| 1. |
- Lindstrom, A., et al.
(författare)
-
Pyrosequencing for detection of lamivudine-resistant hepatitis B virus
- 2004
-
Ingår i: Journal of Clinical Microbiology. - : American Society for Microbiology. - 0095-1137 .- 1098-660X. ; 42:10, s. 4788-4795
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection can cause severe liver disease, including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Lamivudine is a relatively recent alternative to alpha interferon for the treatment of HBV infection, but unfortunately, resistance to lamivudine commonly develops during monotherapy. Lamivudine-resistant HBV mutants display specific mutations in the YMDD (tyrosine, methionine, aspartate, aspartate) motif of the viral polymerase (reverse transcriptase [rt]), which is the catalytic site of the enzyme, i.e., methionine 204 to isoleucine (rtM204I) or valine (rtM204V). The latter mutation is often accompanied by a compensatory leucine-to-methionine change at codon 180 (rtL180M). In the present study, a novel sequencing method, pyrosequencing, was applied to the detection of lamivudine resistance mutations and was compared with direct Sanger sequencing. The new pyrosequencing method had advantages in terms of throughput. Experiments with mixtures of wild-type and resistant viruses indicated that pyrosequencing can detect minor sequence variants in heterogeneous virus populations. The new pyrosequencing method was evaluated with a small number of patient samples, and the results showed that the method could be a useful tool for the detection of lamivudine resistance in the clinical setting.
|
|
| 2. |
- Myrberg, T, et al.
(författare)
-
Structural properties of relaxed Ge buffer layers on Si(001) : effect of layer thickness and low temperature Si initial buffer
- 2004
-
Ingår i: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics. - : Springer Science Business Media. - 0957-4522 .- 1573-482X. ; 15:7, s. 411-417
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We have used the strain sensitive tool two-dimensional reciprocal space mapping (2D-RSM) and high resolution rocking curves (HR-RC) to assess the effect of the layer thickness and the influence of low temperature Si buffer on the properties of fully relaxed Ge on Si (0 0 1). The samples were grown by chemical vapor deposition in an ASM commercial reactor. As complementary measurements we have employed secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) for chemical analysis, cross sectional transmission electron microscopy for quality assessment, and finally atomic force microscopy (AFM) for investigating the surface roughness. The investigated samples have a thickness ranging from 0.25 to 5.0 mum. In addition and for a 5.0 mum thick Ge layer, an initial low temperature Si (LT-Si) template was grown before the Ge epitaxy. The results indicate that high quality fully relaxed Ge layers have been achieved using the adopted growth procedure. Most of the improvement in crystalline quality was observed for Ge layers with thickness up to 1.5 mum. Above this thickness the observed crystalline quality improvement was negligible. The LT-Si buffer observed to be disadvantageous for pure relaxed Ge growth.
|
|
| 3. |
- Sundström, Johan, et al.
(författare)
-
Relations of plasma homocysteine to left ventricular structure and function : the Framingham Heart Study.
- 2004
-
Ingår i: Eur Heart J. - 0195-668X. ; 25:6, s. 523-30
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- AIMS: Hyperhomocysteinaemia is a risk factor for congestive heart failure, especially in women. We investigated if homocysteine promotes left ventricular (LV) remodelling. METHODS AND RESULTS: We examined cross-sectional relations of plasma total homocysteine to echocardiographic LV structure and function in 2697 Framingham Heart Study participants (mean age 58 years, 58% women) free of heart failure and previous myocardial infarction. Adjusting for age and height, plasma homocysteine was positively related to LV mass, wall thickness, and relative wall thickness in women (p=0.0004-0.04), but not in men (p=0.28-0.68). Adjusting additionally for other clinical covariates, the relations of plasma homocysteine to LV mass and wall thickness in women remained statistically significant, but the relation to relative wall thickness became of borderline significance (1.92 g, 0.01 cm, and 0.29% increase, respectively, for a 1-SD increase in ln[homocysteine], p=0.01-0.08). LV mass and wall thickness were higher in the fourth quartile of plasma homocysteine compared to the lower three in all models in women (p=0.0003-0.02), but not in men (p=0.25-0.78). Plasma homocysteine was not related to left atrial size or LV fractional shortening in either sex. CONCLUSION: In our community-based sample, plasma homocysteine was directly related to LV mass and wall thickness in women but not in men.
|
|
