Tulane University

About: Tulane University is a education organization based out in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Blood pressure. The organization has 24478 authors who have published 47205 publications receiving 1944993 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Louisiana.

Meta-analysis of Correlated Traits via Summary Statistics from GWASs with an Application in Hypertension

Abstract: Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified many genetic variants underlying complex traits. Many detected genetic loci harbor variants that associate with multiple—even distinct—traits. Most current analysis approaches focus on single traits, even though the final results from multiple traits are evaluated together. Such approaches miss the opportunity to systemically integrate the phenome-wide data available for genetic association analysis. In this study, we propose a general approach that can integrate association evidence from summary statistics of multiple traits, either correlated, independent, continuous, or binary traits, which might come from the same or different studies. We allow for trait heterogeneity effects. Population structure and cryptic relatedness can also be controlled. Our simulations suggest that the proposed method has improved statistical power over single-trait analysis in most of the cases we studied. We applied our method to the Continental Origins and Genetic Epidemiology Network (COGENT) African ancestry samples for three blood pressure traits and identified four loci ( CHIC2 , HOXA-EVX1 , IGFBP1/IGFBP3 , and CDH17 ; p −8 ) associated with hypertension-related traits that were missed by a single-trait analysis in the original report. Six additional loci with suggestive association evidence (p −7 ) were also observed, including CACNA1D and WNT3 . Our study strongly suggests that analyzing multiple phenotypes can improve statistical power and that such analysis can be executed with the summary statistics from GWASs. Our method also provides a way to study a cross phenotype (CP) association by using summary statistics from GWASs of multiple phenotypes.

Density functionals that are one- and two- are not always many-electron self-interaction-free, as shown for H2+, He2+, LiH+, and Ne2+.

Abstract: The common density functionals for the exchange-correlation energy make serious self-interaction errors in the molecular dissociation limit when real or spurious noninteger electron numbers N are found on the dissociation products An "M-electron self-interaction-free" functional for positive integer M is one that produces a realistic linear variation of total energy with N in the range of M-1 2 Thus all these SIC's produce an exact binding energy curve for H2+, and an accurate one for He2+, but only the unscaled Perdew-Zunger SIC produces an accurate one for Ne2+, where there are more than two electrons on each fragment Ne+05 We also discuss LiH+, which is relatively free from self-interaction errors We suggest that the ability of the original and unscaled Perdew-Zunger SIC to be nearly M-electron self-interaction-free for atoms of all M stems in part from its formal resemblance to the Hartree-Fock theory, with which it shares a sum rule on the exchange-correlation hole of an open system

Modulation of emotion with a brain pacemamer. Treatment for intractable psychiatric illness.

Abstract: A treatment involving chronic implantation of a receiver that can be activated by an external power source to stimulate specific brain sites has been used in 11 patients with intractable psychiatric illness. All of the patients, a heterogeneous group, had failed to respond to all indicated treatments. Length of illness varied from 6 to 23 years without significant remission. Of the 11 patients, four had uncontrollable violence-aggression (two with no demonstrable organic brain disease and two with brain pathology), five were chronic schizophrenics, and two had lifelong patterns of severe neurosis in addition to the disabling disorder for which the procedure was performed. Three of the 11 patients had seizures in addition to behavioral pathology. Ten of the 11 patients are out of the hospital and functioning without medications or other treatment. Some are symptom-free and others have shown significant improvement. The one patient who failed to respond had an organic lesion over the cerebellar site that was to be stimulated. The rationale for the procedure was based on data gathered during earlier therapeutic studies in patients with depth electrodes and extensive anatomical and physiological experiments in animals. The transistorized stimulator used in treating these patients is similar to stimulators being used for treatment of epileptic and spastic patients.

Dendritic cell subsets differentially regulate angiogenesis in human ovarian cancer

Abstract: Angiogenesis is essential for both primary and metastatic tumor growth. Tumor blood vessel formation is complex and regulated by many factors. Ovarian carcinomas have a poor prognosis, often associated with multifocal intraperitoneal dissemination accompanied by intense neovascularization. To examine tumor angiogenesis in the tumor microenvironment, we studied malignant ascites of patients with untreated ovarian carcinoma. We observed high numbers of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (PDCs) and significant stromal-derived factor (CXCL-12/SDF)-1 in their malignant ascites, attracting PDCs into the tumor environment. We now show that tumor-associated PDCs induced angiogenesis in vivo through production of tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin 8. By contrast, myeloid dendritic cells (MDCs) were absent from malignant ascites. MDCs derived in vitro suppressed angiogenesis in vivo through production of interleukin 12. Thus, the tumor may attract PDCs to augment angiogenesis while excluding MDCs to prevent angiogenesis inhibition, demonstrating a novel mechanism for modulating tumor neovascularization. Because dendritic cells (DCs) have long been known to affect tumor immunity, our data also implicate DCs in regulation of tumor neoangiogenesis, suggesting a novel role of DCs in tumor pathology.