Membrán fehérjék szerkezete és működése közti kapcsolat vizsgálata = The study of the connection between the structure and function of membrane proteins

A 2005 januárjában kezdődőtt négy éves OTKA támogatással a membrán fehérjék szerkezete és működése közti kapcsolatok tisztázására folytatott kutatás két fő irányba haladt. Az egyik a membrán fehérjék és itt főleg a fényhajtotta retinál fehérjék működésével kapcsolatos kutatásokra összpontosított. Ennek során nemcsak a jól ismert retinál fehérjék a bakteriorodopszin, vagy halorodopszin, hanem újonnan felfedezett fehérjék, mint például a xantorodopsin és leptospheria rodopszin működését is tanulmányoztuk, abszorpciókinetikai mérésekkel. A retinál fehérjék kutatásával kapcsolatosan, az OTKA pályázat támogatásával, nyolc cikket közöltünk. Hasonló kinetikai méréseket végeztünk fotoszintetikus rekciócentrumok és szén nanocsövek keverékén, ami ígéretes biotechnologiai anyagnak bizonyúl. A reakciócentrumokkal kapcsolatban két OTKA támogatta cikkünk jelent meg A másik fő kutatási irány a fehérjék, membránok és élő sejtek morfológiai és mechanikai vizsgálata atomerő mikroszkóppal. Természetes és mesterséges membránokon is végeztünk méréseket. Amíg különböző letapogatási technikákkal nagyfelbontású képet alkottunk a tanulmányozott objektumok felszínéről, addig erőméréssel sikerült meghatározni a tanulmányozott minta Young moduluszát és ennek a változását különböző külső körülmények között. Egy teljesen új technikát dolgoztunk ki retinál fehérjék konformációváltozásának atomerőmikroszkópos megfigyelésére. Az elmúlt négy évben ezekkel a mérésekkel kapcsolatban nyolc OTKA által támogatott cikkelt közöltünk. | Beginning in 2005 the four years OTKA supported study of the relation between the structure and function of membrane proteins was conducted in two main directions. One research direction concentrates on the function of the membrane proteins and mainly on the function of the light activated retinal proteins. In this study not only the well known bacteriorhodopsin and halorhodopsin, but some newly discovered proteins, such as the xantorhodopsin and leptospheria rhodopsin were studied by absorption kinetic measurements. Related to this research, eight papers supported by the OTKA were published. Similar kinetic measurements were performed on the mixture of photosynthetic reaction centers and carbon nanotubes. This material is considered as a promising biotechnological material. The results of the reaction center research were published in two OTKA supported papers. The second main research direction was the morphological and mechanical study of the proteins, membranes and living cells by atomic force microscopy. We performed measurements on both artificial and natural membranes. With different scanning techniques high resolution images of the studied object surface were recorded. With force measurement it was possible to determine the Young?s module of the sample and its dependence from the external conditions. A new technique was developed to study the conformational change of the retinal proteins with the atomic force microscope. During the OTKA supported four years, related to this field, eight papers were published

Új utak a prosztatarák terápiájában: a genetikai mintázat szerepe a célzott kezelések kiválasztásában = New approaches in the therapy of prostate cancer: The role of genetic patterns in selecting targeted treatments

A prosztatarák genetikai tesztelésének használata egyre elterjedtebb a klinikai gyakorlatban. Ez elsősorban a PARP-inhibitorok megjelenésének köszönhető, amelyek a prosztataráknak a BRCA és más homológ rekombinációs javító (HRR) gének patogén eltéréseit hordozó eseteiben alkalmazhatóak. Ebből kifolyólag a genetikai vizsgálatok elvégzése a prosztatarák előrehaladott eseteinek kezelése során bekerült a rutinvizsgálatok közé. Ezzel párhuzamosan folyamatosan nő az olyan gyógyszeres kezeléseknek a száma, amelyek alkalmazása célzottan egy bizonyos genetikai eltérés jelenléte esetén lehetséges. Ennek eredményeképpen egyre növekszik azon gének száma, amelyek vizsgálata fontos lehet a prosztatadaganatok kezelési stratégiáinak megválasztásánál. Jelen közleményünk- kel szeretnénk áttekintést nyújtani a prosztatarák molekuláris alcsoportjairól, valamint azokról a génekről, amelyek a jelenleg és a közeljövőben potenciálisan alkalmazható kezelések kiválasztásához szükségesek. = The use of genetic testing for prostate cancer is becoming increasingly common in clinical practice, particularly because of the emergence of PARP inhibitors that target tumours with specific genetic abnormalities in their BRCA and other homologous recombination repair (HRR) genes. At the same time, the number of available therapies that target specific subgroups of prostate cancer based on their genetic makeup is continuously growing. Consequently, the selection of treatment for prostate cancer patients may involve testing multiple genes to allow for more tailored treatment plans that take into account the genetic features of the tumour. In this review we aim to provide an overview on the currently relevant genetic alterations in prostate cancer for therapeutic purposes

Detailed analysis and comparison of different activity metrics

Actigraphic measurements are an important part of research in different disciplines, yet the procedure of determining activity values is unexpectedly not standardized in the literature. Although the measured raw acceleration signal can be diversely processed, and then the activity values can be calculated by different activity calculation methods, the documentations of them are generally incomplete or vary by manufacturer. These numerous activity metrics may require different types of preprocessing of the acceleration signal. For example, digital filtering of the acceleration signals can have various parameters; moreover, both the filter and the activity metrics can also be applied per axis or on the magnitudes of the acceleration vector. Level crossing-based activity metrics also depend on threshold level values, yet the determination of their exact values is unclear as well. Due to the serious inconsistency of determining activity values, we created a detailed and comprehensive comparison of the different available activity calculation procedures because, up to the present, it was lacking in the literature. We assessed the different methods by analysing the triaxial acceleration signals measured during a 10-day movement of 42 subjects. We calculated 148 different activity signals for each subject’s movement using the combinations of various types of preprocessing and 7 different activity metrics applied on both axial and magnitude data. We determined the strength of the linear relationship between the metrics by correlation analysis, while we also examined the effects of the preprocessing steps. Moreover, we established that the standard deviation of the data series can be used as an appropriate, adaptive and generalized threshold level for the level intersection-based metrics. On the basis of these results, our work also serves as a general guide on how to proceed if one wants to determine activity from the raw acceleration data. All of the analysed raw acceleration signals are also publicly available

Reliability and validity of the Hungarian version of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5)

Objectives and methodsIn order to assess the internal consistency, fit indexes, test-retest reliability, and validity of the Personality Inventory for the DSM-5 (PID-5) and its associations with age, gender, and education, 471 non-clinical (69,6% female; mean age: 37,63) and 314 clinical participants (69,7% female, mean age: 37,41) were administered the Hungarian translation of the PID-5, as well as the SCL-90-R and the SCID-II Personality Questionnaire.ResultsWe found that; (a) temporal consistency of the Hungarian PID-5 was confirmed by one-month test-retest reliability analysis, (b) validity of the PID-5 instrument is acceptable in the clinical and the non-clinical sample as well, based on significant correlations with SCID-II and SCL-90-R, (c) PID-5 facets' and domains' associations with gender, age, and level of education are in accordance with previous findings.ConclusionThese findings support that the Hungarian PID-5 is a reliable and valid instrument for both clinical and non-clinical populations

Funkcionális kognitív nyelvészeti kutatás = Functional cognitive linguistics research

A kutatás a magyar nyelv funkcionális kognitív leírásának elméleti és módszertani kidolgozását és meghatározott nyelvi jelenségek részletes leírását végezte el alapkutatásként, a legfrissebb nemzetközi szakirodalommal diszkurzusban. A projekt konkrét eredményei. • Az Acta Linguistica Hungarica kettős tematikus száma, a 2009/4. és a 2010/1. szám, tizenegy tanulmánnyal. • Magyar nyelvű lektorált tanulmánykötet (Konstrukció és jelentés) 2011-re kész volt, 2012-ben jelent meg, tizenöt tanulmánnyal. • Beyond Dichotomies címmel kétnapos nemzetközi konferencia rendezése 2010-ben. • Rendszeres konferenciarészvétel, egyéni publikációk, PhD- (3), habilitációs (2) és nagydoktori (1) disszertációk. • Egy korpusz alapú funkcionális magyar nyelvtan fő fejezeteinek elkészítése (a Mondattan, Jelentéstan és Pragmatika részek fontos fejezetei). A kutatás a magyar nyelv leírásának új módszereit fejlesztette ki, továbbá a magyar nyelv egyes központi kategóriáit újraértelmezte, részletesebben kidolgozta, illetve korábban kevéssé vagy egyáltalán nem tárgyalt jelenségeinek egy sorát írta le, funkcionális kognitív keretben. Ezáltal a projekt új összetevővel gyarapította a magyar nyelvtudomány kutatási területét, jelentős új eredményeket mutatott fel, amelyek most kezdenek a nemzetközi szakirodalomban megjelenni (konferenciákon, majd publikációkban), új külföldi kutatási kapcsolatokat létesített, emelte a hazai nyelvtudomány színvonalát, és részt vett a kutatói utánpótlás nevelésében. | The main goal of the project as a basic research was to elaborate the theoretical and methodological base for the functional cognitive description of the Hungarian language, in harmony with the current international literature. This goal has been achieved. The concrete results of the project: • The double thematic issue of Acta Linguistica Hungarica (issues 2009/4, 2010/1, containing eleven papers). • The peer-reviewed volume of papers “Konstrukció és jelentés” (Construction and meaning), completed in 2011, containing fifteen papers. • The organization of the two-day international conference “Beyond Dichotomies”, October 2010. • Regular conference participation, individual papers, 3 PhD dissertations, 2 habilitaion dissertations, 1 DSc dissertation. • The main chapters of Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics in a corpus based functional Hungarian grammar. The research project has developed new methods in the description of the Hungarian language, re-interpreted or elaborated in detail certain central categories of the Hungarian language, described linguistic phenomena less treated or not studied earlier, in the functional cognitive framework. The project added a new component to the research domains of Hungarian linguistics, presented significant new results, in the process of being published in the international discourse, established new research contacts, increased the level of Hungarian linguistics, and took part in the training of young researchers

The Actigraphy-Based Identification of Premorbid Latent Liability of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

(1) Background and Goal: Several studies have investigated the association of sleep, diurnal patterns, and circadian rhythms with the presence and with the risk states of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The goal of our study was to examine actigraphic measures to identify features that can be extracted from them so that a machine learning model can detect premorbid latent liabilities for schizotypy and bipolarity. (2) Methods: Our team developed a small wrist-worn measurement device that collects and identifies actigraphic data based on an accelerometer. The sensors were used by carefully selected healthy participants who were divided into three groups: Control Group (C), Cyclothymia Factor Group (CFG), and Positive Schizotypy Factor Group (PSF). From the data they collected, our team performed data cleaning operations and then used the extracted metrics to generate the feature combinations deemed most effective, along with three machine learning algorithms for categorization. (3) Results: By conducting the training, we were able to identify a set of mildly correlated traits and their order of importance based on the Shapley value that had the greatest impact on the detection of bipolarity and schizotypy according to the logistic regression, Light Gradient Boost, and Random Forest algorithms. (4) Conclusions: These results were successfully compared to the results of other researchers; we had a similar differentiation in features used by others, and successfully developed new ones that might be a good complement for further research. In the future, identifying these traits may help us identify people at risk from mental disorders early in a cost-effective, automated way

A Case Series of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection in Elite Athletes

Objectives: The actual frequency and the risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection is still a matter of intense scientific discussion. In this case series, we report three elite athletes who underwent COVID-19 reinfection with a short time frame. Case presentations: As a part of contact tracing, three speed skaters (22-, 24-, and 29-year-old males) were found to be SARS-CoV-2 positive by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. Later on, only one of the athletes experienced mild symptoms, such as fatigue, loss of smell and taste and subfebrility, while the other two athletes were asymptomatic. Following the quarantine period, detailed return-to-play examinations, including laboratory testing, ECG, 24-h Holter monitoring, transthoracic echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, revealed no apparent abnormality; therefore, the athletes restarted training. After a median of 74 days, all three athletes presented with typical symptoms of COVID-19, such as fever, marked fatigue and headache. SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests were performed again, showing recurrent positivity. Repeated return-to-play assessments were initiated, finding no relevant abnormality. Athletes were also tested for SARS-CoV-2 anti-nucleoprotein antibody titers, showing only modest increases following the second infection. Conclusions: We report a small cluster of elite athletes who underwent a PCR-proven SARS-CoV-2 reinfection. According to these findings, athletes may be considered as a high-risk group in terms of recurrent COVID-19