Quality of life: the contested rhetoric of resource allocation and end-of-life decision making.

The term"quality of life" has a long history in the bioethics literature. It is usually used in one of two contexts: in resource allocation discussions in the hope of arriving at an objective measure of the worth of an intervention; and in end-of-life discussions as a concept that can justify the forgoing of life-sustaining treatment. In both contexts, the term has valid uses as it is meant to measure the efficacy of a treatment.

Prenylation of an interferon-gamma-induced GTP-binding protein: the human guanylate binding protein, huGBP1.

Interferons (IFN) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) cause multiple changes in isoprenoid-modified proteins in murine macrophages, the most dramatic being the expression of a prenyl protein of 65 kDa. The guanylate binding proteins (GBPs) are IFN-inducible GTP-binding proteins of approximately 65 kDa that possess a CaaX motif at their C-terminus, indicating that they might be substrates for prenyltransferases. The human GBP1 protein, when expressed in transfected COS-1 cells, incorporates radioactivity from the isoprenoid precursor [3H]mevalonate.