miR-608 rs4919510 C>G polymorphism decreased the risk of breast cancer in an Iranian subpopulation

Aim: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that function as oncogene or tumor suppressors. The single nucleotide polymorphisms in miRNAs potentially can alter miRNA-binding sites on target genes as well as affecting miRNAs expression. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of miR-608 rs4919510 C>G variant on breast cancer (BC) risk. Materials and Methods: This case-control study conducted on 160 women with BC and 192 age-matched healthy women. Genotyping of miR608 rs4919510 was done using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Results: Our findings showed that GC genotype significantly decreased the risk of BC (odds ratio (OR) = 0.49, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28–0.88, p = 0.018) compared to CC genotype. Furthermore the G allele decreased the risk of BC (OR = 0.53, 95%CI 0.30–0.92, p = 0.024). No significant association was found between miR-609 genotypes and clinicopathological characteristics of BC patients (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Our findings indicate that miR-608 polymorphism might be associated with decreased risk of BC in an Iranian subpopulation. Further large-scale studies with different ethnicities are needed to verify our findings

A Fast Calculation Method for Analyzing the Effect of Wind Generation on ATC

Wind energy penetration in power system has been increased very fast and large amount of capitals invested for wind farms all around the world. Meanwhile, in power systems with wind turbine generators (WTGs), the value of Available transfer capability (ATC) is influenced by the probabilistic nature of the wind power. The Mont Carlo Simulation (MCS) is the most common method to model the uncertainty of WTG. However, the MCS method suffers from low convergence rate. To overcome this shortcoming, the proposed technique in this paper uses a new formulation for solving ATC problem analytically. This lowers the computational burden of the ATC computation and hence results in increased convergence rate of the MCS. Using this fast technique to evaluate the ATC, wind generation and load correlation is required to get into modeling. A numerical method is presented to consider load and wind correlation. The proposed method is tested on the modified IEEE 118 bus to analyze the impacts of the WTGs on the ATC. The obtained results show that wind generation capacity and its correlation with system load has significant impacts on the network transfer capability. In other words, ATC probability distribution is sensitive to the wind generation capacity

Extensive identification of genes involved in congenital and structural heart disorders and cardiomyopathy.

Clinical presentation of congenital heart disease is heterogeneous, making identification of the disease-causing genes and their genetic pathways and mechanisms of action challenging. By using in vivo electrocardiography, transthoracic echocardiography and microcomputed tomography imaging to screen 3,894 single-gene-null mouse lines for structural and functional cardiac abnormalities, here we identify 705 lines with cardiac arrhythmia, myocardial hypertrophy and/or ventricular dilation. Among these 705 genes, 486 have not been previously associated with cardiac dysfunction in humans, and some of them represent variants of unknown relevance (VUR). Mice with mutations in Casz1, Dnajc18, Pde4dip, Rnf38 or Tmem161b genes show developmental cardiac structural abnormalities, with their human orthologs being categorized as VUR. Using UK Biobank data, we validate the importance of the DNAJC18 gene for cardiac homeostasis by showing that its loss of function is associated with altered left ventricular systolic function. Our results identify hundreds of previously unappreciated genes with potential function in congenital heart disease and suggest causal function of five VUR in congenital heart disease