Background: Individuals of African descent in the United States suffer disproportionately from diseases with a metabolic etiology (obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes), and from the pathological consequences of these disorders (hypertension and cardiovascular disease).
Methodology/principal Findings: Using a combination of genetic/genomic and bioinformatics approaches, we identified a large number of genes that were both differentially expressed between American subjects self-identified to be of either African or European ancestry and that also contained single nucleotide polymorphisms that distinguish distantly related ancestral populations. Several of these genes control the metabolism of simple carbohydrates and are direct targets for the SREBP1, a metabolic transcription factor also differentially expressed between our study populations.
Background: Strong epidemiologic evidence correlates tobacco use with a variety of serious adverse health effects, but the biological mechanisms that produce these effects remain elusive.
Results: We analyzed gene transcription data to identify expression spectra related to tobacco use in circulating leukocytes of 67 Caucasian male subjects. Levels of cotinine, a nicotine metabolite, were used as a surrogate marker for tobacco exposure.
Helisoma trivolvis has served as a model system to study the functions of serotonin (5-HT) from cellular, developmental, physiological and behavioural perspectives. To further explore the serotonin system at the molecular level, and to provide experimental knockout tools for future studies, in this study we identified serotonin receptor genes from the H. trivolvis genome, and characterized the molecular structure and expression profile of the serotonin receptor gene products.
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