Binding of human myeloperoxidase to red blood cells: Molecular targets and biophysical consequences at the plasma membrane level.

Myeloperoxidase (MPO) is an oxidant-producing enzyme that can also bind to cellular surface proteins. We found that band 3 protein and glycophorins A and B were the key MPO-binding targets of human red blood cells (RBCs). The interaction of MPO with RBC proteins was mostly electrostatic in nature because it was inhibited by desialation, exogenic sialic acid, high ionic strength, and extreme pH.

A 6 GW nanosecond solid-state generator based on semiconductor opening switch.

In this paper, a nanosecond all solid-state generator providing peak power of up to 6 GW, output voltage of 500-900 kV, pulse length (full width at half maximum) of ∼7 ns across external loads of 40-100 Ω, and pulse repetition frequency up to 1 kHz in burst operation mode is described. The output pulse is generated by a semiconductor opening switch (SOS). A new SOS pumping circuit based on a double forming line (DFL) is proposed and its implementation described.

Opisthorchiasis in infant remains from the medieval Zeleniy Yar burial ground of XII-XIII centuries AD.

We present a paleoparasitological analysis of the medieval Zeleniy Yar burial ground of the XII-XII centuries AD located in the northern part of Western Siberia. Parasite eggs, identified as eggs of Opisthorchis felineus, were found in the samples from the pelvic area of a one year old infant buried at the site. Presence of these eggs in the soil samples from the infant's abdomen suggests that he/she was infected with opisthorchiasis and imply consumption of undercooked fish.

Leveraging Distant Relatedness to Quantify Human Mutation and Gene-Conversion Rates.

The rate at which human genomes mutate is a central biological parameter that has many implications for our ability to understand demographic and evolutionary phenomena. We present a method for inferring mutation and gene-conversion rates by using the number of sequence differences observed in identical-by-descent (IBD) segments together with a reconstructed model of recent population-size history. This approach is robust to, and can quantify, the presence of substantial genotyping error, as validated in coalescent simulations.

Contrasting genetic architectures of schizophrenia and other complex diseases using fast variance-components analysis.

Heritability analyses of genome-wide association study (GWAS) cohorts have yielded important insights into complex disease architecture, and increasing sample sizes hold the promise of further discoveries. Here we analyze the genetic architectures of schizophrenia in 49,806 samples from the PGC and nine complex diseases in 54,734 samples from the GERA cohort. For schizophrenia, we infer an overwhelmingly polygenic disease architecture in which ≥71% of 1-Mb genomic regions harbor ≥1 variant influencing schizophrenia risk.

Leveraging local ancestry to detect gene-gene interactions in genome-wide data.

Background: Although genome-wide association studies have successfully identified thousands of variants associated to complex traits, these variants only explain a small amount of the entire heritability of the trait. Gene-gene interactions have been proposed as a source to explain a significant percentage of the missing heritability. However, detecting gene-gene interactions has proven to be very difficult due to computational and statistical challenges.

Modeling Linkage Disequilibrium Increases Accuracy of Polygenic Risk Scores.

Polygenic risk scores have shown great promise in predicting complex disease risk and will become more accurate as training sample sizes increase. The standard approach for calculating risk scores involves linkage disequilibrium (LD)-based marker pruning and applying a p value threshold to association statistics, but this discards information and can reduce predictive accuracy. We introduce LDpred, a method that infers the posterior mean effect size of each marker by using a prior on effect sizes and LD information from an external reference panel.

Partitioning heritability by functional annotation using genome-wide association summary statistics.

Recent work has demonstrated that some functional categories of the genome contribute disproportionately to the heritability of complex diseases. Here we analyze a broad set of functional elements, including cell type-specific elements, to estimate their polygenic contributions to heritability in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of 17 complex diseases and traits with an average sample size of 73,599. To enable this analysis, we introduce a new method, stratified LD score regression, for partitioning heritability from GWAS summary statistics while accounting for linked markers.

An atlas of genetic correlations across human diseases and traits.

Identifying genetic correlations between complex traits and diseases can provide useful etiological insights and help prioritize likely causal relationships. The major challenges preventing estimation of genetic correlation from genome-wide association study (GWAS) data with current methods are the lack of availability of individual-level genotype data and widespread sample overlap among meta-analyses. We circumvent these difficulties by introducing a technique-cross-trait LD Score regression-for estimating genetic correlation that requires only GWAS summary statistics and is not biased by sample overlap.

Considerable Variation of Antibacterial Activity of Cu Nanoparticles Suspensions Depending on the Storage Time, Dispersive Medium, and Particle Sizes.

Suspensions of Cu nanoparticles are promising for creating the new class of alternative antimicrobial products. In this study we examined copper nanoparticles of various sizes obtained by the method of wire electric explosion: nanopowder average size 50 nm (Cu 50) and 100 nm (Cu 100). The paper presents the complex study of the influence of physicochemical properties such as particle size and concentration of the freshly prepared and 24-hour suspensions of Cu nanoparticles in distilled water and physiological solution upon their toxicity to bacteria E.

New data and an old puzzle: the negative association between schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis.

Background: A long-standing epidemiological puzzle is the reduced rate of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in those with schizophrenia (SZ) and vice versa. Traditional epidemiological approaches to determine if this negative association is underpinned by genetic factors would test for reduced rates of one disorder in relatives of the other, but sufficiently powered data sets are difficult to achieve. The genomics era presents an alternative paradigm for investigating the genetic relationship between two uncommon disorders.

[ROENTGEN-ENDOVASCULAR EMBOLIZATION OF THE PORTAL VEIN BRANCHES AS A PATIENTS CONDITIONING FOR EXTENSIVE HEPATIC RESECTION].

The results of surgical treatment of 316 patients, suffering focal hepatic diseases, in whom for preoperative preparation a portal vein embolization (PVE) was performed, were analyzed. PVE was applied in a small planned hepatic residual volume. The patients have aged from 21 to 77 yrs, (57 ± 10.

An in situ high-temperature scanning electron microscopy study of acanthite-argentite phase transformation in nanocrystalline silver sulfide powder.

For the first time, the α-Ag2S (acanthite)-β-Ag2S (argentite) phase transformation in nanocrystalline and coarse-crystalline powders of silver sulfide has been observed in situ by the scanning electron microscopy method in real-time. The argentite crystals are formed on the surface of acanthite particles as a result of electron-beam heating. According to the differential thermal analysis data, the transformation occurs at a temperature of ∼449-450 K, and the enthalpy of transformation is equal to ∼3.

NaF-KF-AlF3 System: Phase Transition in K2NaAl3F12 Ternary Fluoride.

Phase formation in the NaF-KF-AlF3 system, in the vicinity of the K2NaAl3F12 composition, has been studied. The samples have been prepared by melting the starting components at 650 °C. A new phase has been revealed, which appeared to be a low-temperature form of the well-known K2NaAl3F12 ternary fluoride obtained by the hydrothermal synthesis method.

Nonstoichiometry of nanocrystalline monoclinic silver sulfide.

Powders of silver sulfide have been synthesized by chemical bath deposition from aqueous solutions of silver nitrate and sodium sulfide in the presence of sodium citrate or EDTA-H2Na2. Colloid solutions have been prepared by a chemical condensation method from the same aqueous solutions. Synthesized silver sulfide nanopowders have a monoclinic (space group P21/c) acanthite-type structure but the occupancy of the metal sublattice sites by Ag atoms is smaller than 1.

Mixed model with correction for case-control ascertainment increases association power.

We introduce a liability-threshold mixed linear model (LTMLM) association statistic for case-control studies and show that it has a well-controlled false-positive rate and more power than existing mixed-model methods for diseases with low prevalence. Existing mixed-model methods suffer a loss in power under case-control ascertainment, but no solution has been proposed. Here, we solve this problem by using a χ(2) score statistic computed from posterior mean liabilities (PMLs) under the liability-threshold model.

Assessing polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans in air across Latin American countries using polyurethane foam disk passive air samplers.

A passive air sampling network has been established to investigate polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) at Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) sites and six additional sites in the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC) region. The air sampling network covers background, agricultural, rural, and urban sites. Samples have been collected over four consecutive periods of 6 months, which started in January 2011 [period 1 (January to June 2011), period 2 (July to December 2011), period 3 (January to June 2012), and period 4 (July 2012 to January 2013)].

[Results of preoperative embolization of portal vein in patients with biliary hepatic tumors].

The results of preoperative embolization of portal vein (EPV) in 90 patients, operated on for biliary hepatic tumors, were analyzed. In 47 patients Klatskin tumor was revealed, in 29--peripheral cholangiocarcinoma, in 14--tumor of a gallbladder. In all the patients a radical major hepatic resection was planned, a checking hepatic volume (CHHV) did not exceed 40% of a noninvolved parenchyma.

[The possibilities of increase of efficacy of rehabilitation of stroke patients with neglect syndrome].

Objective: To evaluate different treatment schemes for post stroke patients with neglect syndrome (NS).

Material And Methods: We studied management rules for patients with NS and the effect of ceraxon (citicoline) on the functional rehabilitation and removal of the neglect syndrome. We analyzed treatment results of 120 stroke patients.

Partitioning heritability of regulatory and cell-type-specific variants across 11 common diseases.

Regulatory and coding variants are known to be enriched with associations identified by genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of complex disease, but their contributions to trait heritability are currently unknown. We applied variance-component methods to imputed genotype data for 11 common diseases to partition the heritability explained by genotyped SNPs (hg(2)) across functional categories (while accounting for shared variance due to linkage disequilibrium). Extensive simulations showed that in contrast to current estimates from GWAS summary statistics, the variance-component approach partitions heritability accurately under a wide range of complex-disease architectures.

Leveraging population admixture to characterize the heritability of complex traits.

Despite recent progress on estimating the heritability explained by genotyped SNPs (h(2)g), a large gap between h(2)g and estimates of total narrow-sense heritability (h(2)) remains. Explanations for this gap include rare variants or upward bias in family-based estimates of h(2) due to shared environment or epistasis. We estimate h(2) from unrelated individuals in admixed populations by first estimating the heritability explained by local ancestry (h(2)γ).

Preliminary Analysis of the Surgical Treatment of Anorectal Malformations in Russia.

The article provides the analysis of a survey of the professional community of Russian pediatric surgeons, dedicated to the treatment of anorectal malformations (ARM). The authors evaluated the differences and similarities in classification, surgical procedures, time of definitive repair, and postoperative management of ARM in different hospitals and centers. This was done by a survey upon specialists and experts in Russia followed by a symposium with live surgery, open discussion, and vote.

[Preoperative portal vein embolization: dynamics of portal pressure].

The pressure dynamics was studied in a portal vein (PV) in patients, suffering focal hepatic pathology, to whom portal vein embolization (PVE) was performed as a stage of preparation to radical hepatic resection. In 236 patients the immediate measurement of pressure in a PV was performed intraoperatively before and after PVE, in 26 - catheter for control portography and monitoring of pressure in a PV was left in its trunk for 24 h postoperatively. There was noted a pressure rising in a PV immediately after its embolization by 86.

Fast and accurate imputation of summary statistics enhances evidence of functional enrichment.

Motivation: Imputation using external reference panels (e.g. 1000 Genomes) is a widely used approach for increasing power in genome-wide association studies and meta-analysis.

Genome-wide mapping of IBD segments in an Ashkenazi PD cohort identifies associated haplotypes.

The recent series of large genome-wide association studies in European and Japanese cohorts established that Parkinson disease (PD) has a substantial genetic component. To further investigate the genetic landscape of PD, we performed a genome-wide scan in the largest to date Ashkenazi Jewish cohort of 1130 Parkinson patients and 2611 pooled controls. Motivated by the reduced disease allele heterogeneity and a high degree of identical-by-descent (IBD) haplotype sharing in this founder population, we conducted a haplotype association study based on mapping of shared IBD segments.