Secondary myelodysplastic syndromes identified via next-generation sequencing in a non-small cell lung cancer patient.

Background: Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is a group of clonal disorders characterized by ineffective and dysplastic hematopoiesis in the bone marrow with a high risk of progression to leukemia. Many studies have demonstrated that chemo-radiotherapy for cancer patients and exposure to certain chemicals may increase the risk of secondary MDS, which is characterized by specific chromosomal abnormalities and genomic alterations. Since next-generation sequencing (NGS) has been widely used for the diagnosis of cancer patients, advanced analysis of the sequencing data may provide supplementary information for secondary MDS.

Association and cis-mQTL analysis of variants in CHRNA3-A5, CHRNA7, CHRNB2, and CHRNB4 in relation to nicotine dependence in a Chinese Han population.

Nicotine dependence (ND) is a worldwide health problem. Numerous genetic studies have demonstrated a significant association of variants in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) with smoking behaviors. However, most of these studies enrolled only subjects of European or African ancestry.

Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking and Nicotine Dependence in Men and Women Residing in Two Provinces in China.

Aims: Although it is known that there is a high smoking prevalence among Chinese, key issues such as social and environmental factors impacting smoking initiation and persistence, the percentage of smokers considered nicotine dependence (ND), and the availability and use of ND treatments have rarely been investigated.

Methods: To address these issues, from 2012 to 2014, we conducted a large-scale study in the Zhejiang and Shanxi provinces of China using the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence and other validated questionnaires.

Results: Of the 17,057 subjects, consisting of 13,476 males and 3,581 females aged 15 years or older, the prevalence of male smoking was 66.

An Exome-Wide Association Study Identifies New Susceptibility Loci for Age of Smoking Initiation in African- and European-American Populations.

Introduction: Cigarette smoking is one of the largest causes of preventable death worldwide. This study aimed to identify susceptibility loci for age at smoking initiation (ASI) by performing an exome-wide association analysis.

Methods: A total of 2510 smokers of either African-American (AA) or European-American (EA) origin were genotyped and analyzed at both the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and gene levels.

Significant association of the CHRNB3-CHRNA6 gene cluster with nicotine dependence in the Chinese Han population.

Although numerous studies have revealed significant associations between variants in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) subunits and nicotine dependence (ND), only few studies were performed in Chinese subjects. Here, we performed association and interaction analysis for 20 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the CHRNB3-CHRNA6 gene cluster with ND in a Chinese Han population (N = 5,055). We found nominally significant associations for all tested SNPs with ND measured by the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence score; of these, 11 SNPs remained significant after Bonferroni correction for multiple tests (p = 9 × 10~2 × 10).

Contribution of Variants in CHRNA5/A3/B4 Gene Cluster on Chromosome 15 to Tobacco Smoking: From Genetic Association to Mechanism.

Cigarette smoking is the major cause of preventable death and morbidity throughout the world. Many compounds are present in tobacco, but nicotine is the primary addictive one. Nicotine exerts its physiological and pharmacological roles in the brain through neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), which are ligand-gated ion channels consisting of five membrane-spanning subunits that can modulate the release of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, glutamate, and GABA and mediate fast signal transmission at synapses.

[Construction of a temperature-sensitive and replication-defective T-vector and its application for gene knockout in Salmonella pullorum].

Knockout is an important method for gene function study, while vector is the core of gene knockout. In order to obtain an effective vector for rapid construction of mutant and essentiality identification of the corresponding gene, we constructed a recombinant plasmid named plDM-T based on the temperature-sensitive and replication- defective plasmid plDM1 by inserting an Xcm I adapter into the EcoR I and Pst I sites of pIDM1. Digesting with Xcm I, pIDM-T can be prepared as a linear T-vector for PCR products cloning and be used to knockout the corresponding gene in the genome with insertion duplication mutagenesis.