Multiple Myeloma: Genetic and Epigenetic Biomarkers with Clinical Potential.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is characterized by the uncontrolled proliferation of monoclonal plasma cells and accounts for approximately 10% of all hematologic malignancies. The clinical outcomes of MM can exhibit considerable variability. Variability in both the genetic and epigenetic characteristics of MM undeniably contributes to tumor dynamics.

Defining and Categorizing Nonpharmacologic Interventions in the Older Population: A Systematic Review.

Objectives: Nonpharmacologic interventions (NPIs) constitute an important part of treatment for older adults, cover a broad and diverse range of interventions, and have advantages over pharmacologic interventions (eg, limited adverse side effects). However, an unambiguous definition of NPIs is still lacking. Defining NPIs may facilitate research on this topic and enhance comparability of results between studies, and might help to face the challenges of recognition, acceptation, funding, and implementation.

Transcription factor DREF regulates expression of the microRNA gene bantam in Drosophila melanogaster.

The bantam gene encodes a vital microRNA and has a complex expression pattern in various tissues at different stages of Drosophila development. This microRNA is involved in the control of normal development of the ocular and wing imaginal discs, the central nervous system, and also in maintaining the undifferentiated state of stem cells in the ovaries of adult females. At the cellular level, bantam stimulates cell proliferation and prevents apoptosis.

Different Protein Groups Involved in Transcription Regulation in Development and Housekeeping Genes in Drosophila.

Antibodies to histone modifications and an insulator protein involved in the processes of transcription initiation and elongation are mapped in Drosophila polytene chromosomes. The CHRIZ protein (chromatin insulator) and H3K36me3 histone modification (RNA elongation) are detected only in the localization of housekeeping genes (interbands and gray bands of polytene chromosomes) and never in the regions of developmental genes (black bands and large puffs arising from them). Antibodies to H3S10P histone modification, which is associated with the initial elongation of the RNA strand during transcription, are found exclusively in small puffs, but not in housekeeping gene localization sites or large ecdysone-induced puffs, where housekeeping genes are localized.

Genes Containing Long Introns Occupy Series of Bands and Interbands In polytene Chromosomes.

The polytene chromosomes are the best model for studying the genome organization during interphase. Despite of the long-term studies available on genetic organization of polytene chromosome bands and interbands, little is known regarding long gene location on chromosomes. To analyze it, we used bioinformatic approaches and characterized genome-wide distribution of introns in gene bodies and in different chromatin states, and using fluorescent in situ hybridization we juxtaposed them with the chromosome structures.

Circulating DNA in rheumatoid arthritis: pathological changes and association with clinically used serological markers.

Background: Early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is crucial to providing effective therapy and often hampered by unspecific clinical manifestations. Elevated levels of extracellular circulating DNA (cirDNA) in patients with autoimmune disease were found to be associated with etiopathogenesis. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the putative diagnostic use of cirDNA in RA and its association with disease activity.

Chromatin Heterogeneity and Distribution of Regulatory Elements in the Late-Replicating Intercalary Heterochromatin Domains of Drosophila melanogaster Chromosomes.

Late-replicating domains (intercalary heterochromatin) in the Drosophila genome display a number of features suggesting their organization is quite unique. Typically, they are quite large and encompass clusters of functionally unrelated tissue-specific genes. They correspond to the topologically associating domains and conserved microsynteny blocks.

CHARACTERISTIC OF THE CHROMATIN TYPE CORRESPONDING TO THIN «GREY» BANDS IN POLYTHENE CHROMOSOMES OF DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER.

Recently, we developed a bioinformatic algorithm dividing drosophila genome into 4 types of chromatin which differ in protein composition. This allows us to propose a model of structural and functional organization of interphase chromosomes which postulates an existence of correlation between the chromatin types and morphological structures of polytene chromosomes. So, constantly and everywhere open chromatin type named «aquamarine» is characteristic of interbands, while the combinations of the other three types («lazurite», «malachite» and «ruby») form the bands.

Oral health in young women having a low calcium and vitamin D nutritional status.

Objective: Oral health plays an important role in an individual's eating choices, which in turn ensure good nutrition throughout life. The deterioration in diet quality may partially explain the association between tooth loss and several systemic diseases, including osteoporosis. The study evaluated the association between oral health and calcium (Ca) and vitamin D nutritional status.

Gut check: reappraisal of disgust helps explain liberal-conservative differences on issues of purity.

Disgust plays an important role in conservatives' moral and political judgments, helping to explain why conservatives and liberals differ in their attitudes on issues related to purity. We examined the extent to which the emotion-regulation strategy reappraisal drives the disgust-conservatism relationship. We hypothesized that disgust has less influence on the political and moral judgments of liberals because they tend to regulate disgust reactions through emotional reappraisal more than conservatives.

Liberating reason from the passions: overriding intuitionist moral judgments through emotion reappraisal.

A classic problem in moral psychology concerns whether and when moral judgments are driven by intuition versus deliberate reasoning. In this investigation, we explored the role of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that involves construing an emotion-eliciting situation in a way that diminishes the intensity of the emotional experience. We hypothesized that although emotional reactions evoke initial moral intuitions, reappraisal weakens the influence of these intuitions, leading to more deliberative moral judgments.

An fMRI study of caring vs self-focus during induced compassion and pride.

This study examined neural activation during the experience of compassion, an emotion that orients people toward vulnerable others and prompts caregiving, and pride, a self-focused emotion that signals individual strength and heightened status. Functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) were acquired as participants viewed 55 s continuous sequences of slides to induce either compassion or pride, presented in alternation with sequences of neutral slides. Emotion self-report data were collected after each slide condition within the fMRI scanner.

[Patterns of transposable elements distribution on the Drosophila melanogaster polytene chromosomes before and after selection for a quantitative trait].

The effect of selection for radius vein length on the distribution of hybridization sites of the P and hobo transposons and the mdgl and mdg2 retrotransposons on polytene chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster salivary glands was studied. The patterns of these transposable elements (TEs) distribution were polymorphic in both the parental strain and selected strains. The similarity in mdg1 and mdg2 patterns between strains selected in one direction was closer than between strains selected in opposite directions, but the selected strains were closer to each other than to the parental strain regardless of selection direction.

Disparities in the moral intuitions of criminal offenders: The role of psychopathy.

The present study examined whether and in what ways psychopathy is associated with abnormal moral intuitions among criminal offenders. Using Haidt et al.'s Moral Foundations Questionnaire, 222 adult male offenders assessed for clinical psychopathy reported their degree of support for five moral domains: Harm Prevention, Fairness, Respect for Authority, Ingroup Loyalty, and Purity/Sanctity.

A functional imaging investigation of moral deliberation and moral intuition.

Prior functional imaging studies of moral processing have utilized 'explicit' moral tasks that involve moral deliberation (e.g., reading statements such as 'he shot the victim' and rating the moral appropriateness of the behavior) or 'implicit' moral tasks that involve moral intuition (e.

Gender differences in neural mechanisms underlying moral sensitivity.

Researchers have proposed that females and males differ in the structure of their moral attitudes, such that females tend to adopt care-based moral evaluations and males tend to adopt justice-based moral evaluations. The existence of these gender differences remains a controversial issue, as behavioral studies have reported mixed findings. The current study investigated the neural correlates of moral sensitivity in females and males, to test the hypothesis that females would show increased activity in brain regions associated with care-based processing (posterior and anterior cingulate, anterior insula) relative to males when evaluating moral stimuli, and males would show increased activity in regions associated with justice-based processing (superior temporal sulcus) relative to females.

[The response of the genomic pattern of transposable elements TE412 to quantitative trait selection in Drosophila melanogaster].

The results of four selection-genetic experiments aimed at the genetic transformation of the quantitative trait controlled by the radius incompletus gene of Drosophila melanogaster are given. Directional (s+) and (s-)-selection was conducted. At the of end all the experiments, in (s+)-selection the radial vein of the wing was restored to the wild phenotype, in (s-)-selection complete elimination of the radial vein took place.

[Induction of MGE 412 transposition in an isogenic strain of Drosophila melanogaster by different doses of ethanol fumes].

The effect of treatment of males from an isogenic Drosophila melanogaster strain by limiting doses of ethanol fumes on transpositions of MGE 412 was examined. Validity of the phenomenon of transposition induction was demonstrated. We estimated rates of induced transposition (approximately 10(-2) events per site, per sperm, per generation versus < 10(-3) in control) and showed dose dependence of the rate on the exposure time of the males to ethanol fumes.

[Psychosomatic aspects of gastrointestinal diseases].

The article covers up-to-date information about the incidence of psychosomatic pathology among patients of gastroenterologic profile including patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease and syndrome of irritable colon. From the point of view of psychosomatic idea the article considers the factors predisposing, permitting and retarding the development of the disease. A detailed description is available in psychosomatic disturbances, modern concepts about their pathogenesis including a break of correlation between limbic and frontal regions of central nervous system and disorder in serotonin metabolism--clinical manifestations, methods of diagnosis and treatment including selective inhibitors and stimulators of serotonin reuptake and neuroleptics.

[Induction of MGE 412 transposition individually by heat and cold shock in spermatogenesis in Drosophila males].

Effects of temperature treatment (heavy heat shock, HHS; heat shock, HS; and cold shock, CS) on the daily productivity of treated males in different spermatogenesis stages have been studied in isogenic line 51 of Drosophila melanogaster. The average productivity was shown to substantially decrease in all cases. The sum of the HS and CS contributions to this decrease was nearly equal to the HHS (the combined HS and CS) contribution, i.

[Response of the MGE 412 pattern to truncation selection of a quantitative trait in an isogenic line of drosophila after severe heat shock (SHS)].

Positive and negative selection on the total length of two fragments of an interrupted longitudinal wing vein in an isogenic line of Drosophila melanogaster was accompanied by changes in the genomic localization pattern of MGE 412. Strong truncation selection was conducted in the population of effective size Ne = 160 for 50 generations. Twenty-six out of 35 polymorphic HHS-induced segments of MGE localization behaved as independent copies and markers, whereas 9 segments proved to be selective.