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We have studied the chemistry and the morphology of hydrogarnet crystals produced in cement‐based hydroceramic materials at elevated temperatures (200°–350°C) with silica and alumina additions. Such materials lie within the hydrothermal CaO–Al2O3–SiO2–H2O (CASH) system. Hydrogarnet Ca3Al2(SiO4)3−y(OH)4y is the dominant aluminum bearing phase formed and its composition is influenced mainly by the curing temperature and to a lesser degree by the addition of silica. The composition parameter y was estimated by Rietveld refinement of X‐ray diffraction (XRD) data. Electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) shows that the hydrogarnets incorporate minor elements such as Fe, Mg, and S. EPMA data confirmed the hydrogarnet composition estimated from XRD. Both octahedral and icositetrahedral forms are observed. The icositetrahedral form is associated with higher minor element content.

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Summary InterMineR is a package designed to provide a flexible interface between the R programming environment and biological databases built using the InterMine platform. The package offers access to the flexible query builder and the library of term enrichment tools of the InterMine framework, as well as interoperability with other Bioconductor packages. This facilitates automation of data retrieval tasks as well as downstream analysis with existing statistical tools in the R environment. Availability and implementation InterMineR is free and open source, released under the LGPL licence and available from the Bioconductor project and Github (https://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/InterMineR.html, https://github.com/intermine/interMineR). Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

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The present study aimed to assess the pharmacological anticancer profile of three natural and five synthetic sesquiterpenes developed by total chemical synthesis. To this end, their properties at the cellular and molecular level were evaluated in a panel of normal and cancer cell lines. The results obtained by performing cytotoxicity assays and gene expression analysis by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction showed that: i) Among the sesquiterpene derivatives analyzed, VDS58 exhibited a notable anticancer profile within attached (U-87 MG and MCF-7) and suspension (K562 and MEL-745) cancer cell cultures; however, U-87 MG cells were able to recover their proliferation capacity rapidly after 48 h of exposure; ii) gene expression profiling of U-87 MG cells, in contrast to K562 cells, showed a transient induction of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 1A (CDKN1) expression; iii) the expression levels of transforming growth factor β1 (TGFB1) increased after 12 h of exposure of U-87 MG cells to VDS58 and were maintained at this level throughout the treatment period; iv) in K562 cells exposed to VDS58, TGFB1 expression levels were upregulated for 48 h and decrease afterwards; and v) the re-addition of VDS58 in U-87 MG cultures pretreated with VDS58 resulted in a notable increase in the expression of caspases (CASP3 and CASP9), BCL2‑associated agonist of cell death (BAD), cyclin D1, CDK6, CDKN1, MYC proto-oncogene bHLH transcription factor (MYC), TGFB1 and tumor suppressor protein p53. This upregulation persisted only for 24 h for the majority of genes, as afterwards, only the expression of TGFB1 and MYC was maintained at high levels. Through bioinformatic pathway analysis of RNA-Seq data of parental U-87 MG and K562 cells, substantial variation was reported in the expression profiles of the genes involved in the regulation of the cell cycle. This was associated with the differential pharmacological profiles observed in the same cells exposed to VDS58. Overall, the data presented in this study provide novel insights into the molecular mechanisms of action of sesquiterpene derivatives by dysregulating the expression levels of genes associated with the cell cycle of cancer cells.

In this letter, we determine the particle and the string light cone in the pp-wave background. The result is a deformed version of the flat one. We point out the light cone exhibits an intriguing periodicity in the light cone time direction x + with a period ∼ 1/µ. Our results also suggest that a quantum theory in the pp-wave background can be formulated consistently only if the background is periodic in the light cone time x + .

Background Coronary artery disease (CAD) remains one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide and is associated with multiple inherited and environmental risk factors. This study is designed to identify, design, and develop a panel of genetic markers that combined with clinical and angiographic information, will facilitate the creation of a personalized risk prediction algorithm (GEnetic Syntax Score—GESS). GESS score could be a reliable tool for predicting cardiovascular risk for future adverse events and for guiding therapeutic strategies. Methods GESS (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03150680) is a prospective, non-interventional clinical study designed to enroll 1080 consecutive patients with no prior history of coronary revascularization procedure, who undergo scheduled or emergency coronary angiography in AHEPA, University General Hospital of Thessaloniki. Next generation sequencing (NGS) technology will be used to genotype specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the genome of study participants, which were identified as clinically relevant to CAD after extensive bioinformatic analysis of literature-based SNPs. Enrichment analyses of Gene Ontology-Molecular Function, Reactome Pathways and Disease Ontology terms were also performed to identify the top 15 statistically significant terms and pathways. Furthermore, the SYNTAX score will be calculated for the assessment of CAD severity of all patients based on their angiographic findings. All patients will be followed-up for one-year, in order to record any major adverse cardiovascular events. Discussion A group of 228 SNPs was identified through bioinformatic and pharmacogenomic analysis to be involved in CAD through a wide range of pathways and was correlated with various laboratory and clinical parameters, along with the patients' response to clopidogrel and statin therapy. The annotation of these SNPs revealed 127 genes being affected by the presence of one or more SNPs. The first patient was enrolled in the study in February 2019 and enrollment is expected to be completed until June 2021. Hence, GESS is the first trial to date aspiring to develop a novel risk prediction algorithm, the GEnetic Syntax Score, able to identify patients at high risk for complex CAD based on their molecular signature profile and ultimately promote pharmacogenomics and precision medicine in routine clinical settings. Trial registration GESS trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Number: NCT03150680. Registered 12 May 2017- Prospectively registered, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03150680.