Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha rs1800629 Polymorphism and Risk of Cervical Lesions: A Meta-Analysis

<div><p>Background</p><p>Tumor necrosis factor- alpha (TNF-α) is an inflammatory cytokine which may play important role on the immune response may control the progression of cervical lesions. There is a possible association between TNF-α rs1800629 G/A polymorphism and cervical lesions, but previous studies report conflicting results. We performed a meta-analysis to comprehensively assess the association between TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism and cervical lesions risk.</p><p>Methods</p><p>Literature searches of Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, and Wanfang databases were performed for all publications on the association between TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism and cervical lesions through December 15, 2012. The pooled odds ratios (ORs) with their 95% confidence interval (95%CIs) were calculated to assess the strength of the association.</p><p>Results</p><p>Twenty individual case-control studies from 19 publications with a total of 4,146 cases and 4,731 controls were finally included into the meta-analysis. Overall, TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism was significantly associated with increased risk of cervical lesions under two main genetic comparison models (For A versus G: OR 1.22, 95%CI 1.04–1.44, P = 0.017; for AA versus GG: OR 1.32, 95%CI 1.02–1.71, P = 0.034). Subgroup analysis by ethnicity further showed that there was a significant association between TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism and increased risk of cervical lesions in Caucasians but not in Asians. Subgroup analysis by the types of cervical lesions showed that there was a significant association between TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism and increased risk of cervical cancer (For A versus G: OR 1.24, 95%CI 1.05–1.47, P = 0.011; for AA versus GG: OR 1.31, 95%CI 1.01–1.70, P = 0.043; for AA/GA versus GG: OR 1.25, 95%CI 1.01–1.54, P = 0.039).</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>The meta-analysis suggests that TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism is associated with increased risk of cervical lesions, especially in Caucasians.</p></div

Meta-analysis of the association between TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism and cervical lesions risk.

<p>(<b>Abbreviations:</b> OR, odds ratio; 95%CI, 95% confidence interval; ICC, Invasive cervical cancer; SIL, squamous intraepithelial lesions.)</p

Forest plot describing the association between TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism and cervical lesions risk.

<p><b>(Each study is shown by the point estimate of the OR and 95% CI, and (the size of the square is proportional to the weight of each study.)</b> Figure 2-(A) A vs. G. Figure 2- (B) AA vs. GG. Figure 2- (C) AA/GA vs. GG.</p

Characteristics of twenty studies on the association between TNF-α rs1800629 polymorphism and cervical lesions risk.

<p>(†PCR-RFLP, Polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism; *ICC, Invasive cervical cancer; SIL, squamous intraepithelial lesions.)</p

Funnel plot for the detection of the publication bias in this meta-analysis.

<p>Funnel plot for the detection of the publication bias in this meta-analysis.</p

Switching Photocatalytic H₂ and O₂ Generation Preferences of Rutile TiO₂ Microspheres with Dominant Reactive Facets by Boron Doping

Revealing the key factors of controlling the reduction and oxidation half reactions of photocatalysis is necessary in order to obtain the implications for designing and developing efficient photocatalysts. In this work, boron-doped TiO₂ microspheres consisting of rutile nanorods with the top reactive {111} facets were synthesized by the acidic hydrolysis of TiB₂. The thermal diffusion of boron from the inner to surface part of the microspheres results in switching of the preference from photocatalytic H₂ evolution to O₂ evolution. This switching is caused by the downward shift of surface band edges with the incorporation of boron in surface

Additional file 1 of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii as a potential Antiatherosclerotic microbe

Additional file 1. Supplementary materials

Functional Constraint Profiling of a Viral Protein Reveals Discordance of Evolutionary Conservation and Functionality

<div><p>Viruses often encode proteins with multiple functions due to their compact genomes. Existing approaches to identify functional residues largely rely on sequence conservation analysis. Inferring functional residues from sequence conservation can produce false positives, in which the conserved residues are functionally silent, or false negatives, where functional residues are not identified since they are species-specific and therefore non-conserved. Furthermore, the tedious process of constructing and analyzing individual mutations limits the number of residues that can be examined in a single study. Here, we developed a systematic approach to identify the functional residues of a viral protein by coupling experimental fitness profiling with protein stability prediction using the influenza virus polymerase PA subunit as the target protein. We identified a significant number of functional residues that were influenza type-specific and were evolutionarily non-conserved among different influenza types. Our results indicate that type-specific functional residues are prevalent and may not otherwise be identified by sequence conservation analysis alone. More importantly, this technique can be adapted to any viral (and potentially non-viral) protein where structural information is available.</p></div

Fitness profiling of PA influenza virus polymerase subunit.

<p>(A) Correlations of log₁₀ relative frequency of individual point mutations between replicates are shown. Relative frequency_{<i>mutation</i><i>i</i>} = (Occurrence frequency_{<i>mutation</i><i>i</i>})/(Occurrence frequency_<i>WT</i>) (B) Log₁₀ RF indices for silent mutations, nonsense mutations, and missense mutations are shown as histograms. Point mutations located at the 5 terminal 400 bp and 3 terminal 400 bp regions are not included in this analysis to avoid complication by the vRNA packaging signal [<a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1005310#pgen.1005310.ref093" target="_blank">93</a>, <a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1005310#pgen.1005310.ref094" target="_blank">94</a>]. (C) The locations of the PA C-terminal domain and the PA N-terminal domain are shown as white boxes. The locations of the mutated regions in each mutant library are shown as green boxes. Log₁₀ RF indices for individual point mutations are plotted across the PA gene. Each point mutation is colored coded as in panel B. Purple: silent mutations; Cyan: nonsense mutations; Brown: missense mutations. A smooth curve was fitted by loess and plotted for each point mutation type.</p

Fluorescent Imaging of Single Nanoparticles and Viruses on a Smart Phone

Optical imaging of nanoscale objects, whether it is based on scattering or fluorescence, is a challenging task due to reduced detection signal-to-noise ratio and contrast at subwavelength dimensions. Here, we report a field-portable fluorescence microscopy platform installed on a smart phone for imaging of individual nanoparticles as well as viruses using a lightweight and compact opto-mechanical attachment to the existing camera module of the cell phone. This hand-held fluorescent imaging device utilizes (i) a compact 450 nm laser diode that creates oblique excitation on the sample plane with an incidence angle of ∼75°, (ii) a long-pass thin-film interference filter to reject the scattered excitation light, (iii) an external lens creating 2× optical magnification, and (iv) a translation stage for focus adjustment. We tested the imaging performance of this smart-phone-enabled microscopy platform by detecting isolated 100 nm fluorescent particles as well as individual human cytomegaloviruses that are fluorescently labeled. The size of each detected nano-object on the cell phone platform was validated using scanning electron microscopy images of the same samples. This field-portable fluorescence microscopy attachment to the cell phone, weighing only ∼186 g, could be used for specific and sensitive imaging of subwavelength objects including various bacteria and viruses and, therefore, could provide a valuable platform for the practice of nanotechnology in field settings and for conducting viral load measurements and other biomedical tests even in remote and resource-limited environments