Published in Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing
Research directed toward discovering how genetic factors influence a patient s response to drugs requires coordination of data produced from laboratory experiments, computational methods, and clinical studies. A public repository of pharmacogenetic data should accelerate progress in the field of pharmacogenetics by organizing and disseminating publ...
Published in Clinical Immunology
We have previously described an analog peptide of type II collagen (CII) that can suppress collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). This analog peptide represents CII(245-270), the immunodominant epitope of CII, but with substitutions at 260, 261, and 263 - CII(245-270) (A(260), B(261), and N(263)) (A9). To elucidate the mechanisms responsible for suppres...
Published in PLoS Computational Biology
Complex phenotypes such as the transformation of a normal population of cells into cancerous tissue result from a series of molecular triggers gone awry. We describe a method that searches for a genetic network consistent with expression changes observed under the knock-down of a set of genes that share a common role in the cell, such as a disease ...
Published in The Lancet
Published in Occupational Medicine
An audit of near patient cholesterol testing was carried out in occupational health clinics. The aims were to examine the statistical agreement between Reflotron and laboratory measurements of blood cholesterol and to formulate a policy for the use of Reflotrons in cholesterol testing. Three hundred and fifty-two staff members attending occupationa...
Micromonas is a unicellular motile alga within the Prasinophyceae, a green algal group that is related to land plants. This picoeukaryote (<2 μm diameter) is widespread in the marine environment but is not well understood at the cellular level. Here, we examine shifts in mRNA and protein expression over the course of the day-night cycle using tripl...
Published in Epidemiology and Infection
During an outbreak of hepatitis A that occurred in Gloucester, UK between September 1989 and January 1991, 162 clinical cases were identified through notifications and laboratory reports, a monthly attack rate of 1.05 per 10,000 residents. The highest attack rate was seen in 5-14-year-olds. There were significant correlations between hepatitis A at...
The stemness hypothesis states that all stem cells use common mechanisms to regulate self-renewal and multi-lineage potential. However, gene expression meta-analyses at the single gene level have failed to identify a significant number of genes selectively expressed by a broad range of stem cell types. We hypothesized that stemness may be regulated...
Published in The Journal of Immunology
Type II collagen from six mammalian species was investigated for the capacity to induce an immune response and collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) in C57/B10 congenic mouse strains. H-2q haplotype mice were susceptible to chick, bovine, deer, rat, and human type II collagen, but were resistant to arthritis induced by porcine type II collagen. H-2r hap...
Published in Archives of Disease in Childhood
Published in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences
Although associations between the expression of particular HLA genes and susceptibility to specific autoimmune diseases has been known for some time, the role HLA molecules play in the autoimmune response is unclear. Through the establishment of chimeric HLA-DR/I-E transgenes, the authors examined the function of the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) susce...
Published in BioMed Research International
The evidence underpinning public health policy is often of low quality, leading to inconsistencies in recommended interventions. One example is the divergence in national policies across Europe for managing contacts of invasive meningococcal disease. Aiming to develop consistent guidance at the European level, a group of experts reviewed the litera...
Published in Clinical Immunology
Theoretically, the ability to produce recombinant type II collagen (CII) peptide fragments in a prokaryotic expression system would be extremely useful for preparing adequate amounts of CII peptides suitable for therapeutic uses. Bacteria do not contain the enzymes involved in the extensive posttranslational modifications that occur during the bios...
Published in Epidemiology and Infection
Between 1 October 1986 and 31 March 1987, 55 cases of meningococcal disease were identified in the South-West of England, an attack rate of 1.54 per 100,000 during the study period. Antibiotics used in the treatment of the disease successfully eliminated nasopharyngeal carriage of meningococci in 13 out of 14 cases without use of rifampicin. The ov...
Published in Epidemiology and Infection
The genetically determined inability to secrete the water-soluble glycoprotein form of the ABO blood group antigens into saliva and other body fluids is a recognized risk factor for meningococcal disease. During a community-wide investigation of a prolonged outbreak of disease due to a B15:P1.16 sulphonamide-resistant strain of Neisseria meningitid...
Published in Laboratory Investigation
Published in Journal of Public Health Medicine
Between 8 December 1995 and 16 January 1996 seven laboratory confirmed cases of septicaemia owing to infection with Neisseria meningitidis serogroup C strains and one highly probable case of meningococcal septicaemia occurred in three electoral wards in south Rotherham and the Retford area of north Nottinghamshire. All cases occurred among children...
Published in Epidemiology and Infection
Introduction of pneumococcal conjugate and polysaccharide vaccines into the United Kingdom s routine immunization programmes is expected to change the epidemiology of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). We have documented the epidemiology of IPD in an English region (South West) with high-quality surveillance data before these programmes were esta...
Published in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine
Published in Agents and Actions
Previous reports have demonstrated suppressive effects of salmon calcitonin (SCT) on inflammation and immune reactions. A rat model of arthritis induced by immunization with type II collagen was studied in an attempt to demonstrate antirheumatic and immunosuppressive actions of SCT. No inhibition of arthritis or of specific immune responses to coll...
