1,720,976 research outputs found

    LSD1: more than demethylation of histone lysine residues

    Full text link
    Lysine-specific histone demethylase 1 (LSD1) represents the first example of an identified nuclear protein with histone demethylase activity. In particular, it plays a special role in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression, as it removes methyl groups from mono- and dimethylated lysine 4 and/or lysine 9 on histone H3 (H3K4me1/2 and H3K9me1/2), behaving as a repressor or activator of gene expression, respectively. Moreover, it has been recently found to demethylate monomethylated and dimethylated lysine 20 in histone H4 and to contribute to the balance of several other methylated lysine residues in histone H3 (i.e., H3K27, H3K36, and H3K79). Furthermore, in recent years, a plethora of nonhistone proteins have been detected as targets of LSD1 activity, suggesting that this demethylase is a fundamental player in the regulation of multiple pathways triggered in several cellular processes, including cancer progression. In this review, we analyze the molecular mechanism by which LSD1 displays its dual effect on gene expression (related to the specific lysine target), placing final emphasis on the use of pharmacological inhibitors of its activity in future clinical studies to fight cancer

    Epigenome chaos: Stochastic and deterministic dna methylation events drive cancer evolution

    Full text link
    Cancer evolution is associated with genomic instability and epigenetic alterations, which contribute to the inter and intra tumor heterogeneity, making genetic markers not accurate to monitor tumor evolution. Epigenetic changes, aberrant DNA methylation and modifications of chromatin proteins, determine the “epigenome chaos”, which means that the changes of epigenetic traits are randomly generated, but strongly selected by deterministic events. Disordered changes of DNA methylation profiles are the hallmarks of all cancer types, but it is not clear if aberrant methylation is the cause or the consequence of cancer evolution. Critical points to address are the profound epigenetic intra-and inter-tumor heterogeneity and the nature of the heterogeneity of the methylation patterns in each single cell in the tumor population. To analyze the methylation heterogeneity of tumors, new technological and informatic tools have been developed. This review discusses the state of the art of DNA methylation analysis and new approaches to reduce or solve the complexity of methylated alleles in DNA or cell populations

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

    Full text link
    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

    Full text link
    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

    Full text link
    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

    Full text link
    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

    No full text
    Nao informado
    corecore