Descriptive epidemiology of cervical dystonia.

Background: Cervical dystonia (CD), the most common form of adult-onset focal dystonia, has a heterogeneous clinical presentation with variable clinical features, leading to difficulties and delays in diagnosis. Owing to the lack of reviews specifically focusing on the frequency of primary CD in the general population, we performed a systematic literature search to examine its prevalence/incidence and analyze methodological differences among studies.

Methods: We performed a systematic literature search to examine the prevalence data of primary focal CD.

Regulation of iron-sulphur cluster homeostasis through transcriptional control of the Isc pathway by [2Fe-2S]-IscR in Escherichia coli.

Fe-S clusters are essential across the biological world, yet how cells regulate expression of Fe-S cluster biogenesis pathways to cope with changes in Fe-S cluster demand is not well understood. Here, we describe the mechanism by which IscR, a [2Fe-2S] cluster-containing regulator of Escherichia coli, adjusts the synthesis of the Isc Fe-S biogenesis pathway to maintain Fe-S homeostasis. Our data indicate that a negative feedback loop operates to repress transcription of the iscRSUA-hscBA-fdx operon, encoding IscR and the Isc machinery, through binding of [2Fe-2S]-IscR to two upstream binding sites.

Understanding rechallenge and resistance in the tyrosine kinase inhibitor era: imatinib in gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

Disease progression after treatment with a particular therapy, in the traditional view of cancer chemotherapy, indicates resistance to that treatment. However, targeted therapies such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) do not follow these same principles. The purpose of this review is to educate about TKI resistance and rechallenge in oncology, using the TKI imatinib in the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST).

Metabolism of bile salts in mice influences spore germination in Clostridium difficile.

Clostridium difficile, a spore-forming bacterium, causes antibiotic-associated diarrhea. In order to produce toxins and cause disease, C. difficile spores must germinate and grow out as vegetative cells in the host.

The LuxR family quorum-sensing activator MrtR requires its cognate autoinducer for dimerization and activation but not for protein folding.

MrtR, a LuxR homolog in Mesorhizobium tianshanense, is important for symbiosis. We found that MrtR requires its cognate N-acylhomoserine lactone for forming dimers, binding to a single DNA site and activating the downstream promoter. However, MrtR is able to fold independently of its ligand.

IscR-dependent gene expression links iron-sulphur cluster assembly to the control of O2-regulated genes in Escherichia coli.

IscR is an iron-sulphur (Fe-S) cluster-containing transcription factor that represses transcription of the operon containing its own gene and the iscSUA-hscBA-fdx genes, whose products are involved in Fe-S cluster biogenesis. In this study, global transcriptional profiling of Escherichia coli IscR(+) and IscR(-) strains grown under aerobic and anaerobic conditions indicated that 40 genes in 20 predicted operons were regulated by IscR. DNase I footprinting and/or in vitro transcription reactions identified seven new promoters under direct IscR control.