Cirrhosis: Morphologic dynamics for the nonmorphologist

Cirrhosis is an irreversible end-stage liver disease characterized by septate scars dividing a distorted liver into nodules. It generates through a sequence of dynamic changes and once it develops, it may alter its appearance through variations in secondary factors, such as injury and nutrition. The different classification schemes have, unfortunately, only served to make cirrhosis static in our thinking. Stationary morphologic characteristics are of value only if they can be correlated with etiology.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44380/1/10620_2005_Article_BF02231300.pd

Assessing the human immune system through blood transcriptomics

Blood is the pipeline of the immune system. Assessing changes in transcript abundance in blood on a genome-wide scale affords a comprehensive view of the status of the immune system in health and disease. This review summarizes the work that has used this approach to identify therapeutic targets and biomarker signatures in the field of autoimmunity and infectious disease. Recent technological and methodological advances that will carry the blood transcriptome research field forward are also discussed

Low-mass and sub-stellar eclipsing binaries in stellar clusters

We highlight the importance of eclipsing double-line binaries in our understanding on star formation and evolution. We review the recent discoveries of low-mass and sub-stellar eclipsing binaries belonging to star-forming regions, open clusters, and globular clusters identified by ground-based surveys and space missions with high-resolution spectroscopic follow-up. These discoveries provide benchmark systems with known distances, metallicities, and ages to calibrate masses and radii predicted by state-of-the-art evolutionary models to a few percent. We report their density and discuss current limitations on the accuracy of the physical parameters. We discuss future opportunities and highlight future guidelines to fill gaps in age and metallicity to improve further our knowledge of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures, no table. Review pape

Liquid biopsies come of age: towards implementation of circulating tumour DNA

Improvements in genomic and molecular methods are expanding the range of potential applications for circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), both in a research setting and as a ‘liquid biopsy’ for cancer management. Proof-of-principle studies have demonstrated the translational potential of ctDNA for prognostication, molecular profiling and monitoring. The field is now in an exciting transitional period in which ctDNA analysis is beginning to be applied clinically, although there is still much to learn about the biology of cell-free DNA. This is an opportune time to appraise potential approaches to ctDNA analysis, and to consider their applications in personalized oncology and in cancer research.We would like to acknowledge the support of The University of Cambridge, Cancer Research UK (grant numbers A11906, A20240, A15601) (to N.R., J.D.B.), the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement n. 337905 (to N.R.), the Cambridge Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre, and Hutchison Whampoa Limited (to N.R.), AstraZeneca (to R.B., S.P.), the Cambridge Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) (to R.B., S.P.), and NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) (to R.B., S.P.). J.G.C. acknowledges clinical fellowship support from SEOM

Screening for Cellulolytic Plant Enzymes Using Colorimetric and Fluorescence Methods

Cellulolytic activity can be measured using a variety of methods, the choice of which depends on the raw material and goals. An inexpensive, rapid, and reliable method, suitable for plants and other sources alike, is based on digestion of the easily degradable soluble cellulose derivative carboxymethylcellulose (CMC). Direct detection of CMC digestion by cellulolytic activity is based on the “negative staining principle,” where undigested CMC is stained with appropriate colorimetric or fluorescent stains, while CMC exposed to digestion by cellulase shows a reduction in staining intensity. The reduction is proportional to the enzyme activity and is not influenced by endogenous levels of glucose in the sample, making this method applicable for a wide variety of samples, including plant material