Polyamide-Scorpion Cyclam Lexitropsins Selectively Bind AT-Rich DNA Independently of the Nature of the Coordinated Metal

Cyclam was attached to 1-, 2- and 3-pyrrole lexitropsins for the first time through a synthetically facile copper-catalyzed “click” reaction. The corresponding copper and zinc complexes were synthesized and characterized. The ligand and its complexes bound AT-rich DNA selectively over GC-rich DNA, and the thermodynamic profile of the binding was evaluated by isothermal titration calorimetry. The metal, encapsulated in a scorpion azamacrocyclic complex, did not affect the binding, which was dominated by the organic tail

Drug-eluting versus bare-metal stent for treatment of saphenous vein grafts: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Saphenous vein grafts develop an aggressive atherosclerotic process and the efficacy of drug eluting stents (DES) in treating saphenous vein graft (SVG) lesions has not been convincingly demonstrated. The aim of this study was to review and analyze the current literature for controlled studies comparing DES versus bare metal stents (BMS) for treatment of SVG stenoses. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We searched several scientific databases and conference proceedings up to March 15, 2010 for controlled studies comparing target vessel revascularization (TVR) between DES and BMS. Summary odds ratios (OR) for the primary endpoint TVR and secondary endpoints infarction, stent thrombosis and death were calculated using random-effect models. A total of 29 studies (3 randomized controlled trials RCT) involving 7549 (202 in RCT) patients were included. The need for target vessel revascularization in the DES group tended to be lower compared to BMS for the 3 RCT (OR 0.50 [0.24-1.00]; p = 0.051) and for observational studies (0.62 [0.49-0.79]; p<0.001). There was no significant difference in the risk for myocardial infarction in the RCT (OR 1.25 [0.22-6.99]; p = 0.250) but a lower risk for DES based on the observational studies 0.68 [0.49-0.95]; p = 0.023. The risk for stent thrombosis was found to be non-different in the RCT (OR 0.78 [0.03-21.73], p = 0.885) while it was in favor of DES in the observational studies (0.58 [0.38 - 0.84]; p<0.001). The mortality was not significantly different between DES and BMS in the RCT's (OR 2.22 [0.17 - 29.50]; p = 0.546) while the observation studies showed a decreased mortality in the DES group (0.69 [0.55-0.85]; p<0.001). CONCLUSION: DES may decrease TVR rate in treatment of SVG stenoses. No differences in reinfarction rate, stent thrombosis or mortality was found between the DES and BMS groups in the RCT's while the observational data showed lower risk for myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis and death in the DES group. This may be a result of patient selection bias in the observational studies or represent a true finding that was not the detected in the RCT analysis due to limited statistical power

Computational identification of promoters and first exons in the human genome

The identification of promoters and first exons has been one of the most difficult problems in gene-finding. We present a set of discriminant functions that can recognize structural and compositional features such as CpG islands, promoter regions and first splice-donor sites. We explain the implementation of the discriminant functions into a decision tree that constitutes a new program called FirstEF. By using different models to predict CpG-related and non-CpG-related first exons, we showed by cross-validation that the program could predict 86% of the first exons with 17% false positives. We also demonstrated the prediction accuracy of FirstEF at the genome level by applying it to the finished sequences of human chromosomes 21 and 22 as well as by comparing the predictions with the locations of the experimentally verified first exons. Finally, we present the analysis of the predicted first exons for all of the 24 chromosomes of the human genome