70 research outputs found
Lung eQTLs to Help Reveal the Molecular Underpinnings of Asthma
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified loci reproducibly associated with pulmonary diseases; however, the molecular mechanism underlying these associations are largely unknown. The objectives of this study were to discover genetic variants affecting gene expression in human lung tissue, to refine susceptibility loci for asthma identified in GWAS studies, and to use the genetics of gene expression and network analyses to find key molecular drivers of asthma. We performed a genome-wide search for expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) in 1,111 human lung samples. The lung eQTL dataset was then used to inform asthma genetic studies reported in the literature. The top ranked lung eQTLs were integrated with the GWAS on asthma reported by the GABRIEL consortium to generate a Bayesian gene expression network for discovery of novel molecular pathways underpinning asthma. We detected 17,178 cis- and 593 trans- lung eQTLs, which can be used to explore the functional consequences of loci associated with lung diseases and traits. Some strong eQTLs are also asthma susceptibility loci. For example, rs3859192 on chr17q21 is robustly associated with the mRNA levels of GSDMA (P = 3.55 × 10(-151)). The genetic-gene expression network identified the SOCS3 pathway as one of the key drivers of asthma. The eQTLs and gene networks identified in this study are powerful tools for elucidating the causal mechanisms underlying pulmonary disease. This data resource offers much-needed support to pinpoint the causal genes and characterize the molecular function of gene variants associated with lung diseases
Testicular Dysgenesis Syndrome and the Estrogen Hypothesis: A Quantitative Meta-Analysis
BACKGROUND: Male reproductive tract abnormalities such as hypospadias and cryptorchidism, and testicular cancer have been proposed to comprise a common syndrome together with impaired spermatogenesis with a common etiology resulting from the disruption of gonadal development during fetal life, the testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS). The hypothesis that in utero exposure to estrogenic agents could induce these disorders was first proposed in 1993. The only quantitative summary estimate of the association between prenatal exposure to estrogenic agents and testicular cancer was published over 10 years ago, and other systematic reviews of the association between estrogenic compounds, other than the potent pharmaceutical estrogen diethylstilbestrol (DES), and
TDS end points have remained inconclusive.
OBJECTIVES: We conducted a quantitative meta-analysis of the association between the end points related to TDS and prenatal exposure to estrogenic agents. Inclusion in this analysis was based on mechanistic criteria, and the plausibility of an estrogen receptor (ER)-–mediated mode of action was specifically explored.
RESULTS: We included in this meta-analysis eight studies investigating the etiology of hypospadias and/or cryptorchidism that had not been identified in previous systematic reviews. Four additional studies of pharmaceutical estrogens yielded a statistically significant updated summary estimate for testicular cancer.
CONCLUSIONS: The doubling of the risk ratios for all three end points investigated after DES exposure is consistent with a shared etiology and the TDS hypothesis but does not constitute evidence of an estrogenic mode of action. Results of the subset analyses point to the existence of unidentified sources of heterogeneity between studies or within the study population
Semantics and Ideology During the Renaissance: Confessional Translations of the Greek Word ἐπίσκοπος
During the sixteenth century the disputes between Catholics and
Protestants became the battleground to determine and shape
authentic Christianity and the Church. Humanism played a key
role in this process conditioned by cultural and theological
diversity, justifying doctrinal positions and legitimizing the
existence of respective institutions with an appeal to history.
Translations from church historical sources illustrate how they
often derived from theological preconceptions. Starting with the
‘episcopacy issue’ opened initially by Luther and Calvin inter al.,
this article analyzes the translations of the Greek word episkopos
in the Magdeburg Centuries, Cesare Baronio’s Ecclesiastical Annals,
in contemporary vernacular versions of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical
History, in J. C. Dietrich’s Lexicon and in some English Bibles. The
material gathered and also compared with the position of the
Council of Trent shows how these confessionally conditioned
translations impacted on the scholarly world, and how they
influenced church law with religio-political consequences, thereby
having a striking significance
Harold L. Weatherby. Mirrors of Celestial Grace: Patristic Theology in Spenser's Allegory. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1994. ix + 271 pp. $60.
The Reception of Erasmus in the Early Modern Period. Karl A. E. Enenkel, ed. Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture 30. Leiden: Brill, 2013. xv + 276 pp. $141.
Desiderius Erasmus. Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami: Ordinis sexti tomus quartus. Novum Testamentum ab Erasmo Recognitum, IV, Epistolae Apostolicae (secunda pars) et Apocalypsis Iohannis. Ed. Andrew J. Brown. Leiden: Brill, 2012. vii + 698 pp. $221. ISBN: 978-90-04-20215-3.
Reseña del libro de Jas Elsner - Jesús Hernández Lobato (edd.), The Poetics of Late Latin Literature. Oxford studies in late antiquity, New York: Oxford University Press
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