BodyMap-Xs: anatomical breakdown of 17 million animal ESTs for cross-species comparison of gene expression

BodyMap-Xs () is a database for cross-species gene expression comparison. It was created by the anatomical breakdown of 17 million animal expressed sequence tag (EST) records in DDBJ using a sorting program tailored for this purpose. In BodyMap-Xs, users are allowed to compare the expression patterns of orthologous and paralogous genes in a coherent manner. This will provide valuable insights for the evolutionary study of gene expression and identification of a responsive motif for a particular expression pattern. In addition, starting from a concise overview of the taxonomical and anatomical breakdown of all animal ESTs, users can navigate to obtain gene expression ranking of a particular tissue in a particular animal. This method may lead to the understanding of the similarities and differences between the homologous tissues across animal species. BodyMap-Xs will be automatically updated in synchronization with the major update in DDBJ, which occurs periodically

Blue Monday Phenomenon among Men:Suicide Deaths in Japan

The number of suicide deaths in Japan has continued to be high, and is a pressing social problem. Although the weekly distribution of suicide deaths has been documented, no nationwide analysis has yet been conducted. In the present study, the ratios of the number of suicide deaths per day, by day of the week, and on weekdays relative to holidays were calculated using the data for all suicide deaths recorded in 2003. The suicide deaths recorded on holidays were treated as the reference, and a confidence interval of 95% (95% CI) was used. We calculated the suicide death ratios among men and women of all ages (men:23,396, women:8,713, total:32,109) and also among those of productive age (age:15-64 years, men:18,552, women:5,481, total:24,033). Among men of all ages, the suicide death ratio on Mondays was found to be significantly high at 1.49 (95% CI:1.04-2.14), and the ratios were found to decrease over the course of the week from Monday to Friday. On each weekday, the suicide death ratios among men of productive age were found to be higher than those among men of all ages. Among women, the suicide death ratios on any weekday were found to be higher than 1, but there was no significant difference between the days. Among both men and women, the number of suicide deaths on holidays was lower than that on weekdays. This study revealed that the number of suicide deaths recorded per day on Mondays is 1.5 times higher than that on holidays among men. This suggests that the structure of the work week may possibly influence suicide deaths among men. Future discussions regarding the arrangement and distribution of weekly holidays should be conducted in order to reduce the number of suicide deaths.</p

Joint effect of longevity-associated mitochondrial DNA 5178 C/A polymorphism and alcohol consumption on risk of hyper-LDL cholesterolemia in middle-aged Japanese men

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Combined effects between mitochondrial DNA 5178 (Mt5178) C/A polymorphism and alcohol consumption on the risk of hypertension or hyperuricemia have been reported. The objective of this study was to investigate whether Mt5178 C/A polymorphism modulates the effects of alcohol consumption on the risk of dyslipidemia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 394 male subjects were selected from among individuals visiting the hospital for regular medical check-ups. After Mt5178 C/A genotyping, a cross-sectional study assessing the combined effect of Mt5178 polymorphism and alcohol consumption on the risk of dyslipidemia was conducted.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For men with Mt5178C, alcohol consumption was significantly and negatively associated with the risk of hyper-low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterolemia (serum LDL cholesterol ≥ 140 mg/dl) (<it>P </it>for trend = 0.015). After adjustment for age, body mass index (BMI), habitual smoking, coffee consumption and use of antihypertensive medicine, the odds ratio (OR) for hyper-LDL cholesterolemia was significantly lower in daily drinkers with Mt5178C than non-drinkers with Mt5178C (OR = 0.360, 95% confidence intervals: 0.153-0.847). A significant and negative association between alcohol consumption and serum LDL cholesterol levels was also observed in Mt5178C genotypic men (<it>P </it>for trend < 0.01). On the other hand, the association between Mt5178A genotype and risk of hyper-LDL cholesterolemia does not appear to depend on alcohol consumption.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>For Mt5178C genotypic men, alcohol consumption may reduce the risk of hyper-LDL cholesterolemia.</p

The Human Anatomic Gene Expression Library (H-ANGEL), the H-Inv integrative display of human gene expression across disparate technologies and platforms

The Human Anatomic Gene Expression Library (H-ANGEL) is a resource for information concerning the anatomical distribution and expression of human gene transcripts. The tool contains protein expression data from multiple platforms that has been associated with both manually annotated full-length cDNAs from H-InvDB and RefSeq sequences. Of the H-Inv predicted genes, 18 897 have associated expression data generated by at least one platform. H-ANGEL utilizes categorized mRNA expression data from both publicly available and proprietary sources. It incorporates data generated by three types of methods from seven different platforms. The data are provided to the user in the form of a web-based viewer with numerous query options. H-ANGEL is updated with each new release of cDNA and genome sequence build. In future editions, we will incorporate the capability for expression data updates from existing and new platforms. H-ANGEL is accessible at http://www.jbirc.aist.go.jp/hinv/h-angel/