Search results for "Bioinformatics"

Sequenom MassARRAY Technology for the Analysis of DNA Methylation

2016

Abstract DNA methylation is one of several epigenetic mechanisms that cells use to control gene expression and is involved in the development of different pathologies such as obesity, Alzheimer's, and cancer. In this chapter, we have analyzed in depth the Sequenom MassARRAY® technology for the analysis of DNA methylation with special emphasis on its applications in clinical practice. In recent years, the Sequenom EpiTYPER® system technology has emerged as a novel technique for methylation analysis that offers a high range of options with great performance and several advantages.

Molecular Diagnostics: Innovative Technologies for Clinical and Translational Research

2021

In recent years, cancer patients’ treatment has profoundly changed due to a better comprehension of the biological processes underlying tumor development and progression. Several tumors are defined as “oncogene addicted” meaning that they are strictly dependent on oncogene activation for their own survival. This discovery has indeed led the way to the development of target therapies that are able to specifically kill cancer cells sparing normal cells from toxicity. For these reasons, nowadays, treatment decision is strictly dependent on the molecular characterization of the tumor that can be achieved through different technologies. Within this chapter, we will discuss the main technologies …

A Novel Multigene Assay in Clinical Practice - Performance and Impact On Clinical Decisions

2013

Interleukins

1994

With interleukins (IL), a new class of potential drugs has been introduced into clinical research. These signal peptides are involved in the regulation of many physiological and pathophysiological processes. IL-1, -2, -3, -4, -6 and -11 have been tested in clinical trials. The growth promoting, growth inhibiting or immunomodulatory activities of interleukins represent the theoretical basis for large scale clinical testing, predominantly in malignant disease. Dose-dependent effects on numbers of peripheral blood cells and recovery from bone marrow failure have been demonstrated for IL-1, -3, -6 and -11. Phase III trials are in progress to determine their value for clinical practice. However,…

Therapeutic Angiogenesis in Surgery and Oncology

1994

The aim of this presentation is to demonstrate the pathological importance of microenvironmental tissue hypoxia and to elucidate a general treatment concept for this situation which we have termed therapeutic angiogenesis 1. Hypoxia not only represents an insufficient oxygen supply for the cells of a given tissue area but is also regarded as an indicator for their metabolic deprivation and the concomitant accumulation of waste products. Therapeutic angiogenesis applied either with clinically established methods or using novel ways, which are the objectives of laboratory research and clinical trials at present, or in so far hypothetical forms, should lead to an expansion of the functional mi…

Epigenetics and precision medicine in lung cancer

2022

Abstract Lung cancer is one of the most common types of cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. A major factor related with the high mortality rate of lung cancer patients is the late diagnosis of the disease. So, the identification and characterization of new epigenetic marks and mechanisms may contribute to better diagnose and treat lung cancer. In this chapter we review the epigenetic mechanisms involved in lung cancer, including DNA methylation, histone posttranslational modification and noncoding RNAs. The chapter focuses on biomarkers for diagnostic, prognostic and response to treatment. Finally, thanks to the reversible nature of epigenetic marks, we provide …

Cloning and expression of the sponge longevity gene SDLAGL.

2000

Porifera show a characteristic Bauplan in spite of the fact that (almost) all cells are telomerase-positive and presumably provided with an unlimited potency for cell proliferation. One gene, SDLAGL, was identified in the marine sponge Suberites domuncula whose deduced polypeptide showed high sequence similarity to the longevity assurance genes from other Metazoa. While in single cells no transcripts of SDLAGL could be identified, high expression was seen after re-aggregation of single cells and in proliferating cells of primmorphs.

SMART: Unique splitting-while-merging framework for gene clustering

2014

© 2014 Fa et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Successful clustering algorithms are highly dependent on parameter settings. The clustering performance degrades significantly unless parameters are properly set, and yet, it is difficult to set these parameters a priori. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a unique splitting-while-merging clustering framework, named "splitting merging awareness tactics" (SMART), which does not require any a priori knowledge of either the number …

Bayesian versus data driven model selection for microarray data

2014

Clustering is one of the most well known activities in scientific investigation and the object of research in many disciplines, ranging from Statistics to Computer Science. In this beautiful area, one of the most difficult challenges is a particular instance of the model selection problem, i.e., the identification of the correct number of clusters in a dataset. In what follows, for ease of reference, we refer to that instance still as model selection. It is an important part of any statistical analysis. The techniques used for solving it are mainly either Bayesian or data-driven, and are both based on internal knowledge. That is, they use information obtained by processing the input data. A…

FlyMove – a new way to look at development of Drosophila

2003

Development of any organism requires a complex interplay of genes to orchestrate the many movements needed to build up an embryo. Previously, work on Drosophila melanogaster has provided important insights that are often applicable in other systems. But developmental processes, which take place in space and time, are difficult to convey in textbooks. Here, we introduce FlyMove (http://flymove.uni-muenster.de), a new database combining movies, animated schemata, interactive "modules" and pictures that will greatly facilitate the understanding of Drosophila development.