The evolution of knowledge on genes associated with human diseases.

Thousands of biomedical scientific articles, including those describing genes associated with human diseases, are published every week. Computational methods such as text mining and machine learning algorithms are now able to automatically detect these associations. In this study, we used a cognitive computing text-mining application to construct a knowledge network comprising 3,723 genes and 99 diseases.

Reverse Engineering of Ewing Sarcoma Regulatory Network Uncovers PAX7 and RUNX3 as Master Regulators Associated with Good Prognosis.

Ewing Sarcoma (ES) is a rare malignant tumor occurring most frequently in adolescents and young adults. The ES hallmark is a chromosomal translocation between the chromosomes 11 and 22 that results in an aberrant transcription factor (TF) through the fusion of genes from the FET and ETS families, commonly EWSR1 and FLI1. The regulatory mechanisms behind the ES transcriptional alterations remain poorly understood.

Differential evolutionary constraints in the evolution of chemoreceptors: a murine and human case study.

Chemoreception is among the most important sensory modalities in animals. Organisms use the ability to perceive chemical compounds in all major ecological activities. Recent studies have allowed the characterization of chemoreceptor gene families.

Vitamin A treatment induces apoptosis through an oxidant-dependent activation of the mitochondrial pathway.

Even though retinoids are widely used as adjuvant in chemotherapeutic interventions to improve cancer cell death, their mechanism(s) of action involves multiple overlapping pathways that remain unclear. We have previously shown that vitamin A, the natural precursor of the retinoids, induces oxidative-dependent cytochrome c release from isolated mitochondria, suggesting a putative mechanism for apoptosis activation. Using Sertoli cells in culture, we show that retinol causes mitochondrial-dependent apoptosis, involving oxidative stress.