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A comparative life cycle assessment examining soybean and petroleum-based lubricants is compiled using Monte Carlo analysis to assess system variability. Experimental data obtained from an aluminum manufacturing facility indicate significantly less soybean lubricant is required to achieve similar or superior performance. With improved performance and a lower use rate, a transition to soybean oil results in lower aggregate impacts of acidification, smog formation, and human health from criteria pollutants. Regardless of quantity consumed, soybean-based lubricants exhibit significant climate change and fossil fuel use benefits; however, eutrophication impacts are much greater due to non-point nutrient emissions. Fundamental tradeoffs in the carbon and nitrogen cycles are addressed in the analysis, demonstrating that a transition to soybean oil may result in climate change benefits at the expense of regional water quality.

A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), +874T/A, in the first intron of the interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) gene, has presented associations with human susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB) in some ethnic populations, but not in others. In this population-based case-control study with adult TB patients from Houston, Texas, we found no significant differences of + 874T/A genotypic frequencies between cases and ethnically-matched controls or between advanced forms of TB disease (extra-pulmonary involvement or presence of cavitary disease) and pulmonary TB. Given possible sample size limitations, our results suggest that the IFN-gamma +874T/A mutation has no association with TB susceptibility or TB disease severity.

In order to investigate the role of MBL gene polymorphisms in susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB) we genotyped 487 TB cases and 232 controls. Among African-American individuals, the frequency of B allele was lower among controls than cases (p < 0.01), but we found no differences between cases and controls of white and Hispanic ethnicity.

Interleukin (IL)-12 plays a pivotal role in cell-mediated immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. We tested the association between a biallelic single-nucleotide polymorphism in the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of IL-12B and human susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB), in a population-based case-control study of adult patients with TB from 2 ethnicities, African American and white, and in a family-based transmission/disequilibrium study of 60 informative families with at least 1 pediatric patient with TB and 1 heterozygous parent. Our results suggest that IL-12B 3' UTR has no effect or has a negligible effect on human susceptibility to TB.

Interleukin (IL)-8 is involved in the pathogenesis of human tuberculosis (TB). However, the contribution of polymorphisms of the IL-8 gene and its receptor genes CXCR-1 and CXCR-2 to human TB susceptibility remains untested. In a case-control study, white subjects with TB disease were more likely to be homozygous for the IL-8 -251A allele, compared with control subjects (odds ratio [OR], 3.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.52-7.64). African Americans with TB also showed an increased odds of being homozygous for this allele (OR, 3.46; 95% CI, 1.48-8.08). To exclude population artifacts in the case-control study, a separate analysis that used a transmission-disequilibrium test with 76 informative families confirmed that the IL-8 -251A allele was preferentially transmitted to TB-infected children (P=.02). CXCR-1 and CXCR-2 did not demonstrate significant associations with TB susceptibility. These data suggest that IL-8 is important in the genetic control of human TB susceptibility.

Setting: Houston Tuberculosis Initiative (HTI) and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas., Objective: To further explore the association between the polymorphisms of NRAMP1 and human susceptibility/resistance to tuberculosis (TB), specifically to determine whether the reported association shown for blacks and Asians holds true for Caucasian populations., Design: In a case-control study, 135 adult Caucasian TB patients and 108 adult Caucasian HIV-seronegative non-TB controls were analyzed for the association between the polymorphisms in NRAMP1 gene and clinical TB., Results: Heterozygote at 5'(GT)n, a dinucleotide repeat polymorphism in the promoter of NRAMP1, was observed at significantly higher frequencies among HIV-negative patients with pulmonary TB (41.6%; OR 2.02; 95%CI 1.11-3.64), extra-pulmonary TB (66.7%; OR 4.80; 95%CI 1.34-17.15), and HIV-seropositive TB patients (50%; OR 3.77; 95%CI 1.33-10.66) in comparison with the controls (27.8%). Homozygotes (GT)(10,10) were over-represented among HIV-positive TB patients (18.2%; OR 6.86; 95%CI 1.55-30.21) compared to the controls (5.5%)., Conclusion: These findings suggest that the 5'(GT)n polymorphism of NRAMP1 modifies TB susceptibility in this Caucasian population, and could possibly be related to the site of infection among HIV-negative individuals and HIV-coinfected TB.