All azoospermic males should be screened for cystic fibrosis mutations before intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

We assessed the frequency of CFTR mutations in groups with varying degrees of sub-fertility and compared these groups to a fertile male group with proven paternity. Screening for CFTR mutations should be routine for all azoospermic males, irrespective of obstructive or non-obstructive etiology, prior to proposing ICSI treatment. CFTR testing has no value in the investigation of non-azoospermic infertile males.

Loss of imprinting and marked gene elevation are 2 forms of aberrant IGF2 expression in colorectal cancer.

Loss of imprinting (LOI) of insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) is a common event in many cancers and typically activates the maternally silenced allele. The resulting biallelic IGF2 expression correlates strongly with the hypomethylation of a differentially methylated region (DMR) near its promoter. It has also been shown that IGF2 undergoes overexpression in human malignancies; nevertheless, this phenomenon and its link to aberrant DMR methylation have not been reported in colorectal cancer (CRC).

The signatures of autozygosity among patients with colorectal cancer.

Previous studies have shown that among populations with a high rate of consanguinity, there is a significant increase in the prevalence of cancer. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array data (Affymetrix, 50K XbaI) analysis revealed long regions of homozygosity in genomic DNAs taken from tumor and matched normal tissues of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. The presence of these regions in the genome may indicate levels of consanguinity in the individual's family lineage.

Phytophthora infestans: populations, pathogenicity and phenylamides.

Isolates of Phytophthora infestans (Mont) de Bary (the potato and tomato late blight pathogen) resistant to phenylamides appeared in Europe and North America in the late 1970s and early 1990s respectively. Concurrent, but coincidentally, with both these events there were radical structural shifts in the pathogen populations as immigrant genotypes from Mexico displaced the indigenous populations. Both A1 and A2 mating type isolates are now present in blighted crops, permitting alternative inoculum via germinating sexually produced oospores to influence dynamics of late blight populations.

Lipoxin, leukotriene, and PDGF receptors cross-talk to regulate mesangial cell proliferation.

The lipoxygenase-derived leukotrienes (LTs) are important proinflammatory lipid mediators. Lipoxins (LXs), more recently described lipoxygenase products, modulate many proinflammatory actions of LTs and have impressive proresolution properties. Mesangial cell (MC) proliferation is a central event in the pathogenesis of glomerulonephritis.