Tissue-specific gene expression templates for accurate molecular characterization of the normal physiological states of multiple human tissues with implication in development and cancer studies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To elucidate the molecular complications in many complex diseases, we argue for the priority to construct a model representing the normal physiological state of a cell/tissue.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>By analyzing three independent microarray datasets on normal human tissues, we established a quantitative molecular model GET, which consists of 24 tissue-specific <it>G</it>ene <it>E</it>xpression <it>T</it>emplates constructed from a set of 56 genes, for predicting 24 distinct tissue types under disease-free condition. 99.2% correctness was reached when a large-scale validation was performed on 61 new datasets to test the tissue-prediction power of GET. Network analysis based on molecular interactions suggests a potential role of these 56 genes in tissue differentiation and carcinogenesis.</p> <p>Applying GET to transcriptomic datasets produced from tissue development studies the results correlated well with developmental stages. Cancerous tissues and cell lines yielded significantly lower correlation with GET than the normal tissues. GET distinguished melanoma from normal skin tissue or benign skin tumor with 96% sensitivity and 89% specificity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results strongly suggest that a normal tissue or cell may uphold its normal functioning and morphology by maintaining specific chemical stoichiometry among genes. The state of stoichiometry can be depicted by a compact set of representative genes such as the 56 genes obtained here. A significant deviation from normal stoichiometry may result in malfunction or abnormal growth of the cells.</p

From the lattice measurements of the austenite and the martensite cells to the macroscopic mechanical behavior of shape memory alloys

On one hand, the lattice measurements of the austenite and the martensite cells for one CuZnAl and one CuAlBe alloys permit to determine the nature of the phase transformation i.e. an "exact" interface between the parent phase and an untwinned martensite variant. Hence, for single crystals, the yield surface looks like a polygon with several sectors. Each sector is defined by its peculiar activated variant. On the other hand, a "micro-macro" integration allows to predict the yield curve for biaxial proportional mechanical tests on polycrystals. This homogenisation process is in agreement with the prediction of a phenomenological approach at the macroscopic scale and fits well the yield experimental points

Magnetic properties of the coupled ladder system MgV 2 O 5

International audienceWe present magnetic-susceptibility measurements on MgV2O5, a compound in which the vanadium oxide planes have the same topology as in CaV2O5. The most striking property is that there is an energy gap of about 15 K, much smaller than in CaV2O5, where the values reported are of the order of 500 K. We show that this may be understood naturally in terms of the phase diagram of the frustrated coupled ladder system. This analysis leads to the prediction that MgV2O5 should have incommensurate dynamic spin fluctuations