1,720,959 research outputs found

    The implications of structured 5' untranslated regions on translation and disease

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    Translational control is a key step in eukaryotic gene expression. The majority of translational control occurs at the level of initiation, thus implicating the 5? untranslated region as a major site of translational regulation. Many growth-related mRNAs have atypical 5? UTRs, which are often long and GC-rich. Such features promote formation of stable secondary structure, and many mRNAs encoding proteins involved in cell growth, proliferation and apoptosis have structured 5? UTRs, which in many cases harbour internal ribosome entry sites (IRESs) and upstream open-reading frames (uORFs). In this review we discuss how secondary structural elements in the 5? UTR can regulate translation and how mutations that perturb these secondary structural elements can have implications for disease and tumourigenesis

    Bag-1 internal ribosome entry segment activity is promoted by structural changes mediated by poly(rC) binding protein 1 and recruitment of polypyrimidine tract binding protein 1

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    We have shown previously that an internal ribosome entry segment (IRES) directs the synthesis of the p36 isoform of Bag-1 and that polypyrimidine tract binding protein 1 (PTB-1) and poly(rC) binding protein 1 (PCBP1) stimulate IRES-mediated translation initiation in vitro and in vivo. Here, a secondary structural model of the Bag-1 IRES has been derived by using chemical and enzymatic probing data as constraints on the RNA folding algorithm Mfold. The ribosome entry window has been identified within this structural model and is located in a region in which many residues are involved in base-pairing interactions. The interactions of PTB-1 and PCBP1 with their cognate binding sites on the IRES disrupt many of the RNA-RNA interactions, and this creates a largely unstructured region of approximately 40 nucleotides that could permit ribosome binding. Mutational analysis of the PTB-1 and PCBP1 binding sites suggests that PCBP1 acts as an RNA chaperone to open the RNA in the vicinity of the ribosome entry window while PTB-1 is probably an essential part of the preinitiation complex

    Polypyrimidine tract binding protein and poly r(C) binding protein 1 interact with the BAG-1 IRES and stimulate its activity in vitro and in vivo

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    The 5'-untranslated region of Bag-1 mRNA contains an internal ribosome entry segment (IRES) and the translation of Bag-1 protein can be initiated by both cap-dependent and cap-independent mechanisms. In general, cellular IRESs require non-canonical trans-acting factors for their activity, however, very few of the proteins that act on cellular IRESs have been identified. Proteins that interact with viral IRESs have also been shown to stimulate the activity of cellular IRESs and therefore the ability of a range of known viral trans-acting factors to stimulate the Bag-1 IRES was tested. Two proteins, poly r(C) binding protein 1 (PCBP1) and polypyrimidine tract binding protein (PTB), were found to increase the activity of the Bag-1 IRES in vitro and in vivo. The regions of the Bag-1 IRES RNA to which they bind have been determined, and it was shown that PCBP1 binds to a short 66 nt section of RNA, whilst PTB interacts with a number of sites over a larger area. The minimum section of the RNA that still retained activity was determined and both PCBP1 and PTB interacted with this region suggesting that these proteins are essential for Bag-1 IRES function.<br/

    The p36 isoform of BAG-1 is translated by internal ribosome entry following heat shock

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    BAG-1 (also known as RAP46/HAP46) was originally identified as a 46 kDa protein that bound to and enhanced the anti-apoptotic properties of Bcl-2. BAG-1 exists as three major isoforms (designated p50, p46 and p36 or BAG-1L, BAG-1M and BAG-1S respectively) and one minor isoform (p29), which are translated from a common transcript. The differing amino terminus determines both the intracellular location and the repertoire of binding partners of the isoforms which play different roles in a variety of cellular processes including signal transduction, heat shock, apoptosis and transcription. Although in vitro data suggest that the four BAG-1 isoforms are translated by leaky scanning, the patterns of isoform expression in vivo, especially in transformed cells, do not support this hypothesis. We have performed in vivo analysis of the BAG-1 5' untranslated region and shown that translation initiation of the most highly expressed isoform (p36/BAG-1S) can occur by both internal ribosome entry and cap-dependent scanning. Following heat shock, when there is a downregulation of cap-dependent translation, the expression of the p36 isoform of BAG-1 is maintained by internal ribosome entry

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    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

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    “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

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    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

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    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
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