The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.

wikigene or wiki gene protein drug chemical gene disease author authorship tracking collaborative publishing evolutionary knowledge reputation system wiki2.0 global collaboration genes proteins drugs chemicals diseases compound
Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 
 
 

Longer dinucleotide repeat polymorphism in matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) gene promoter which correlates with higher HTLV-I Tax mediated transcriptional activity influences the risk of HTLV-I associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP).

Matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) has been reported to be expressed in various inflammatory disorders including human T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). HTLV-I-infected T-cells expressed high levels of MMP-9 via viral transactivator Tax mediated activation of the MMP-9 promoter. To investigate whether the d(CA) repeat polymorphism in MMP-9 promoter affects the risk of developing HAM/TSP, we compared the allele frequencies between 200 HAM/TSP patients and 200 HTLV-I seropositive asymptomatic carriers (HCs). The longer d(CA) repeat alleles of MMP-9 promoter, which was associated with higher Tax-mediated transcriptional activity, was more frequently observed in HAM/TSP patients than HCs (p<0.01 by Mann-Whitney U-test). The length alteration of this d(CA) repeat in the MMP-9 promoter may cause phenotypic differences among HTLV-I infected infiltrating cells and may thereby be in part responsible for the development of HAM/TSP.[1]

References

 
WikiGenes - Universities