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The vast array of in silico resources and data of high throughput profiling currently available in life sciences research offer the possibility of aiding cancer gene and drug discovery process. Here we propose to take advantage of these resources to develop a tool, TARGETgene, for efficiently identifying mutation drivers, possible therapeutic targets, and drug candidates in cancer. The simple graphical user interface enables rapid, intuitive mapping and analysis at the systems level. Users can find, select, and explore identified target genes and compounds of interest (e.g., novel cancer genes and their enriched biological processes), and validate predictions using user-defined benchmark genes (e.g., target genes detected in RNAi screens) and curated cancer genes via TARGETgene. The high-level capabilities of TARGETgene are also demonstrated through two applications in this paper. The predictions in these two applications were then satisfactorily validated by several ways, including known cancer genes, results of RNAi screens, gene function annotations, and target genes of drugs that have been used or in clinical trial in cancer treatments. TARGETgene is freely available from the Biomedical Simulations Resource web site (http://bmsr.usc.edu/Software/TARGET/TARGET.html).

Background: Dental materials, in particular resins used in prosthetic, orthodontic, conservative and gnathological dentistry, are frequently in long-term contact with the tissues of the mouth, and the chronic exposure to these products of a significant proportion of the population means that the release of genotoxic substances by dental resins must be evaluated., Methods: For this purpose, ten methyl metacrylate-based resins, both cold- and hot-polymerising and all of frequent use in clinical practice, were prepared following the indications in Standard UNI 9582-2 now included in Standard ISO 10993. Genotoxicity was evaluated through the Tradescantia/micronuclei test., Results: By using the Tradescantia/micronuclei test, which detects aberrant chromosomes by detecting micronuclei in flower tetrads, nine resins were found not to the positive; one resin caused a significant increase in the frequency of micronuclei compared to negative controls., Conclusions: The results of the Tradescantia/micronuclei test, together with the results of tests cytotoxicity and the Ames and Allium cepa tests performed in previous research, indicate a need for further analyses of these resins for dental use, through other in vivo and in vitro tests, in order to achieve certainty over the risk connected with their use in human populations.

The opportunistic pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa uses quorum-sensing signaling systems as global regulators of virulence genes. There are two quorum-sensing signal receptor and signal generator pairs, LasR-LasI and RhlR-RhlI. The recently completed P. aeruginosa genome-sequencing project revealed a gene coding for a homolog of the signal receptors, LasR and RhlR. Here we describe a role for this gene, which we call qscR. The qscR gene product governs the timing of quorum-sensing-controlled gene expression and it dampens virulence in an insect model. We present evidence that suggests the primary role of QscR is repression of lasI. A qscR mutant produces the LasI-generated signal prematurely, and this results in premature transcription of a number of quorum-sensing-regulated genes. When fed to Drosophila melanogaster, the qscR mutant kills the animals more rapidly than the parental P. aeruginosa. The repression of lasI by QscR could serve to ensure that quorum-sensing-controlled genes are not activated in environments where they are not useful.

Several people developed severe symptoms of gastroenteritis after attending a first holy communion banquet in Benevento, a town of 60 000 inhabitants in southern Italy. About 60 people had attended the banquet, held on 14 June 1998, between 1400 and 1800

In 1996, about 15% of all reported cases of hepatitis A (n=8651) in Italy were from the Campania region, with Naples reporting the region s highest incidence (34.9/100 000). Almost a half of all cases were between 15 and 24 years of age. In recent years,