Research Triangle Park

About: Research Triangle Park is a nonprofit organization based out in Durham, North Carolina, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Receptor. The organization has 24961 authors who have published 35800 publications receiving 1684504 citations. The organization is also known as: RTP.

Differential expression of estrogen receptor-beta and estrogen receptor-alpha in the rat ovary.

Abstract: Immunohistochemical localization of two estrogen receptor (ER) subtypes, ER beta and ER alpha, was performed in neonatal, early postnatal, immature, and adult rats to determine whether ER alpha and ER beta are differentially expressed in the ovary. ER beta and ER alpha were visualized using a polyclonal anti-ER beta antibody and a monoclonal ER alpha (ID5) antibody, respectively. Postfixed frozen sections and antigen-retrieved paraffin sections of the ovary revealed nuclear ER beta immunoreactivity (IR) in granulosa cells, which was prevented when peptide-adsorbed antibody was used instead. In immature and adult rat ovaries, ER beta was expressed exclusively in nuclei of granulosa cells of primary, secondary, and mature follicles. Atretic follicle granulosa cells showed only weak or no staining. No specific nuclear ER beta IR was detected in thecal cells, luteal cells, interstitial cells, germinal epithelium, or oocytes. In neonatal rat ovary, no ER beta expression was found. In ovaries of 5- and 10-day-old rats, weak ER beta IR was observed in granulosa cells of primary and secondary follicles, but no staining was detected in the primordial follicles. ER alpha protein exhibited a differential distribution in the ovary with no detectable expression in the granulosa cells but evidence of ER alpha IR in germinal epithelium, interstitial cells, and thecal cells. In the oviduct and uterus, IR for ER alpha, but not ER beta, was found in luminal epithelium, stromal cells, muscle cells, and gland cells. Our present study demonstrates that ER beta and ER alpha proteins are expressed in distinctly different cell types in the ovary. The exclusive presence of ER beta in granulosa cells implies that this specific new subtype of ER beta mediates some effects of estrogen action in the regulation of growth and maturation of ovarian follicles.

Genome-wide association study of recurrent major depressive disorder in two European case–control cohorts

Abstract: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent disorder with substantial heritability. Heritability has been shown to be substantial and higher in the variant of MDD characterized by recurrent episodes of depression. Genetic studies have thus far failed to identify clear and consistent evidence of genetic risk factors for MDD. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in two independent datasets. The first GWAS was performed on 1022 recurrent MDD patients and 1000 controls genotyped on the Illumina 550 platform. The second was conducted on 492 recurrent MDD patients and 1052 controls selected from a population-based collection, genotyped on the Affymetrix 5.0 platform. Neither GWAS identified any SNP that achieved GWAS significance. We obtained imputed genotypes at the Illumina loci for the individuals genotyped on the Affymetrix platform, and performed a meta-analysis of the two GWASs for this common set of approximately half a million SNPs. The meta-analysis did not yield genome-wide significant results either. The results from our study suggest that SNPs with substantial odds ratio are unlikely to exist for MDD, at least in our datasets and among the relatively common SNPs genotyped or tagged by the half-million-loci arrays. Meta-analysis of larger datasets is warranted to identify SNPs with smaller effects or with rarer allele frequencies that contribute to the risk of MDD.

Obesity as a Disease: A White Paper on Evidence and Arguments Commissioned by the Council of The Obesity Society

Abstract: tative bodies that it is reasonable to call obesity a disease. The panel reviewed three broad classes of argument as to whether obesity is rightly classified as a disease.The first, the scientific approach, pro-ceeds in two conceptually simple steps: i) identify the characteristics that entities must have to be considered diseases and ii) examine empirical evidence to deter-mine whether obesity possesses those characteristics. The scientific approach would be well suited to answering the question “is obesity a disease?” rather than “should we consider obesity a disease?,” were the former question answerable. However, after much deliberation, the panel concluded that the former question is ill posed and does not admit an answer. This is not because of a lack of agreement or understanding about obesity but rather because of a lack of a clear, specific, widely accepted, and scientifically applicable defi-nition of “disease” that allows one to objec-tively and empirically determine whether specific conditions are diseases.The second type of argument, the foren-sic approach, entailed looking to the public statements of authoritative bodies as evi-dence of whether obesity is a disease or should be considered a disease. A nearly of the statements made by ostensibly authoritative bodies made apparent that there is a clear and strong majority lean-ing—although not complete consensus—toward obesity being a disease. However, although some authoritative bodies have offered statements that obesity is (or is not) a disease, very few of them have published a thorough and rigorous argument or evi-dential basis in support of the statement. Moreover, and far more importantly, the panel held that the opinions of authorita-tive bodies tell us—at most—what is law-ful, consistent with mainstream opinions, or likely to be supported by others. Such opinions are insufficient to tell us what is true or what is right. The panel strongly endorsed the position that there can be no higher authority than reason. Hence, the forensic approach was judged to be inad-equate to help us determine either whether obesity is a disease or whether it should be considered a disease.The third approach to this question we termed the utilitarian approach. Recognizing that there is no clear agreed-on definition of disease with precise, assessable criteria that can be articulated, it seems that conditions that produce adverse health outcomes come to be considered diseases as the result of a social process when it is assessed to be beneficial to the greater good that they be so judged. Such judgments about likely benefit to the greater good are utilitarian judgments that may take empirical input but must also assume certain values. We considered the