Prediction of tumor-specific splicing from somatic mutations as a source of neoantigen candidates.

Motivation: Neoantigens are promising targets for cancer immunotherapies and might arise from alternative splicing. However, detecting tumor-specific splicing is challenging because many non-canonical splice junctions identified in tumors also appear in healthy tissues. To increase tumor-specificity, we focused on splicing caused by somatic mutations as a source for neoantigen candidates in individual patients.

-amplifying RNA expressing functional miRNA mediates target gene suppression and simultaneous transgene expression.

The co-delivery of microRNAs (miRNAs) and protein-coding RNA presents an opportunity for a combined approach to gene expression and gene regulation for therapeutic applications. Protein delivery is established using long mRNA, self-, and -amplifying RNA (taRNA), whereas miRNA delivery typically uses short synthetic oligonucleotides rather than incorporating it as a precursor into long RNA. Although miRNA delivery into the cell cytoplasm using long genomes of RNA viruses has been described, concerns have remained regarding low processing efficiency.

Clinical Determinants of Thrombin Generation Measured in Presence and Absence of Platelets-Results from the Gutenberg Health Study.

The tendency of a plasma sample to generate thrombin, a central enzyme in blood coagulation, might be an important indicator of prothrombotic risk linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD), but the presence of platelets may be a critical determinant. Clinical data, laboratory markers and thrombin generation (TG), investigated in both platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and platelet-free plasma (PFP) at 1 pM TF, were available in 407 individuals from the Gutenberg Health Study. Given the well-known effect of anticoagulants on TG, subjects taking anticoagulants ( = 15) have been excluded resulting in 392 subjects for further analysis.