Ancient origin and high diversity of zymocin-like killer toxins in the budding yeast subphylum.

Zymocin is a well-characterized killer toxin secreted by some strains of the yeast . It acts by cleaving a specific tRNA in sensitive recipient cells. Zymocin is encoded by a killer plasmid or virus-like element (VLE), which is a linear DNA molecule located in the cytosol.

Maternal seafood intake, dietary contaminant exposure, and risk of juvenile idiopathic arthritis: exploring gene-environment interactions.

Objectives: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) originates from a complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors. We investigated the association between seafood intake and dietary contaminant exposure during pregnancy and JIA risk, to identify sex differences and gene-environment interactions.

Methods: We used the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), a population-based prospective pregnancy cohort (1999-2008).

Stressful life events are associated with the diagnosis of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases among adults.

Objectives: To assess the association between life events and subsequent diagnosis of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) by comparing siblings discordant for SARDs and unrelated controls.

Methods: Life events 12 months prior to SARD diagnosis/reference date were queried using the Interview for Recent Life Events in 227 adults (96 probands with SARDs, 78 siblings, 53 controls). Probands were matched by age, sex, and race with their unaffected siblings or with unrelated controls.

Refining breast cancer genetic risk and biology through multi-ancestry fine-mapping analyses of 192 risk regions.

Genome-wide association studies have identified approximately 200 genetic risk loci for breast cancer, but the causal variants and target genes are mostly unknown. We sought to fine-map all known breast cancer risk loci using genome-wide association study data from 172,737 female breast cancer cases and 242,009 controls of African, Asian and European ancestry. We identified 332 independent association signals for breast cancer risk, including 131 signals not reported previously, and for 50 of them, we narrowed the credible causal variants down to a single variant.