Correlation Between Aspartate Aminotransferase to Platelet Ratio Index Score and the Degree of Esophageal Varices with Liver Cirrhosis

Background: Esophageal varices is the most common complication in liver cirrhosis. Bleeding varices is a serious complication causing increased mortality rate. In anticipation of those complications, the role of screening test is essential. Endoscopy is the standard method for assessing esophageal varices, but it carries certain risks for patients if it is contraindicated. Moreover, it is an invasive, expensive and uncomfortable procedure. Accordingly, a non-invasive method, aspartat aminotransferase to platelet ratio index (APRI) score, has been developed for evaluating esophageal varices. Method: An analytic cross-sectional observational study was conducted in patients with liver cirrhosis who underwent endoscopy between March 2011 and August 2012. Data were obtained from medical records of hospitalized patients in Mohammad Hoesin General Hospital. The degree of esophageal varices was assessed based on endoscopic findings and APRI score. Spearman test was performed to analyze the correlation between APRI score and the degree of esophageal varices.Results: There were 55 patients, 30 (54.5%) male and 25 (45.5%) female patients, with a range of age between 15-70 years and a mean value of age of 47.09 ± 12.8. APRI score < 0.5 was found in 21.81% subjects, APRI score of 0.5-1.5 was obtained in 41.81% subjects and APRI score > 1.5 was noted in 36.36% subjects with a mean value of 2.32 ± 3.92. There was a correlation between APRI score and degree of esophageal varices with p = 0.011 Conclusion: APRI score can indirectly predict esophageal varices in patients with liver cirrhosis

Distribution of the best RRPE and PAC/PAC2 matches across fungal phylogeny.

<p>Sequence logos represent the best SCOPE matches to RRPE and PAC/PAC2 sequence for each species.</p

Distribution of occurrences of RRPE and PAC motifs across four upstream quartiles of orthologs of <i>S. cerevisiae</i> RBA genes.

<p>Mean value represents average fraction of occurrences across all fungal species for a given quartile region.</p

Summary of individual motifs and motif patterns in upstream regions of RBA genes.

<p>Summary of individual motifs and motif patterns in upstream regions of RBA genes.</p

Sample SCOPE outputs of fungal RBA gene runs.

<p>(A) SCOPE results for <i>Kluyveromyces waltii</i> RBA genes. RRPE – red, PAC – green. (B) SCOPE results of <i>Trichoderma reesii</i> RBA genes. PAC2– blue, RRPE – red.</p

List of <i>S. cerevisiae genes</i> putatively involved in RBA that are predicted using SCOPE, SGD and SPELL data.

<p>Number of times the same gene name is listed means number of different sources of evidence that it may be involved in RBA.</p

Computational Discovery of Transcriptional Regulatory Modules in Fungal Ribosome Biogenesis Genes Reveals Novel Sequence and Function Patterns

<div><p>Genes involved in ribosome biogenesis and assembly (RBA) are responsible for ribosome formation. In <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i>, their transcription is regulated by two dissimilar DNA motifs. We were interested in analyzing conservation and divergence of RBA transcription regulation machinery throughout fungal evolution. We have identified orthologs of <i>S. cerevisiae</i> RBA genes in 39 species across fungal phylogeny and searched upstream regions of these gene sets for DNA sequences significantly similar to <i>S. cerevisiae</i> RBA regulatory motifs. In addition to confirming known motif arrangements comprising two different motifs in a set of <i>S. cerevisiae</i> close relatives or two instances of the same motif (that we refer to as modules), we have also discovered novel modules in a group of fungi closely related to <i>Neurospora crassa</i>. Despite a single nucleotide difference between consensus sequences of RBA motifs, modules associated with <i>S, cerevisiae</i> group and <i>N. crassa</i> group displayed consistently different characteristics with respect to preferred module organization and several other module properties. For a given species, we have found a correlation between the configuration of the RBA module and significant enrichment in a set of specific Gene Ontology biological processes. We have identified several likely new candidates for a role in ribosome biogenesis in <i>S. cerevisiae</i> based on the combined evidence of RBA module presence in the upstream regions, functional annotation information and microarray expression profiles. We believe that this approach will be useful in terms of generating hypotheses about functional roles of genes for which only fragmentary data from a single source are available.</p> </div

Relationship between RBA module orientation and gene functional annotation in <i>S. cerevisiae</i>.

<p>Relationship between RBA module orientation and gene functional annotation in <i>S. cerevisiae</i>.</p

Comparison of two different RBA module organizations in <i>S. cerevisiae</i>.

<p>(A) Upstream module position distribution. (B) ABC score (inter-motif distance distribution). (C) Number of occurrences and strand preference.</p

Comparison of RBA module attributes across fungal groups based on module organization.

<p>X-axis shows fungal groups (species similar to either <i>S. cerevisiae</i> or <i>N. crassa</i>) each separated into two subgroups based on two possible organizations of the RBA module. Y-axis shows a specific module attribute [see Materials and Methods for explanation of y-axis values in (C) and (D)]: (A) module score, (B) median inter-motif distance; (C) module coverage; (D) module median upstream position; (E) module ABC score.</p