Spanish National Research Council

About: Spanish National Research Council is a government organization based out in Madrid, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Galaxy. The organization has 79563 authors who have published 220470 publications receiving 7698991 citations. The organization is also known as: CSIC & Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and smoldering (asymptomatic) multiple myeloma: IMWG consensus perspectives risk factors for progression and guidelines for monitoring and management

Abstract: Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) was identified in 3.2% of 21 463 residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota, 50 years of age or older. The risk of progression to multiple myeloma, Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, AL amyloidosis or a lymphoproliferative disorder is approximately 1% per year. Low-risk MGUS is characterized by having an M protein <15 g/l, IgG type and a normal free light chain (FLC) ratio. Patients should be followed with serum protein electrophoresis at six months and, if stable, can be followed every 2-3 years or when symptoms suggestive of a plasma cell malignancy arise. Patients with intermediate and high-risk MGUS should be followed in 6 months and then annually for life. The risk of smoldering (asymptomatic) multiple myeloma (SMM) progressing to multiple myeloma or a related disorder is 10% per year for the first 5 years, 3% per year for the next 5 years and 1-2% per year for the next 10 years. Testing should be done 2-3 months after the initial recognition of SMM. If the results are stable, the patient should be followed every 4-6 months for 1 year and, if stable, every 6-12 months.

Resonant plasmonic and vibrational coupling in a tailored nanoantenna for infrared detection.

Abstract: A novel resonant mechanism involving the interference of a broadband plasmon with the narrowband vibration from molecules is presented. With the use of this concept, we demonstrate experimentally the enormous enhancement of the vibrational signals from less than one attomol of molecules on individual gold nanowires, tailored to act as plasmonic nanoantennas in the infrared. By detuning the resonance via a change in the antenna length, a Fano-type behavior of the spectral signal is observed, which is clearly supported by full electrodynamical calculations. This resonant mechanism can be a new paradigm for sensitive infrared identification of molecular groups.

p19ARF links the tumour suppressor p53 to Ras

Abstract: Normal healthy cells possess safeguard mechanisms that sense oncogenic signals and trigger anti-tumorigenic responses that limit the proliferative potential of cells harbouring active oncogenes1. In particular, expression of the Ras oncogene in normal primary cells causes a cell-cycle arrest that involves the activation of the tumoursuppressor protein p53 (ref. 2). It has recently been reported that the tumour-suppressor p19ARF can activate p53 (3–5). Here we show that p19ARF in the mouse (the human homologue is called p14ARF) is essential for the activation of p53 in response to oncogenic Ras. These results, together with the finding that p19ARF does not mediate the activation of p53 by DNA damage6, dissociate the activation of p53 into two pathways: one pathway is induced by DNA damage and is independent of p19ARF, whereas the other pathway is induced by oncogenic Ras and is dependent on p19ARF.

GET_HOMOLOGUES, a versatile software package for scalable and robust microbial pangenome analysis

Abstract: GET_HOMOLOGUES is an open-source software package that builds on popular orthology-calling approaches making highly customizable and detailed pangenome analyses of microorganisms accessible to nonbioinformaticians. It can cluster homologous gene families using the bidirectional best-hit, COGtriangles, or OrthoMCL clustering algorithms. Clustering stringency can be adjusted by scanning the domain composition of proteins using the HMMER3 package, by imposing desired pairwise alignment coverage cutoffs, or by selecting only syntenic genes. The resulting homologous gene families can be made even more robust by computing consensus clusters from those generated by any combination of the clustering algorithms and filtering criteria. Auxiliary scripts make the construction, interrogation, and graphical display of core genome and pangenome sets easy to perform. Exponential and binomial mixture models can be fitted to the data to estimate theoretical core genome and pangenome sizes, and high-quality graphics can be generated. Furthermore, pangenome trees can be easily computed and basic comparative genomics performed to identify lineage-specific genes or gene family expansions. The software is designed to take advantage of modern multiprocessor personal computers as well as computer clusters to parallelize time-consuming tasks. To demonstrate some of these capabilities, we survey a set of 50 Streptococcus genomes annotated in the Orthologous Matrix (OMA) browser as a benchmark case. The package can be downloaded at http://www.eead.csic.es/compbio/soft/gethoms.php and http://maya.ccg.unam.mx/soft/gethoms.php.