Sperm toxicity testing on lubricant gels: should we be recommending 'fertility-friendly' specialist products?

Couples trying to conceive or providing samples for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) are advised against the use of lubricant-gels due to the risk of sperm-toxicity. However, gels now exist which are specifically formulated to help couples conceive but without consensus on their toxicity relative to non-specialist products. This study tested gels recently introduced as 'sperm friendly' (FertilSafe Plus, Fertile Check) alongside established lubricants intended for pleasure only using a recently published toxicity testing regime.

Investigation of allele specific expression in various tissues of broiler chickens using the detection tool VADT.

Differential abundance of allelic transcripts in a diploid organism, commonly referred to as allele specific expression (ASE), is a biologically significant phenomenon and can be examined using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from RNA-seq. Quantifying ASE aids in our ability to identify and understand cis-regulatory mechanisms that influence gene expression, and thereby assist in identifying causal mutations. This study examines ASE in breast muscle, abdominal fat, and liver of commercial broiler chickens using variants called from a large sub-set of the samples (n = 68).

Fine mapping and functional studies of risk variants for type 1 diabetes at chromosome 16p13.13.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located in the chromosomal region 16p13.13 have been previously associated with risk for several autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes. To identify and localize specific risk variants for type 1 diabetes in this region and understand the mechanism of their action, we resequenced a 455-kb region in type 1 diabetic patients and unaffected control subjects, identifying 93 novel variants.