The impact of global budgeting in Taiwan on inpatients with unexplained fever.

Unexplained fever is one of the most common and difficult diagnostic problems faced daily by clinicians. This study evaluated the differences in health service utilization, health care expenditures, and quality of care provided to patients with unexplained fever before and after global budget (GB) implementation in Taiwan.The National Health Insurance Research Database was used for analyzing the health care expenditures and quality of care before and after implementation of the GB system.

Structural insights of the ssDNA binding site in the multifunctional endonuclease AtBFN2 from Arabidopsis thaliana.

The multi S1/P1 nuclease AtBFN2 (EC 3.1.30.

Using Haloarcula marismortui bacteriorhodopsin as a fusion tag for enhancing and visible expression of integral membrane proteins in Escherichia coli.

Membrane proteins are key targets for pharmacological intervention because of their vital functions. Structural and functional studies of membrane proteins have been severely hampered because of the difficulties in producing sufficient quantities of properly folded and biologically active proteins. Here we generate a high-level expression system of integral membrane proteins in Escherichia coli by using a mutated bacteriorhodopsin (BR) from Haloarcula marismortui (HmBRI/D94N) as a fusion partner.

Clinical implications of high MET gene dosage in non-small cell lung cancer patients without previous tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment.

Introduction: Recently, two studies revealed that MET amplification was associated with secondary epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) resistance in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. But it remains uncertain whether MET amplification could be related to primary TKI resistance in NSCLC because of limited data.

Materials And Methods: MET gene dosage of the tumor tissues from 208 NSCLC patients was investigated by real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and compared with molecular and clinical features, including EGFR mutations, KRAS mutations, EGFR gene copy numbers, and patient survivals.