Uppsala University

About: Uppsala University is a education organization based out in Uppsala, Sweden. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 36485 authors who have published 107509 publications receiving 4220668 citations. The organization is also known as: Uppsala universitet & uu.se.

Alcohol and breast cancer in women: a pooled analysis of cohort studies.

Abstract: Objective. - To assess the risk of invasive breast cancer associated with total and beverage-specific alcohol consumption and to evaluate whether dietary and nondietary factors modify the association. Data Sources. - We included in these analyses 6 prospective studies that had at least 200 incident breast cancer cases, assessed long-term intake of food and nutrients, and used a validated diet assessment instrument. The studies were conducted in Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. Alcohol intake was estimated by food frequency questionnaires in each study. The studies included a total of 322 647 women evaluated for up to 11 years, including 4335 participants with a diagnosis of incident invasive breast cancer. Data Extraction. - Pooled analysis of primary data using analyses consistent with each study's original design and the random-effects model for the overall pooled analyses. Data Synthesis. - For alcohol intakes less than 60 g/d (reported by >99% of participants), risk increased linearly with increasing intake; the pooled multivariate relative risk for an increment of 10 g/d of alcohol (about 0.75-1 drink) was 1.09 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-1.13; P for heterogeneity among studies, .71). The multivariate- adjusted relative risk for total alcohol intakes of 30 to less than 60 g/d (about 2-5 drinks) vs nondrinkers was 1.41 (95% CI, 1.18-1.69). Limited data suggested that alcohol intakes of at least 60 g/d were not associated with further increased risk. The specific type of alcoholic beverage did not strongly influence risk estimates. The association between alcohol intake and breast cancer was not modified by other factors. Conclusions. - Alcohol consumption is associated with a linear increase in breast cancer incidence in women over the range of consumption reported by most women. Among women who consume alcohol regularly, reducing alcohol consumption is a potential means to reduce breast cancer risk.

Optimal designs for space-time linear precoders and decoders

Abstract: We introduce a new paradigm for the design of transmitter space-time coding that we refer to as linear precoding. It leads to simple closed-form solutions for transmission over frequency-selective multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels, which are scalable with respect to the number of antennas, size of the coding block, and transmit average/peak power. The scheme operates as a block transmission system in which vectors of symbols are encoded and modulated through a linear mapping operating jointly in the space and time dimension. The specific designs target minimization of the symbol mean square error and the approximate maximization of the minimum distance between symbol hypotheses, under average and peak power constraints. The solutions are shown to convert the MIMO channel with memory into a set of parallel flat fading subchannels, regardless of the design criterion, while appropriate power/bits loading on the subchannels is the specific signature of the different designs. The proposed designs are compared in terms of various performance measures such as information rate, BER, and symbol mean square error.

Association of systemic lupus erythematosus with C8orf13-BLK and ITGAM-ITGAX.

Abstract: Background Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a clinically heterogeneous disease in which the risk of disease is influenced by complex genetic and environmental contributions Alleles of HLA-DRB1, IRF5, and STAT4 are established susceptibility genes; there is strong evidence for the existence of additional risk loci Methods We genotyped more than 500,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in DNA samples from 1311 case subjects with SLE and 1783 control subjects; all subjects were North Americans of European descent Genotypes from 1557 additional control subjects were obtained from public data repositories We measured the association between the SNPs and SLE after applying strict quality-control filters to reduce technical artifacts and to correct for the presence of population stratification Replication of the top loci was performed in 793 case subjects and 857 control subjects from Sweden Results Genetic variation in the region upstream from the transcription initiation site of the gene encod

Chemical Coupling of Proteins to Agarose

Abstract: WE have reported a method for transforming polysaccharides into reactive derivatives useful for coupling proteins to carbohydrates1 which consists in treating the polysaccharide with cyanogen halide. Imino carbonic acid esters are probably formed and these react with the primary amino groups of proteins and other substances. This method of activation and coupling is gentle and therefore particularly useful for the production of immunosorbents and insoluble enzymes.

A regulatory mutation in IGF2 causes a major QTL effect on muscle growth in the pig

Abstract: Most traits and disorders have a multifactorial background indicating that they are controlled by environmental factors as well as an unknown number of quantitative trait loci (QTLs). The identification of mutations underlying QTLs is a challenge because each locus explains only a fraction of the phenotypic variation. A paternally expressed QTL affecting muscle growth, fat deposition and size of the heart in pigs maps to the IGF2 (insulin-like growth factor 2) region. Here we show that this QTL is caused by a nucleotide substitution in intron 3 of IGF2. The mutation occurs in an evolutionarily conserved CpG island that is hypomethylated in skeletal muscle. The mutation abrogates in vitro interaction with a nuclear factor, probably a repressor, and pigs inheriting the mutation from their sire have a threefold increase in IGF2 messenger RNA expression in postnatal muscle. Our study establishes a causal relationship between a single-base-pair substitution in a non-coding region and a QTL effect. The result supports the long-held view that regulatory mutations are important for controlling phenotypic variation.