purpose of this paper is to estimate the size and the growth of Quebec’s underground economy, and the corresponding loss of taxes for the government. Our approach is based on a method developed by Pissarides and Weber (1989) and extended by Lyssiotou et al. (2004). The basic hypothesis is that individuals can und...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS Evaluate the reading difficulty of Spanish patient education materials using the validated Índice Flesch-Szigriszt (INFLESZ) and Spanish Lexile Analyzer, and to identify relationships between English and Spanish readability formulas. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional analysis. METHODS All otolaryngology-related patient education articles written in Spanish from the health l...