Alpha-1-antitrypsin (AT) deficiency is the most common genetic cause of liver disease in children. The primary pathological issue is a point mutation that renders an abundant hepatic secretory glycoprotein prone to altered folding and a tendency to polymerize and aggregate. However, the expression of serious liver damage among homozygotes is dependent on genetic and/or environmental modifiers. ...

The last two years have been marked by many studies trying to better characterize the clinical features of FMF in children and proposal of new treatment for those who are resistant to colchicine. In addition, many studies tried to address the potential effect of genetic modifiers on FMF and the potential effect of MEFV mutations on other inflammatory diseases. The main points arose from these s...

The superlative modifiers at least and at most are quite famous, but their cousins at best, at the latest, at the highest, etc., are less well-known. This paper is devoted to the entire family. New data is presented illustrating the productivity of the pattern, identifying a generalization delimiting it, and showing that the cousins, too, have the pragmatic effects that have attracted so much a...

We generated a high-resolution whole-genome sequence and individually deleted 5100 genes in Sigma1278b, a Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain closely related to reference strain S288c. Similar to the variation between human individuals, Sigma1278b and S288c average 3.2 single-nucleotide polymorphisms per kilobase. A genome-wide comparison of deletion mutant phenotypes identified a subset of genes t...

Modifier genes are an integral part of the genetic landscape in both humans and experimental organisms, but have been less well explored in mammals than other systems. A growing number of modifier genes in mouse models of disease nonetheless illustrate the potential for novel findings, while new technical advances promise many more to come. Modifier genes in mouse models include induced mutatio...

BACKGROUND Advances in genomics may eventually lead to 'personalized genetic medicine,' yet the clinical utility of predictive testing for modest changes in risk is unclear. We explored interest in genetic testing for genes related to modest changes in breast cancer risk in women at moderate to high risk for breast cancer. METHODS Women (n = 105) with a negative breast biopsy and ≥1 relative ...

X-linked retinoschisis (XLRS) is an inherited form of macular degeneration that is caused by mutations in the retinoschisin (RS1) gene. In addition to macular degeneration, other major characteristics of XLRS include splitting of the retina (schisis) and impaired synaptic transmission as indicated by a reduction in the electroretinogram b-wave. It has been known that patients carrying RS1 mutat...

The del22q11 syndrome is associated with a highly variable phenotype despite the uniformity of the chromosomal deletion that causes the disease in most patients. Df1/+ mice, which model del22q11, present with reduced penetrance of cardiovascular defects similar to those seen in deleted patients but not with other del22q11-like findings. The reduced penetrance of cardiovascular defects is caused...

Our long-term goal is to contribute to the integration of formal and lexical semantics. Our more immediate theoretical starting point is the idea of “text as theory”, within a model-theoretic semantic framework. We describe a set of empirical problems in the domain of genitive modifiers which offer a challenge to theories of the integration of lexical, compositional, and contextual information....