1,721,571 research outputs found
Offerte votive nei santuari della Magna Grecia: dal contesto archeologico al sistema rituale
No full textStatin might promote epicardial adipose tissue inflammatory remodeling via NLRP3 suppression: An intriguing hypothesis
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IV. 2. Offerte votive nei santuari della Magna Grecia: dal contesto archeologico al sistema rituale
No full textParisi V. IV. 2. Offerte votive nei santuari della Magna Grecia: dal contesto archeologico al sistema rituale. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Volume 134, livraison 2, 2010. pp. 454-463
Genetic susceptibility factors of Type 1 diabetes in Asians
No full textType 1 diabetes is a multifactorial disease in which the insulin producing β-cells of the pancreas are destroyed by the immune system, a process determined by the activity of major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-restricted T lymphocytes. Progress has been made in elucidating genetic factors involved in Type 1 diabetes in Caucasians, with less data available from Asia. For Asians, the human MHC locus (HLA region), especially the class II region, is the major susceptibility interval. The role of IDDM2, the insulin locus, has been questioned in Asia. In contrast to Caucasians, Asian populations have a very low incidence of Type 1 diabetes (0.4-1.1 cases/ year/100 000 individuals). This low incidence rate in the Asian population may be related to the population frequency distribution of susceptible Type 1 diabetes genes, especially of HLA. The overall risk for Type 1 diabetes from HLA DR and DQ is determined by polymorphic residues (alleles) and particular combinations of alleles (haplotypes and genotypes) in a given individual. In Asians, it is very common that a protective DR4 allele is associated with susceptible DQ alleles while neutral/protective DQ alleles are associated with the susceptible DR4 alleles. Our analyses indicate that the counterbalancing between susceptible DRB1 and protective DQB1, and vice versa, is a factor that may contribute to the low incidence of diabetes in Asians. We find that identical HLA DRB1-DQB1 haplotypes of Asians and Caucasians have similar transmission to diabetic children and similar associations with diabetes. Moreover, the association with diabetes and transmission to a diabetic offspring of DR4 haplotypes varies depending on the haplotype borne on the homologous chromosome. This might contribute not only to the synergistic effect of DR3/4, but also to the susceptibility influence of DQB1*0401 haplotypes confined to DR4/X. High-risk DR4 subtypes were predominant in DR4/X, whereas protective DR4 subtypes were observed mainly in the DR3/4 genotype. Since in Asians DQB1*0401 is in linkage disequilibrium (LD) with DRB1*0405, we find more DRB1*0405-DQB1*0401 haplotypes in patients with DR4/X than in patients with DR3/4, suggesting that the contribution of the DRB1 locus may be greater in DR4/X than in DR3/4 genotypes. Several genome scans suggested additional susceptibility intervals and provided supporting evidence for several previously reported linkages. Other studies focused on the confirmation of linkage using multipoint sib-pair analyses with densely spaced markers and multiethnic collection of families. Although significant and consistent linkage evidence was reported for the susceptibility intervals IDDM12 (on 2q33) even in Asia, evidence for most other intervals varies in different data sets. LD mapping has become an increasingly important tool for both confirmation and fine-mapping of susceptibility intervals, as well as identification of etiological mutations. The examination of large and ethnically varied data sets including those of Asia has allowed identification of haplotypes that differ only at a single codon in a single locus. As more data become available, the study of pairs of haplotypes which differ at a single polymorphic site, but have different effects on disease susceptibility, should allow more precise definition of the polymorphisms involved in the disease process. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Microarthropods of the soil, convergence phenomena and evaluation ofsoil quality using QBS
No full textThe increasing recognition of problems deriving from soil degradation has contributed in identifying soil fauna research as a priority in soil quality assessment. In par-ticular, soil microarthropods have been shown to respond sensitively to land management practices and to be corre-lated with beneficial soil functions. The growing interest in the employment of living organisms for the evaluation of soil conditions is justified by the great potentiality of these techniques, which allow the measurement of factors diffi-cult to notice with physical-chemical methods while giving information that is easier to understand. The basic idea of bio-indications is that the relationship between soil factors and soil communities can be preserved. In this article, two indices based on edaphic microarthropods have been pro-posed to assess biological soil quality. The first, the QBS-ar index, is based on the entire microarthropod community present in a soil sample. Each �morphological type� found in the soil sample receives a score from 1 to 20 (Eco-Mor-phological Index, EMI), according to its adaptation to soil environment. The QBS-ar index sums these scores, thereby characterizing the microarthropod community of the sam-ple being studied. QBS-ar has been applied on a range of soil types and land uses in Italy, and its validity evaluated for assessing the biological quality of soil in different situa-tions. The second index, called QBS-C, is based only on the Collembolan community and considers all EMI values of biological forms in the extracted soil sample. QBS-C index, in spite of its application being more difficult, proves highly effective in the evaluation of differences in soils character-ized by different organic matter content, moisture and mechanical tillage
Use of microarthropods as biologica indicators of soil quality: the BSQ synthetic indicator
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