Ten-year all-cause mortality according to smoking status in patients with severe coronary artery disease undergoing surgical or percutaneous revascularization

Aims To evaluate the impact of various smoking status on 10-year all-cause mortality and to examine a relative treatment benefit of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) vs. percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) according to smoking habits. Methods and results The SYNTAX Extended Survival study evaluated vital status up to 10 years in 1800 patients with de novo three-vessel disease and/or left main coronary artery disease randomized to CABG or PCI in the SYNTAX trial. In the present analysis, patients were divided into three groups (current, former, or never smokers), and the primary endpoint of 10-year all-cause mortality was assessed according to smoking status. Smoking status was available in 1793 (99.6%) patients at the time of randomization, of whom 363 were current smokers, 798 were former smokers, and 632 were never smokers. The crude rates of 10-year all-cause mortality were 29.7% in current smokers, 25.3% in former smokers, and 25.9% in never smokers (Log-rank P = 0.343). After adjustment for imbalances in baseline characteristics, current smokers had a significantly higher risk of 10-year all-cause mortality than never smokers [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR): 2.29; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.60-3.27; P < 0.001], whereas former smokers did not. PCI was associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality than CABG among current smokers (HR: 1.60; 95% CI: 1.09-2.35; P = 0.017), but it failed to show a significant interaction between revascularization strategies and smoking status (P-interaction = 0.910). Conclusion Current smokers had a higher adjusted risk of 10-year all-cause mortality, whereas former smokers did not. The treatment effect of CABG vs. PCI did not differ significantly according to smoking status

Mapping Genetically Compensatory Pathways from Synthetic Lethal Interactions in Yeast

Background: Synthetic lethal genetic interaction analysis has been successfully applied to predicting the functions of genes and their pathway identities. In the context of synthetic lethal interaction data alone, the global similarity of synthetic lethal interaction patterns between two genes is used to predict gene function. With physical interaction data, such as proteinprotein interactions, the enrichment of physical interactions within subsets of genes and the enrichment of synthetic lethal interactions between those subsets of genes are used as an indication of compensatory pathways. Result: In this paper, we propose a method of mapping genetically compensatory pathways from synthetic lethal interactions. Our method is designed to discover pairs of gene-sets in which synthetic lethal interactions are depleted among the genes in an individual set and where such gene-set pairs are connected by many synthetic lethal interactions. By its nature, our method could select compensatory pathway pairs that buffer the deleterious effect of the failure of either one, without the need of physical interaction data. By focusing on compensatory pathway pairs where genes in each individual pathway have a highly homogenous cellular function, we show that many cellular functions have genetically compensatory properties. Conclusion: We conclude that synthetic lethal interaction data are a powerful source to map genetically compensatory pathways, especially in systems lacking physical interaction information, and that the cellular function network contain

Ten-year all-cause death following percutaneous or surgical revascularization in patients with prior cerebrovascular disease: insights from the SYNTAX Extended Survival study

Background: Coronary bypass artery grafting (CABG) has a higher procedural risk of stroke than percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), but may offer better long-term survival. The optimal revascularization strategy for patients with prior cerebrova

Development and characterization of polymorphic microsatellite markers in taro (Colocasia esculenta)

Microsatellite-containing sequences were isolated from enriched genomic libraries of taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott). The sequencing of 269 clones yielded 77 inserts containing repeat motifs. The majority of these (81.7%) were dinucleotide or trinucleotide repeats. The GT/CA repeat motif was the most common, accounting for 42% of all repeat types. From a total of 43 primer pairs designed, 41 produced markers within the expected size range. Sixteen (39%) were polymorphic when screened against a restricted set of taro genotypes from Southeast Asia and Oceania, with an average of 3.2 alleles detected on each locus. These markers represent a useful resource for taro germplasm management, genome mapping, and marker-assisted selection

Potential of (GATA)_n microsatellites from rice for inter- and intra-specific variability studies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The microsatellite, (GATA)_n has been frequently used for DNA fingerprinting. However, very few attempts have been made to analyze (GATA)_n-containing loci in rice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Three polymorphic (GATA)_n-harboring loci viz. OS1A6, OS1H10 and OS2E7, containing 7–13 repeat motifs were identified from a genomic library of a cultivated rice, <it>Oryza sativa</it> var. Basmati-370 using oligonucleotide probe (GATA)₄. When (GATA)_n flanking primers were used to screen 26 wilds (representing different genomes of rice), 16 cultivars, 47 Indian elite rice varieties and 37 lines resistant/susceptible to bacterial blight, up to 22 alleles were obtained at an individual locus. Also, interestingly the bacterial blight resistant lines clustered into a separate group from the remaining rice genotypes, when a dendrogram was constructed based on the polymorphism obtained at the three loci. This may be due to the partial homology of the clones OS1H10 and OS2E7 to regions encoding <it>O. longistaminata</it> receptor kinase-like protein and pathogenesis-related protein. The ability of these <it>O. sativa</it> flanking primers to amplify DNA of maize, wheat, barley and oat indicates that these (GATA)_n-containing loci are conserved across different cereal genera.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The large allele number obtained reveals the potential of (GATA)_n-containing loci as powerful tools to detect simple sequence length polymorphism (SSLP). The (GATA)_n-flanking primers were not only useful in distinguishing between closely related genotypes, but could also be used for cross-species amplification and are also conserved across different cereal genera. These loci could also cluster the bacterial blight resistant/susceptible lines into different groups based on the resistance genes present in them.</p