More on Co-Occurrence of COMT and BRCA1/2 Variants in a Population

Movassagh et al. (May 25 issue) report an association between a synonymous variant (rs165631) in COMT and a reduced risk of cancer among female carriers of the mutation BRCA1 or BRCA2. The result was based on an analysis involving 25 patients with breast cancer who had germline BRCA1/2 alterations in the Cancer Genome Atlas and 15 presumably cancer-free women with BRCA1/2 nonsense and frameshift alterations in the Exome Sequencing Project of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Given the potential for misinterpretation of the results, we feel obliged to correct the impression that rs165631 protects carriers of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation from cancer

Table 2. Pinning information

P-channel enhancement mode Field-Effect Transistor (FET) in a leadless medium power DFN2020MD-6 (SOT1220) Surface-Mounted Device (SMD) plastic package usin

Decreased expression of the Id3 gene at 1p36.1 in ovarian adenocarcinomas

The molecular events that drive the initiation and progression of ovarian adenocarcinoma are not well defined. We have investigated changes in gene expression in ovarian cancer cell lines compared to an immortalized human ovarian surface epithelial cell line (HOSE) using a cDNA array. We identified 17 genes that were under-expressed and 10 genes that were over-expressed in the cell lines compared to the HOSE cells. One of the genes under-expressed in the ovarian cancer cell lines, Id3, a transcriptional inactivator, was selected for further investigation. Id3 mRNA was expressed at reduced levels in 6 out of 9 ovarian cancer cell lines compared to the HOSE cells while at the protein level, all 7 ovarian cancer cell lines examined expressed the Id3 protein at greatly reduced levels. Expression of Id3 mRNA was also examined in primary ovarian tumours and was found in only 12/38 (32%) cases. A search was conducted for mutations of Id3 in primary ovarian cancers using single stranded conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis. Only one nucleotide substitution, present also in the corresponding constitutional DNA, was found in 94 ovarian tumours. Furthermore no association was found between LOH at 1p36 and lack of expression of Id3. These data suggest that Id3 is not the target of LOH at 1p36. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co

Intergovernmental Relations in Scotland: what was the SNP effect?

In Scotland, the formation of a minority government in 2007 by the Scottish National Party (SNP) provided the potential for profound changes in intergovernmental relations. This followed eight years of a Scottish Labour-led coalition government characterised by a low-key and informal relationship with the UK Labour government. From 1999 to 2007, discussions were conducted informally and almost entirely through political parties and executives (ministers and civil servants). Although formal mechanisms for negotiation and dispute resolution existed-including the courts, concordats and Joint Ministerial Committees-they were used rarely. The Scottish Executive also played a minimal role in EU policy-making. Yet, an ‘explosive' new era of relations between the Scottish and UK governments did not arrive in tandem with the new era of party incongruence. The aim of this article is to explore these issues by asking two main questions: why were formal mechanisms used so rarely from 1999 to 2007, and what factors produced muted rather than problematic IGR in the third parliamentary session, between 2007 and 2011