OBJECTIVES Our aim was to report the first known incidence of U.S. butter contamination with extremely high levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). METHODS Ten butter samples were individually analyzed for PBDEs. One of the samples and its paper wrapper contained very high levels of higher-brominated PBDEs. Dietary estimates were calculated using the 2007 U.S. Department of Agricult...

Although microRNA-206 (miR-206) is known to regulate proliferation and differentiation of muscle fibroblasts, the role of miR-206 in early-stage somite development is still unknown. During somitogenesis of zebrafish embryos, reticulon4a (rtn4a) is specifically repressed by miR-206. The somite boundary was defective, and actin filaments were crossing over the boundary in either miR-206-knockdown...

MicroRNAs (miRs) are small non-coding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression by binding to the 3` untranslated regions (3`UTR) of their target mRNAs. MiRs were shown to play pivotal roles in tissue development and function and are also involved in the pathogenesis of various diseases including cancer. MicroRNA-206, which belongs to the group of so-called "myomiRs", is one of the most stu...

Spring 2003 Le ture 7: Criti al behavior of the Erd} os-Renyi model Le turer: David Aldous S ribe: Andrej Bogdanov In this le ture we investigate the size of the giant omponent in the Erd} os-Renyi random graph model with edge probability p 1=n. In this model, the presen e of ea h edge in the graph is de ided by an independent oin ip with su ess probability p. We show that for p slightly bigger...

The ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is a new heuristic algorithm that offers good robustness and searching ability. With in-depth exploration, the ACO algorithm exhibits slow convergence speed, and yields local optimization solutions. Based on analysis of the ACO algorithm and the genetic algorithm, we propose a novel hybrid genetic ant colony optimization (NHGAO) algorithm that integra...

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a syndrome of respiratory distress caused by chronic lung injury, primarily in preterm infants. miR-206 and fibronectin 1 (FN1) are associated with the development of BPD. The present study used rat type II alveolar epithelial cells (AECII) to investigate the underlying mechanisms of BPD. AECII were isolated using a primary cell culture prior to alkaline phos...

MicroRNAs are widely involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases through regulating gene expression via translational inhibition or degradation of their target mRNAs. Recent studies have indicated a critical role of microRNA-206 in myocardial ischaemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. However, the function of miR-206 in myocardial I/R injury is currently unclear. The present study was aime...