A review of threats to groundwater quality in the anthropocene.

Awareness concerning sustainable groundwater consumption under the context of land use and climate change is gaining traction, raising the bar for adequate understanding of the complexities of natural and anthropogenic processes and how they affect groundwater quality. The heterogeneous characteristics of aquifers have hampered comprehensive source, transport and contaminant identification. As questions remain about the behavior and prediction of well-known groundwater contaminants, new concerns around emerging contaminants are on the increase.

Fetal bone cells for tissue engineering.

We envision the use of human fetal bone cells for engineered regeneration of adult skeletal tissue. A description of their cellular function is then necessary. To our knowledge, there is no description of human primary fetal bone cells treated with differentiation factors.

A novel highly informative polyA microsatellite on the telomeric side of the INK4a/ARF locus.

The INK4a/ARF locus encodes two cell cycle-regulatory proteins, p16(INK4a)and p14(ARF). Inactivation of the p16(INK4a)(MTS1) tumor suppressor gene by mutations, promoter methylation or gene deletions is a common event in the development of many different human tumors. The present report describes a novel polyA mononucleotide repeat situated 7.

Methylation silencing and mutations of the p14ARF and p16INK4a genes in colon cancer.

The INK4a-ARF locus encodes two tumor suppressor proteins involved in cell-cycle regulation, p16INK4a and p14ARF, whose functions are inactivated in many human cancers. The aim of this study was to evaluate p14ARF and p16INK4a gene inactivation and its association with some clinocopathological parameters in colon cancer. The mutational and methylation status of the p14ARF and p16INK4a genes was analyzed in 60 primary colon carcinomas and 8 colon cancer cell lines.

Frequent methylation silencing of p15(INK4b) (MTS2) and p16(INK4a) (MTS1) in B-cell and T-cell lymphomas.

The methylation status of p15(INK4b) (MTS2), p16(INK4a) (MTS1) and p14(ARF) (p16beta) was analyzed in 56 lymphomas by restriction-enzyme related polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (REP), methylation-specific PCR (MSP), and bisulfite genomic sequencing (BGS). Methylation of the p15 and p16 genes was detected, respectively, in 64% and 32% of the B-cell lymphomas, in 44% and 22% of the T-cell lymphomas, and in none of the 5 reactive lymph nodes analyzed. Both p15 and p16 genes were methylated more often in the high-grade (78% and 50%, respectively) than in the low-grade B-cell lymphomas (55% and 21%, respectively).

Consequences of seven novel mutations on the expression and structure of keratinocyte transglutaminase.

We report the molecular characterization of seven new keratinocyte transglutaminase mutations (R315C, S358R, V379L, G473S, R687C, deletion Delta679-696, R127Stop) found in lamellar ichthyosis patients. Arg-315, Ser-358, Val-379, and Gly-473 are highly conserved residues in transglutaminases while Arg-687 and Delta679-696 are not. All mutations strongly decreased transglutaminase activity and protein levels.