Performance monitoring of improvisation and score-playing in a turn-taking piano duet: An EEG study using altered auditory feedback.

In music ensemble performance, perception-action coupling enables the processing of auditory feedback from oneself and other players. However, improvised actions may affect this coupling differently from predetermined actions. This study used two-person EEG to examine how pianists responded to altered pitch feedback to their own or their partner's actions while they alternated scores or improvised melodies.

Nucleosome-specific, time-dependent changes in histone modifications during activation of the early growth response 1 (Egr1) gene.

Histone post-translational modifications and nucleosome remodeling are coordinate events involved in eukaryotic transcriptional regulation. There are relatively few data on the time course with which these events occur in individual nucleosomes. As a contribution to fill this gap, we first describe the nature and time course of structural changes in the nucleosomes -2, -1, and +1 of the murine Egr1 gene upon induction.

Influence of cryopreservation on the antioxidative activity of cultivated species.

Antioxidative activity of two cultivated species - Boiss. and Fr. - was estimated after cryopreservation.

What's your poison? Impact of individual repair capacity on the outcomes of genotoxic therapies in cancer. Part II - information content and validity of biomarkers for individual repair capacity in the assessment of outcomes of anticancer therapy.

The individual variance in the efficiency of repair of damage induced by genotoxic therapies may be an important factor in the assessment of eligibility for different anticancer treatments, the outcomes of various treatments and the therapy-associated complications, including acute and delayed toxicity and acquired drug resistance. The second part of this paper analyses the currently available information about the possibilities of using experimentally obtained knowledge about individual repair capacity for the purposes of personalised medicine and healthcare.

Factor binding and chromatin modification in the promoter of murine Egr1 gene upon induction.

The influence of chromatin on immediate-early gene expression has been studied in a model of Egr1 induction in intact mouse cells. ChIP analysis of factor and RNA polymerase binding reveals that the gene is constitutively poised for transcription in nonstimulated cells, but a repressing chromatin structure hampers productive transcription. Stimulation with phorbol esters results in a transient activation, which starts at 5 min and peaks at 30 min.

Alterations in p53, BRCA1, ATM, PIK3CA, and HER2 genes and their effect in modifying clinicopathological characteristics and overall survival of Bulgarian patients with breast cancer.

Purpose: Though p53, BRCA1, ATM, PIK3CA, and HER2 genes are shown to be involved in various aspects of breast carcinogenesis, their functional relationship and clinical value are still disputable. We investigated the genetic status or expression profile of these genes to further elucidate their clinical significance.

Methods: PCR-SSCP-Sequencing of p53, BRCA1, ATM, and PIK3CA was performed in 145 Bulgarian patients with sporadic breast cancer.

Characterization and genotyping of strains of Francisella tularensis isolated in Bulgaria.

A tularaemia focus was detected in 1998 in Bulgaria, in an area where tularaemia had never been reported. The properties of Francisella tularensis subsp. holarctica strains isolated from 1998 to 2005 were studied.

Analysis of the K-ras/B-raf/Erk signal cascade, p53 and CMAP as markers for tumor progression in colorectal cancer patients.

Colorectal cancer patients may succumb to their disease because of local recurrence or formation of metastasis. To develop a prognostic tool for these fatal types of progression, 23 patients with colorectal carcinoma were included in this study for the detection at the time of surgery of the incidence of K-ras, B-raf and p53 mutations, the phosphorylation status of Erk and the expression of cystatin-like metastasis-associated protein (CMAP) in tumor, mucosa and liver samples. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism and PCR-SSCP were used to detect the respective mutations.

Transcription of the MAT2A gene, coding for methionine adenosyltransferase, is up-regulated by E2F and Sp1 at a chromatin level during proliferation of liver cells.

Methionine adenosyltransferase (MAT) is an essential enzyme because it catalyzes the formation of S-adenosylmethionine, the main methyl donor. Two MAT-encoding genes (MAT1A, MAT2A) are found in mammals. The latter is expressed in proliferating liver, dedifferentiation and cancer, whereas MAT1A is expressed in adult quiescent hepatocytes.

Germline p53 single-base changes associated with Balkan endemic nephropathy.

The Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN) is a significant clinical and scientific problem in need of novel effective therapies. Though many genetic and environmental factors have been investigated the basis, cause, and predisposition to BEN are still unclear. In this study, based on the hypothesis that the genetic pathways leading to BEN might be associated with p53 dysfunction, we screened for p53 gene mutations 90 Bulgarian BEN patients using optimized PCR-SSCP-sequencing analysis.

A short-range gradient of histone H3 acetylation and Tup1p redistribution at the promoter of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae SUC2 gene.

Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays are used to map H3 and H4 acetylation over the promoter nucleosomes and the coding region of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae SUC2 gene, under repressed and derepressed conditions, using wild type and mutant strains. In wild type cells, a high level of H3 acetylation at the distal end of the promoter drops sharply toward the proximal nucleosome that covers the TATA box, a gradient that become even steeper on derepression. In contrast, substantial H4 acetylation shows no such gradient and extends into the coding region.

Slide-rule-like property of Wigner's little groups and cyclic S matrices for multilayer optics.

It is noted that 2x2 "S" matrices in multilayer optics can be represented by the Sp(2) group whose algebraic property is the same as the group of Lorentz transformations applicable to two spacelike and one timelike dimensions. It is also noted that Wigner's little groups have a slide-rule-like property that allows us to perform multiplications by additions. It is shown that these two mathematical properties lead to a cyclic representation of the S matrix for multilayer optics, as in the case of ABCD matrices for laser cavities.