Classification and characterization of human endogenous retroviruses; mosaic forms are common.

Background: Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) represent the inheritance of ancient germ-line cell infections by exogenous retroviruses and the subsequent transmission of the integrated proviruses to the descendants. ERVs have the same internal structure as exogenous retroviruses. While no replication-competent HERVs have been recognized, some retain up to three of four intact ORFs.

QTREDS: a Ruby on Rails-based platform for omics laboratories.

Background: In recent years, the experimental aspects of the laboratory activities have been growing in complexity in terms of amount and diversity of data produced, equipment used, of computer-based workflows needed to process and analyze the raw data generated. To enhance the level of quality control over the laboratory activities and efficiently handle the large amounts of data produced, a Laboratory Management Information System (LIMS) is highly-recommended. A LIMS is a complex software platform that helps researchers to have a complete knowledge of the laboratory activities at each step encouraging them to adopt good laboratory practices.

MMsINC: a large-scale chemoinformatics database.

MMsINC (http://mms.dsfarm.unipd.

In vitro and in silico processes to identify differentially expressed proteins.

We present an integrated proteomics platform designed for performing differential analyses. Since reproducible results are essential for comparative studies, we explain how we improved reproducibility at every step of our laboratory processes, e.g.

Industrial-scale proteomics: from liters of plasma to chemically synthesized proteins.

Human blood plasma is a useful source of proteins associated with both health and disease. Analysis of human blood plasma is a challenge due to the large number of peptides and proteins present and the very wide range of concentrations. In order to identify as many proteins as possible for subsequent comparative studies, we developed an industrial-scale (2.