PVT1: a rising star among oncogenic long non-coding RNAs

It is becoming increasingly clear that short and long noncoding RNAs critically participate in the regulation of cell growth, differentiation, and (mis)function. However, while the functional characterization of short non-coding RNAs has been reaching maturity, there is still a paucity of well characterized long noncoding RNAs, even though large studies in recent years are rapidly increasing the number of annotated ones. The long noncoding RNA PVT1 is encoded by a gene that has been long known since it resides in the well-known cancer risk region 8q24. However, a couple of accidental concurrent conditions have slowed down the study of this gene, that is, a preconception on the primacy of the protein-coding over noncoding RNAs and the prevalent interest in its neighbor MYC oncogene. Recent studies have brought PVT1 under the spotlight suggesting interesting models of functioning, such as competing endogenous RNA activity and regulation of protein stability of important oncogenes, primarily of the MYC oncogene. Despite some advancements in modelling the PVT1 role in cancer, there are many questions that remain unanswered concerning the precise molecular mechanisms underlying its functioning

Oral burning with dysphagia and weight loss

Fibromyalgia is a disorder characterized by an abnormal pain regulation. Widespread pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbance are the prevalent symptoms. When unusual symptoms are overbearingly predominant at clinical presentation, the diagnosis becomes challenging. We report on the case of a patient with fibromyalgia, who presented with dysphagia, odynophagia, and glossodynia as prevalent symptoms. Difficulty in swallowing gradually developed over a month prior hospitalization, and worsened progressively so that nourishment and fluid intake were impeded. Because anemia with mild iron deficiency was found, esophagogastroduodenoscopy was performed, but no lesions were seen in the upper digestive tract. Levels of zinc and vitamin B12 were normal. Intense pain at pelvis and the inferior limbs, which was at a first glance referred to as osteoarthrosis, associated with oral symptoms and feeling of being in the clouds allowed us to diagnose fibromyalgia. Amitriptyline was used, with relief of symptoms. Although oropharyngeal symptoms were occasionally reported in fibromyalgia, they are often overlooked. The present case, therefore, testifies the need to consider the diagnosis of fibromyalgia when the patient presents with such symptoms that cannot be readily explained on other grounds

The divine spirit of bees. A note on honey and the origins of yeast-driven fermentation

One of the earliest domesticated organisms is perhaps the eukaryote microorganism known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or more simply “the yeast”. Its decisive role in triggering fermentation as a process useful for agricultural products preservation and transformation into consumable food, though known from the Palaeolithic in the ancient Near East, became decisive in the Neolithic Period. The earliest agriculturalists of the Fertile Crescent accidentally triggered fermentation with the addition of honey to fruits juices, as attested to in the archaeological record. The yeast, that lives inside the guts of bees and wasps, is responsible for this fermentation process. Honey contains both yeast and sugar that facilitates its growth generating fermentation. The creative capability of the bees let these insects to be credited of a divine skill

Colour naming and use preferences in Spanish text typologies (1492−1700)

This article is intended to provide a quantitative analysis of colour names and their appearance in certain text typologies between 1492 and 1700. The terms for colour increased in Spain’s Golden Age because of the need to describe Spanish and American reality in detail. A review of the specialised literature has provided us with a lexicon of 499 terms of which 277 colour words are recorded in Golden Age documents according to various diachronic corpora. The method for collecting and analysing texts has provided a lexicon of 66 terms for colour with different degrees of preference for a specific type of document. In addition, 23 of these words have been found to indicate greater numerical specialisation by typology. These lexical units are mediaeval terms used especially in scientific prose and lyric, followed by historiography and society prose. These quantitative data represent the initial stage of research to which other issues must be added in the future such as the context in which these terms appear and the semantic changes that occur in each of the texts

SWIM: A computational tool to unveiling crucial nodes in complex biological networks

SWItchMiner (SWIM) is a wizard-like software implementation of a procedure, previously described, able to extract information contained in complex networks. Specifically, SWIM allows unearthing the existence of a new class of hubs, called "fight-club hubs", characterized by a marked negative correlation with their first nearest neighbors. Among them, a special subset of genes, called "switch genes", appears to be characterized by an unusual pattern of intra- and inter-module connections that confers them a crucial topological role, interestingly mirrored by the evidence of their clinic-biological relevance. Here, we applied SWIM to a large panel of cancer datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas, in order to highlight switch genes that could be critically associated with the drastic changes in the physiological state of cells or tissues induced by the cancer development. We discovered that switch genes are found in all cancers we studied and they encompass protein coding genes and non-coding RNAs, recovering many known key cancer players but also many new potential biomarkers not yet characterized in cancer context. Furthermore, SWIM is amenable to detect switch genes in different organisms and cell conditions, with the potential to uncover important players in biologically relevant scenarios, including but not limited to human cancer

Computational analysis identifies a sponge interaction network between long non-coding RNAs and messenger RNAs in human breast cancer

Background: Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are emerging as key regulators of many cellular processes in both physiological and pathological states. Moreover, the constant discovery of new non-coding RNA species suggests that the study of their complex functions is still in its very early stages. This variegated class of RNA species encompasses the well-known microRNAs (miRNAs) and the most recently acknowledged long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Interestingly, in the last couple of years, a few studies have shown that some lncRNAs can act as miRNA sponges, i.e. as competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs), able to reduce the amount of miRNAs available to target messenger RNAs (mRNAs).Results: We propose a computational approach to explore the ability of lncRNAs to act as ceRNAs by protecting mRNAs from miRNA repression. A seed match analysis was performed to validate the underlying regression model. We built normal and cancer networks of miRNA-mediated sponge interactions (MMI-networks) using breast cancer expression data provided by The Cancer Genome Atlas.Conclusions: Our study highlights a marked rewiring in the ceRNA program between normal and pathological breast tissue, documented by its " on/off" switch from normal to cancer, and vice-versa. This mutually exclusive activation confers an interesting character to ceRNAs as potential oncosuppressive, or oncogenic, protagonists in cancer. At the heart of this phenomenon is the lncRNA PVT1, as illustrated by both the width of its antagonist mRNAs in normal-MMI-network, and the relevance of the latter in breast cancer. Interestingly, PVT1 revealed a net binding preference towards the mir-200 family as the bone of contention with its rival mRNAs. © 2014 Paci et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Editorial: Fashion communication: Between tradition and digital transformation

We are happy and thrilled to introduce this thematic section of Studies in Communication Sciences (SComS), devoted to Fashion Communication. It was about two years ago when we first discussed the idea in Madrid: then we got the approval by SComS Editors, published the call, and eventually secured the outstanding collection of papers you have in your hands (or on your screen). A long and enriching journey, full of interactions, conversations, views and reviews, a journey that makes the scholar’s work so fascinating (even if, sometimes, not that fashionable)

Communicative Strategies and Text Types in the Selection of Amerindian Voices in the 16th Century (1518-1559)

Después de la conquista del Caribe se abre el periodo de contacto de la lengua española con idiomas autóctonos consolidados, etapa en la que se va a dirimir la aclimatación lingüística en el continente americano. Esta aportación se centra en el análisis de una selección de obras correspondientes al periodo 1518-1559, elegidas en función de las siguientes variables: el grado de experiencia del autor en Indias y el uso de estrategias comunicativas desarrolladas en cada producción documental. La investigación se centra en el análisis cuantitativo de los vocablos incorporados en las crónicas, las tendencias observadas y su interpretación. Los tipos textuales generados evidencian una relación directa tanto con la incorporación de neologismos indígenas como con el marco de conocimientos del autor, a través del cual filtra su experiencia personal e incorpora las nuevas palabras.After the Caribbean Islands were conquered, there began a time of contact between the Spanish language and consolidated native languages, which would result in the linguistic settlement in the American continent. This paper focuses on the analysis of a selection of works dating between 1518 and 1559, and which have been selected on the basis of the following variables: the author’s level of experience in the Indies and the use of communicative strategies in each document. This study is centred on analyzing quantitatively the words included in the chronicles, the tendencies observed, and their interpretation. The resulting textual types show a direct relationship with both the addition of indigenous neologisms and the authors’ field of knowledge, through which they filter their personal experience and add the new words

Does higher sampling rate (multiband + SENSE) improve group statistics - An example from social neuroscience block design at 3T

Multiband (MB) or Simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) acquisition schemes allow the acquisition of MRI signals from more than one spatial coordinate at a time. Commercial availability has brought this technique within the reach of many neuroscientists and psychologists. Most early evaluation of the performance of MB acquisition employed resting state fMRI or the most basic tasks. In this study, we tested whether the advantages of using MB acquisition schemes generalize to group analyses using a cognitive task more representative of typical cognitive neuroscience applications. Twenty-three subjects were scanned on a Philips 3 ​T scanner using five sequences, up to eight-fold acceleration with MB-factors 1 to 4, SENSE factors up to 2 and corresponding TRs of 2.45s down to 0.63s, while they viewed (i) movie blocks showing complex actions with hand object interactions and (ii) control movie blocks without hand object interaction. Data were processed using a widely used analysis pipeline implemented in SPM12 including the unified segmentation and canonical HRF modelling. Using random effects group-level, voxel-wise analysis we found that all sequences were able to detect the basic action observation network known to be recruited by our task. The highest t-values were found for sequences with MB4 acceleration. For the MB1 sequence, a 50% bigger voxel volume was needed to reach comparable t-statistics. The group-level t-values for resting state networks (RSNs) were also highest for MB4 sequences. Here the MB1 sequence with larger voxel size did not perform comparable to the MB4 sequence. Altogether, we can thus recommend the use of MB4 (and SENSE 1.5 or 2) on a Philips scanner when aiming to perform group-level analyses using cognitive block design fMRI tasks and voxel sizes in the range of cortical thickness (e.g. 2.7 ​mm isotropic). While results will not be dramatically changed by the use of multiband, our results suggest that MB will bring a moderate but significant benefit

A través de la ventana: La cultura de los chimpancés

Quartes Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la FCHS (Any 1998-1999