Construction and analysis of tag single nucleotide polymorphism maps for six human-mouse orthologous candidate genes in type 1 diabetes.

BACKGROUND: One strategy to help identify susceptibility genes for complex, multifactorial diseases is to map disease loci in a representative animal model of the disorder. The nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse is a model for human type 1 diabetes. Linkage and congenic strain analyses have identified several NOD mouse Idd (insulin dependent diabetes) loci, which have been mapped to small chromosome intervals, for which the orthologous regions in the human genome can be identified. Here, we have conducted re-sequencing and association analysis of six orthologous genes identified in NOD Idd loci: NRAMP1/SLC11A1 (orthologous to Nramp1/Slc11a1 in Idd5.2), FRAP1 (orthologous to Frap1 in Idd9.2), 4-1BB/CD137/TNFRSF9 (orthologous to 4-1bb/Cd137/Tnrfrsf9 in Idd9.3), CD101/IGSF2 (orthologous to Cd101/Igsf2 in Idd10), B2M (orthologous to B2m in Idd13) and VAV3 (orthologous to Vav3 in Idd18). RESULTS: Re-sequencing of a total of 110 kb of DNA from 32 or 96 type 1 diabetes cases yielded 220 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Sixty-five SNPs, including 54 informative tag SNPs, and a microsatellite were selected and genotyped in up to 1,632 type 1 diabetes families and 1,709 cases and 1,829 controls. CONCLUSION: None of the candidate regions showed evidence of association with type 1 diabetes (P values > 0.2), indicating that common variation in these key candidate genes does not play a major role in type 1 diabetes susceptibility in the European ancestry populations studied.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Emergency, cardiac arrest! Can we teach the skills?

The European Resuscitation Council (ERC) has produced basic life support (BLS) and advanced life support (ALS) guidelines (1992) in an attempt to standardize the training and delivery of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In response to this, the Avon and Gloucestershire College of Health, Glenside Centre (now University of the West of England), conducted a small survey, testing students' knowledge and skills in delivering CPR. Students were able to improve knowledge levels, but did not uniformly improve practical skills. Following this, the college formed a resuscitation team whose members coordinate CPR training in the curriculum, using uniform teaching packs which follow the ERC Guidelines (ERC 1992a), and resuscitation equipment purchased by the college as the result of the research findings. In addition to maintaining uniform content, sessions are compulsory and students' CPR skills are tested, with a 70% competency level set as a pass. Student results and attendance are stored on a college database, along with tutor information regarding updating of CPR skills. To achieve these developments, the college has had to consider time allocation within the curriculum, training of tutors, funding of resources and funding of a compulsory training programme, which supports a ratio of one tutor to six students. Evaluations of the changes are favourable, as students' CPR skills and knowledge show obvious improvement and the students' general confidence and enthusiasm are enhanced. © 1997 Pearson Professional Ltd