1,356,361 research outputs found
Mary Steichen Calderone (1904-1998): Advocate for Sex Education
No full textMary Steichen Calderone, MD, MPH, was the foremost advocate for sex education in the United States during the pivotal decades of the 1960s and 1970s. The authors wrote this article together, based on research for a forthcoming book on Mary Calderone and other advocates for sex education by E. S. More
mentha: a resource for browsing integrated protein-interaction networks
No full textAbout mentha
mentha archives evidence collected from different sources and presents these data in a complete and comprehensive way. Its data comes from manually curated protein-protein interaction databases that have adhered to the IMEx consortium. The aggregated data forms an interactome which includes many organisms. mentha is a resource that offers a series of tools to analyse selected proteins in the context of a network of interactions. Protein interaction databases archive protein-protein interaction (PPI) information from published articles. However, no database alone has sufficient literature coverage to offer a complete resource to investigate "the interactome".
mentha's approach generates every week a consistent interactome (graph). Most importantly, the procedure assigns to each interaction a reliability score that takes into account all the supporting evidence. mentha offers eight interactomes (Homo sapiens, Arabidopsis thaliana, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, Escherichia coli K12, Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae) plus a global netowrk that comprises every organism, including those not mentioned. The website and the graphical application are designed to make the data stored in mentha accessible and analysable to all users
Integration and analysis of protein-protein and signalling networks to create graph dynamical systems
No full textUnderstanding networks of biological interactions is essential to all life sciences. Nowadays, a large amount of biological information is archived in diverse resources that often contain complementary information. Scientists have to search various data repositories in order to reconstruct, understand and speculate on the steps that lead to specific phenomena. The amount of digitalised interaction data has grown to such an extent that it is now advisable to integrate different kinds of data through computational means. Bioinformatics can offer tools and strategies to manipulate such information automatically. In order to address the need of integrating and retrieving structured protein interaction data, I implemented a new resource called mentha, which merges the data archived in different repositories in order to assemble large networks of protein interactions. This resource has low data redundancy and it assigns a reliability score to each interaction. mentha can be seen as a workbench to assemble custom protein-protein interaction networks. Furthermore, I contributed to the development of a new resource that archives manually curated signalling information. I investigated the possibility of exploiting the information contained in mentha to assemble signalling networks. I analysed strategies to automatically link proteins of interest with other relevant proteins in order to create a backbone to build graph dynamical systems that can represent biological signalling networks. I conclude that manually curated signalling information can be integrated with information inferred from interactomes where signal direction can be predicted using orientation algorithms, while signal effect can be derived from RNA interference screenings. Finally, I analysed the resulting biological models as graph dynamical systems. I transformed the topology of a signed oriented biological network into transition boolean functions and, using boolean formalism, I analysed dynamical networks to simulate biological behaviours
An alternative method to evaluate the nature of an antagonist and its potency. A theoretical approach
No full textThe Schild analysis is certainly the most reliable method for antagonism studies. The Schild regression allows one to determine the parameter of the Schild-slope, which represents a powerful diagnostic tool when investigating the nature of an antagonist and, consequently, to evaluate its potency. Nevertheless, in functional pharmacology, often practical reasons lead the experimenter to obtain an inhibition curve for the antagonist and calculate its potency by means of equations, which can be considered as a derivation of the Cheng-Prusoff analysis. This approach is considered theoretically invalid, because it does not allow to know the exact nature of the antagonism, and thus the evaluation of the antagonist dissociation constant can be meaningless. In this paper, a new method is proposed, which, by means of an equation closely similar to the Schild one, permits one to obtain a linear regression analysis, giving a slope value absolutely equivalent to the Schild-slope. This method allows us to determine both the nature and the potency of an antagonist, and requires an experimental procedure substantially analogous to the one performed to obtain an inhibition curve
Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators in COVID-19: A Possible Therapeutic Option?
No full textMale and female genders exhibit significant differences in the outcome of infective diseases caused by several viral pathogens. Along with behavioral or social factors which can affect the exposure to infection and the availability of therapies, it is widely accepted that genetic and physiological factors can markedly influence sex-related differences in immune responses. In particular, receptors for gonadal hormones are expressed in many immune cell types and, consistently, sex-related differences in immune function are likely to be strongly influenced by circulating sex steroid hormones (Klein and Huber, 2010).
Concerning coronaviruses, epidemiological data from SARS epidemic (severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by SARS-CoV in 2002–2003) and MERS epidemic (Middle East respiratory syndrome, caused by MERS-CoV in 2012–2013) showed evident sex-dependent differences in disease outcome (Karlberg et al., 2004). Notably, such a sex-dependent difference is presently observed in the new SARS pandemic, broken out in 2019 and caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). In particular, susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection is almost similar in both genders, but higher severity and mortality are observed in male patients (Wenham et al., 2020)
VirusMentha: a new resource for virus-host protein interactions
No full textViral infections often cause diseases by perturbing several cellular processes in the infected host. Viral proteins target host proteins and either form new complexes or modulate the formation of functional host complexes. Describing and understanding the perturbation of the host interactome following viral infection is essential for basic virology and for the development of antiviral therapies. In order to provide a general overview of such interactions, a few years ago we developed VirusMINT. We have now extended the scope and coverage of VirusMINT and established VirusMentha, a new virus-virus and virus-host interaction resource build on the detailed curation protocols of the IMEx consortium and on the integration strategies developed for mentha. VirusMentha is regularly and automatically updated every week by capturing, via the PSICQUIC protocol, interactions curated by five different databases that are part of the IMEx consortium. VirusMentha can be freely browsed at http://virusmentha.uniroma2.it/ and its complete data set is available for download
Potassium channel openers: The case of BK channel activators
No full textLarge-conductance calcium-activated potassium channels, also known as BK or Maxi-K channels, occur in many types of cells, where they play an essential role in the regulation of cell excitability and function. BK channel openers constitute a heterogeneous group of organic compounds being able to activate BK channels and having a wide therapeutic potential for the treatment of different neurological, urological and cardiovascular diseases. This review addresses the novel research on BK channels as drug targets as well as it reports recent developments in the chemistry of BK channel openers and in the chemical structural aspects determining their activity
Derivati 2,2-dimetilcromanici 4-spiro-eterociclici azotati (a 5 e 6 termini) N-sostituiti quali cardio-protettori nei confronti dell''insulto ischemico
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