No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Three PCR methods based on the GB virus-C/hepatitis G virus (GBV-C/HGV) 5'UTR and NS3 genomic region were used for the detection of GBV-C/HGV RNA in serum of 62 patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Ten of 62 (16%) patients were found to have GBV-C/HGV RNA, which was confirmed by sequence analysis of the 5'UTR PCR amplicon. All methods appear to be specific, but methods based on the 5'UTR appear to be more sensitive.

No abstract

Biotinidase deficiency is an inborn error of metabolism that is transmitted as an autosomal recessive disorder. Symptoms include hearing loss, ataxia, blindness, mental retardation, and seizures. The metabolic defect is an inability to recycle the vitamin biotin, which is an important cofactor in key enzymes. We therefore sought to develop an animal model for this disorder by inducing biotin deficiency. Rat pups were divided into control and experimental groups. Control rats were fed a normal diet whereas experimental animals were given a diet deficient in biotin. Animals from both groups underwent brain stem auditory evoked potential testing at various ages. Wave I thresholds at various ages were similar in both groups. Latencies for wave I, however, and interpeak latencies (I-IV) were prolonged in the biotin-deficient groups compared to controls. Scanning electron microscopy of the organ of Corti in biotin-deficient animals showed no significant hair cell loss. The biotin-deficient developing rat appears to acquire functional changes in the auditory brain stem. These effects may be caused by defective myelination, since biotin is important in fatty acid metabolism.

To determine the prevalence and clinical significance of hepatitis G virus (HGV)/GB virus C (GBV-C) infection in renal transplant recipients, prospectively collected serum samples from a cohort of cadaveric renal transplant patients were studied for the presence of HGV RNA using a sensitive reverse transcription 'nested'-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) based on primers derived from the 5' untranslated region. All positive PCR amplicons were sequenced bidirectionally and aligned. The nucleotide substitution rate was estimated by the 6-parameter method, and a phylogenetic tree was constructed using the Neighbour-joining method. HGV RNA was detected in 11/93 (12%) patients pretransplant and in 15/90 (17%) patients 1-4 years post-transplant. All PCR amplicons were confirmed to be specific for HGV by sequencing. Phylogenetic tree construction revealed that 17 PCR amplicons had sequences related to HGV and one had a sequence related to GBV-C. Two HGV RNA-positive patients pretransplant became HGV RNA negative post-transplant, and seven HGV RNA-negative patients pretransplant became HGV RNA positive post-transplant. There was no relationship between hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HGV infection. There were also no differences in age, gender distribution, ethnic origin, the total number of blood units transfused and either graft or patient survival between patients who were positive or negative for HGV RNA. We conclude that HGV infection is common among renal transplant candidates and recipients. Most of the isolates had sequences related to the HGV prototype. HGV infection does not appear to adversely affect clinical outcome in renal transplant recipients during early follow-up.

Text analysis is an interdisciplinary field of data mining in which person try to extract meaningful results from the unstructured textual data. In this paper the focus will be on different text mining application, the problems that we face while doing text mining and different text clustering approaches and try to figure out what next can be done for better performance of clustering algorithms.