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Background: In a multi-unit housing (MUH) complex, secondhand smoke (SHS) can pass from one living space to another. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of SHS incursion, and to establish the relationship between SHS incursion and socio-demographic and built environmental factors in MUH in Korea.Methods: A population-based sample of 2600 residents (aged ≥19 years) living in MUH from across the city of Seoul, Korea, was obtained through a web-based selection panel. The residents completed a questionnaire detailing socio-demographic factors, smoking status, frequency of SHS incursion, and built environmental factors. The presence of a personal smoke-free home rule was determined by residents declaring that no one smoked inside the home.Results: Of the 2600 participants, non-smoking residents who lived in homes with a personal smoke-free rule were selected for further analysis (n = 1784). In the previous 12 months, 74.7% of residents had experienced SHS incursion ≥1 times. A multivariate ordinal logistic regression analysis indicated that residents who spent more time at home, lived with children, supported the implementation of smoke-free regulations in MUH, lived in small homes, lived in homes with natural ventilation provided by opening a front door or the windows and front door, and lived in homes with more frequent natural ventilation were more likely to report SHS incursion into their homes.Conclusions: The majority of the non-smoking residents experienced SHS incursion, even with a personal smoke-free rule in their homes. A smoke-free policy in MUH is needed to protect residents from SHS exposure when they are at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The objectives of this study were to determine urinary cotinine concentrations in non-smoking residents of smoke-free homes and to establish the relationship of urinary cotinine with housing type and other socio-demographic and secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure factors.Methods: We used data from the Korean National Environmental Health Survey I (2009-2011). The study included 814 non-smoking adult residents living in apartments, attached, and detached housing. Residents who lived with smokers were excluded. Urinary cotinine concentration was used as a biomarker for SHS exposure. The factors associated with urinary cotinine levels in non-smoking residents were determined using multivariate regression analysis.Results: Urinary cotinine was detected in 88 % of the 814 non-smoking residents of smoke-free homes. The urinary cotinine concentrations of residents living in attached [1.18 ng/mg creatinine (Cr)] and detached housing (1.23 ng/mg Cr) were significantly higher than those of residents who lived in apartments (0.69 ng/mg Cr). Urinary cotinine concentrations were significantly higher in residents who were men, those with a household income ≤1000 USD/month, those who were former smokers with >1 year and ≤1 year of not smoking, and those who experienced SHS odor every day. In the multivariate regression analysis, housing type, sex, former smoking status, and frequency of experiencing SHS odor were associated with urinary cotinine concentrations (R (2) = 0.14).Conclusions: The majority of non-smoking residents of smoke-free homes had detectable urinary cotinine. Housing type, sex, former smoking status, and frequency of experiencing SHS odor were predictors for urinary cotinine concentrations in the study participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background DNA methylation (DNAm) levels can be used to predict the chronological age of tissues; however, the characteristics of DNAm age signatures in normal and cancer tissues are not well studied using multiple studies. Results We studied approximately 4000 normal and cancer samples with multiple tissue types from diverse studies, and using linear and nonlinear regression models identified reliable tissue type-invariant DNAm age signatures. A normal signature comprising 127 CpG loci was highly enriched on the X chromosome. Age-hypermethylated loci were enriched for guanine- and-cytosine-rich regions in CpG islands (CGIs), whereas age-hypomethylated loci were enriched for adenine-and-thymine-rich regions in non-CGIs. However, the cancer signature comprised only 26 age-hypomethylated loci, none on the X chromosome, and with no overlap with the normal signature. Genes related to the normal signature were enriched for aging-related gene ontology terms including metabolic processes, immune system processes, and cell proliferation. The related gene products of the normal signature had more than the average number of interacting partners in a protein interaction network and had a tendency not to interact directly with each other. The genomic sequences of the normal signature were well conserved and the age-associated DNAm levels could satisfactorily predict the chronological ages of tissues regardless of tissue type. Interestingly, the age-associated DNAm increases or decreases of the normal signature were aberrantly accelerated in cancer samples. Conclusion These tissue type-invariant DNAm age signatures in normal and cancer can be used to address important questions in developmental biology and cancer research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Congenital muscular torticollis (CMT) is characterized by thickening and/or tightness of the unilateral sternocleidomastoid muscle (SCM), ending up with torticollis. Our aim was to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and novel protein interaction network modules of CMT, and to discover the relationship between gene expressions and clinical severity of CMT. Results: Twenty-eight sternocleidomastoid muscles (SCMs) from 23 subjects with CMT and 5 SCMs without CMT were allocated for microarray, MRI, or imunohistochemical studies. We first identified 269 genes as the DEGs in CMT. Gene ontology enrichment analysis revealed that the main function of the DEGs is for extracellular region part during developmental processes. Five CMT-related protein network modules were identified, which showed that the important pathway is fibrosis related with collagen and elastin fibrillogenesis with an evidence of DNA repair mechanism. Interestingly, the expression levels of the 8 DEGs called CMT signature genes whose mRNA expression was double-confirmed by quantitative real time PCR showed good correlation with the severity of CMT which was measured with the pre-operational MRI images (R² ranging from 0.82 to 0.21). Moreover, the protein expressions of ELN, ASPN and CHD3 which were identified from the CMT-related protein network modules demonstrated the differential expression between the CMT and normal SCM. Conclusions: We here provided an integrative analysis of CMT from gene expression to clinical significance, which showed good correlation with clinical severity of CMT. Furthermore, the CMT-related protein network modules were identified, which provided more in-depth understanding of pathophysiology of CMT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Exposure to toxic chemicals in the home is a growing concern. This report presents an overview of the recruitment, methods for data collection, instruments used to collect data, and participant demographics for a study examining behaviors that influence exposure to environmental toxins in the home environment, also known as SUPERB (Study of Use of Products and Exposure Related Behaviors). Methods: The methods involved three different platforms: telephone interviews, internet-based surveys, and home-based monitoring. The purposes of SUPERB were: first, to compare data collection platforms with regard to feasibility, acceptability and reliability; and second, to provide longitudinal population-based data characterizing seasonal and long-term changes in exposure-related behaviors including food consumption, temporal-spatial activity, and household product use. Results: Two cohorts of households were enrolled: families (one parent and one child) from northern California and older individuals (age 55+) from central California. Parents (n = 499) in Northern California families were on average 36 years of age, 47.1% were Latino or nonwhite, and 10.2% took the survey in Spanish. Most of the children enrolled (n = 566) were under 6 years (82.7%). The older adults enrolled (n = 156) were, on average, 66 years of age and 23.7% were Latino or nonwhite, but only 2.6% completed the survey in Spanish. Conclusions: We found that oversampling was successful in improving recruitment of under-represented subgroups, such as those with low education, thereby increasing diversity of our study sample. Protocols that minimize participant time, e.g., use of bar scanners and scales rather than questionnaires regarding use of household products, and the implementation of these protocols by staff who built relationships of trust, resulted in high retention over a longitudinal data collection scheme. A relatively small fraction of those who volunteer for longitudinal internet surveys are consistent in filling them out. Future reports will provide critical information on cross-sectional, seasonal and longitudinal patterns of exposure related behaviors in young children, parents of young children, and older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: One of the most challenging problems in mining gene expression data is to identify how the expression of any particular gene affects the expression of other genes. To elucidate the relationships between genes, an association rule mining (ARM) method has been applied to microarray gene expression data. However, a conventional ARM method has a limit on extracting temporal dependencies between gene expressions, though the temporal information is indispensable to discover underlying regulation mechanisms in biological pathways. In this paper, we propose a novel method, referred to as temporal association rule mining (TARM), which can extract temporal dependencies among related genes. A temporal association rule has the form [gene A↑, gene B↓] → (7 min) [gene C↑], which represents that high expression level of gene A and significant repression of gene B followed by significant expression of gene C after 7 minutes. The proposed TARM method is tested with Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell cycle time-series microarray gene expression data set. Results: In the parameter fitting phase of TARM, the fitted parameter set [threshold ≥ ± 0.8, support ≥ 3 transactions, confidence ≥ 90%] with the best precision score for KEGG cell cycle pathway has been chosen for rule mining phase. With the fitted parameter set, numbers of temporal association rules with five transcriptional time delays (0, 7, 14, 21, 28 minutes) are extracted from gene expression data of 799 genes, which are pre-identified cell cycle relevant genes. From the extracted temporal association rules, associated genes, which play same role of biological processes within short transcriptional time delay and some temporal dependencies between genes with specific biological processes are identified. Conclusion: In this work, we proposed TARM, which is an applied form of conventional ARM. TARM showed higher precision score than Dynamic Bayesian network and Bayesian network. Advantages of TARM are that it tells us the size of transcriptional time delay between associated genes, activation and inhibition relationship between genes, and sets of co-regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]