Towards the reconstruction of integrated genome-scale models of metabolism and gene expression

The reconstruction of integrated genome-scale models of metabolism and gene expression has been a challenge for a while now. In fact, various methods that allow integrating reconstructions of Transcriptional Regulatory Networks, gene expression data or both into Genome-Scale Metabolic Models have been proposed. Several of these methods are surveyed in this article, which allowed identifying their strengths and weaknesses concerning the reconstruction of integrated models for multiple prokaryotic organisms. Additionally, the main resources of regulatory information were also surveyed, as the existence of novel sources of regulatory information and gene expression data may contribute for the improvement of methodologies referred herein.This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science andTechnology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2019 unit andBioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European RegionalDevelopment Fund under the scope of Norte2020-Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. Fernando Cruz holds a doctoral fellowship (SFRH/BD/139198/2018) funded by the FCT. The authors thank project SHIKIFACTORY100 - Modular cell factories for the production of 100 compounds from the shikimate pathway (814408) funded by the European Commission.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Risk Reducing Salpingectomy and Delayed Oophorectomy in high risk women: views of cancer geneticists, genetic counsellors and gynaecological oncologists in the UK

Risk-reducing-salpingectomy and Delayed-Oophorectomy (RRSDO) is being proposed as a two-staged approach in place of RRSO to reduce the risks associated with premature menopause in high-risk women. We report on the acceptability/attitude of UK health professionals towards RRSDO. An anonymised web-based survey was sent to UK Cancer Genetics Group (CGG) and British Gynaecological Cancer Society (BGCS) members to assess attitudes towards RRSDO. Baseline characteristics were described using descriptive statistics. A Chi square test was used to compare categorical, Kendal-tau-b test for ordinal and Mann–Whitney test for continuous variables between two groups. 173/708 (24.4 %) of invitees responded. 71 % respondents (CGG = 57 %/BGCS = 83 %, p = 0.005) agreed with the tubal hypothesis for OC, 55 % (CGG = 42 %/BGCS = 66 %, p = 0.003) had heard of RRSDO and 48 % (CGG = 46 %/BGCS = 50 %) felt evidence was not currently strong enough for introduction into clinical practice. However, 60 % respondents’ (CGG = 48 %/BGCS = 71 %, p = 0.009) favoured offering RRSDO to high-risk women declining RRSO, 77 % only supported RRSDO within a clinical trial (CGG = 78 %/BGCS = 76 %) and 81 % (CGG = 76 %/BGCS = 86 %) advocated a UK-wide registry. Vasomotor symptoms (72 %), impact on sexual function (63 %), osteoporosis (59 %), hormonal-therapy (55 %) and subfertility (48 %) related to premature menopause influenced their choice of RRSDO. Potential barriers to offering the two-stage procedure included lack of data on precise level of benefit (83 %), increased surgical morbidity (79 %), loss of breast cancer risk reduction associated with oophorectomy (68 %), need for long-term follow-up (61 %) and a proportion not undergoing DO (66 %). There were variations in perception between BGCS/CGG members which are probably attributable to differences in clinical focus/expertise between these two groups. Despite concerns, there is reasonable support amongst UK clinicians to offering RRSDO to premenopausal high-risk women wishing to avoid RRSO, within a prospective clinical trial.This work has not been directly funded by any commercial organisation, or charity

Cuckoo search: recent advances and applications

Cuckoo search (CS) is a relatively new algorithm, developed by Yang and Deb in 2009, and CS is efficient in solving global optimization problems. In this paper, we review the fundamental ideas of cuckoo search and the latest developments as well as its applications. We analyze the algorithm and gain insight into its search mechanisms and find out why it is efficient. We also discuss the essence of algorithms and its link to self-organizing systems, and finally we propose some important topics for further research.Comment: 9 page