Laboratory Rearing of Phalangium Opilio (Arachnida: Opiliones)

While a good deal of work has been reported on the natural history and ecology of the opiliones in Europe and England (Bristowe, 1949; Sankey, 1949; Todd, 1949; Phillipson, 1959; Savory, 1964; Juberthie, 1965), this important group has received little attention in North America. Bishop (1949) published a concise synopsis of reactions and general habits of the opiliones of New York and, in a Ph. D. dissertation, Edgar (1960) described the biology of the order in Michigan. Current studies at Michigan State University on the effects of insecticides on non-target organisms have revealed an acute lack of biological information on the group, and before the effects of insecticides could be determined, life histories of the opiliones had to be clarified. Consequently, in 1966 a study of the ecology and rearing requirements of selected Michigan species was initiated. The present paper describes a new incubation technique for opilione eggs that shows promise of facilitating laboratory rearing of this group

Evaluating eukaryotic secreted protein prediction

BACKGROUND: Improvements in protein sequence annotation and an increase in the number of annotated protein databases has fueled development of an increasing number of software tools to predict secreted proteins. Six software programs capable of high throughput and employing a wide range of prediction methods, SignalP 3.0, SignalP 2.0, TargetP 1.01, PrediSi, Phobius, and ProtComp 6.0, are evaluated. RESULTS: Prediction accuracies were evaluated using 372 unbiased, eukaryotic, SwissProt protein sequences. TargetP, SignalP 3.0 maximum S-score and SignalP 3.0 D-score were the most accurate single scores (90–91% accurate). The combination of a positive TargetP prediction, SignalP 2.0 maximum Y-score, and SignalP 3.0 maximum S-score increased accuracy by six percent. CONCLUSION: Single predictive scores could be highly accurate, but almost all accuracies were slightly less than those reported by program authors. Predictive accuracy could be substantially improved by combining scores from multiple methods into a single composite prediction

Varenicline for smoking cessation: efficacy, safety, and treatment recommendations

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the US, and decreasing smoking prevalence is a public health priority. Patients achieve the greatest success when quit attempts involve behavioral therapy combined with pharmacotherapy. Varenicline is the most recent addition to the pharmacotherapeutic armamentarium for the treatment of tobacco dependence. Varenicline is efficacious and cost-effective. Smoking relapse and adverse treatment-related side effects may decrease medication adherence and patient satisfaction with varenicline. In the clinical setting, varenicline treatment can be optimized by reducing doses in patients who experience intolerable side effects, increasing the dose in partial responders, and providing long-term maintenance therapy for relapse prevention

Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic

ABSTRACT Pathogenic variants in EBF3 were recently described in three back-to-back publications in association with a novel neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by intellectual disability, speech delay, ataxia, and facial dysmorphisms. In this report we describe an additional patient carrying a de novo show that our patient presents with phenotypes consistent with previously reported patients harboring EBF3 variants and expands the phenotypic spectrum of this newly identified disorder with the additional feature of a bicornuate uterus