Disease relevance of Puerto Rico

• METHODS: Women with SLE as per the criteria of the American College of Rheumatology, with disease duration of </=5 years and of Hispanic (Texas and Puerto Rico ancestries), African American, and Caucasian ethnicity, from LUMINA (LUpus in MInorities, NAture versus nurture), a multiethnic, longitudinal cohort, were studied [1].
• Abnormal blood glucose and coronary heart disease: the Puerto Rico Heart Health Program [2].
• Polarized monolayers of Madin-Darby canine kidney epithelial cells expressing the pIgR were infected on their apical surfaces with influenza virus A/Puerto Rico/8-Mount Sinai. Polymeric IgA anti-HA, but not IgG anti-HA, delivered to the basolateral surface colocalized with HA protein within the cell by immunofluorescence [3].
• Although the Caribbean basin is considered to be an endemic area for tropical spastic paraparesis, this is the first report of the isolation of HTLV-I antibodies in the serum and CSF of patients with chronic myelopathies in Puerto Rico [4].
• Folate intake, serum homocysteine and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T genotype are not associated with oral cancer risk in Puerto Rico [5].

Psychiatry related information on Puerto Rico

• OBJECTIVE: To describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients attending the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinic of the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine and determine whether these characteristics are risk factors for the development of a depressive disorder [6].

High impact information on Puerto Rico

• The homozygous, disease-causing mutation is a large deletion and represents the second example of a founder mutation causing HPS on the small island of Puerto Rico [7].
• All identified affected patients in northwest Puerto Rico are homozygous for a 16-bp duplication in exon 15 of a recently cloned gene, HPS [8].
• Precocious sexual development in Puerto Rico and oestrogenic mycotoxins (zearalenone) [9].
• Restraint stress (RST) was used to activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and elevate corticosterone (CORT) levels in influenza A/Puerto Rico/8/34 (PR8) virus-infected C57BL/6 mice [10].
• When the aPTT was performed on any of the coagulometers assessed with the use of Actin (Dade Diagnostics, Aguada, Puerto Rico) and IL Test (Instrumentation Laboratories, Fisher Scientific, Unionville, Ontario) reagents, aPTT ratios necessary to achieve therapeutic anti--factor Xa heparin levels approximated 2.0 to 3 [11].

Chemical compound and disease context of Puerto Rico

• Cystic fibrosis carrier screening practices in an ethnically diverse region: experience of the Genetic Network of the Empire State, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands [12].
• METHODS: Relevant data was obtained from 445 histologically confirmed HNSCC cases identified through the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine Otolaryngology Department Head and Neck Cancer Clinics between August 1993 and January 2003 [13].
• Prevalence of steroid receptors and HER 2/neu in breast cancer biopsies of women living in Puerto Rico [14].
• A nationwide program directed at stimulating the preconceptional use of folic acid (FA) for the prevention of open neural tube defects has been in effect in Puerto Rico for the last 4 years [15].

Biological context of Puerto Rico

• HPS occurs with a frequency of one in 1800 in north-west Puerto Rico due to a founder effect [7].
• As reported elsewhere, we mapped the human HPS gene to chromosome segment 10q23, positionally cloned the gene, and identified three pathologic mutations of the gene, in patients from Puerto Rico, Japan, and Europe. Here, we describe mutation analysis of 44 unrelated Puerto Rican and 24 unrelated non-Puerto Rican HPS patients [16].
• This finding is opposite to that reported for a population in Puerto Rico, where the ADH3(1-1) genotype seemed more sensitive to ethanol exposure [17].
• The association between pulmonary obstruction (e.g., asthma) and occupational exposure to methyl cyanoacrylate (MCA) and ethyl cyanoacrylate (ECA) was examined in an occupational cohort of 450 persons at an adhesive production facility in Puerto Rico [18].
• The survey was developed by the CF committee of the Genetics Network of the Empire State, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (GENES) to gauge changes in trends following the April, 1997, NIH Consensus Statement recommending the offering of CF carrier screening to all pregnant patients [12].

Associations of Puerto Rico with chemical compounds

• Three hundred twenty-three of 473 questionnaires sent to hospital dietitians in 50 states and Puerto Rico concerning diet therapy for adult lactose malabsorption were returned and analyzed [19].
• RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES: This study used the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a state-based telephone survey of adults > or =18 years of age (N = 184,450) conducted in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico in 2000 [20].
• An apparent inverse relationship between serum cholesterol and cancer mortality in Puerto Rico [21].
• Two diterpenes, epipolone (1) and epipolol (3), produced by terpenoid pathways leading to a tricarbocyclic structure with an irregular "head to tail" isoprene configuration, have been isolated from the Caribbean marine sponge Epipolasis reiswigi collected in Puerto Rico [22].
• On the other hand, Hispanics from Puerto Rico were more likely to have photosensitivity (81.5 vs 41.0%, P < 0.0001), malar rash (65.4 vs 45.7%, P = 0.0074) and discoid rash (13.6 vs 2.9%, P = 0.0060) [23].

Gene context of Puerto Rico

• A third HPS-causing gene, HPS3, was recently identified on the basis of homozygosity mapping of a genetic isolate of HPS in central Puerto Rico [24].
• Recently, the HPS3 gene, responsible for HPS-3 disease in a genetic isolate of central Puerto Rico, was isolated and characterized [25].
• CONCLUSIONS: There is a lower prevalence of estrogen receptor in the breast cancer biopsies of women living in Puerto Rico than their USA counterparts, but similar prevalence of progesterone receptor status and HER 2/neu protein over expression [14].
• Microsatellite polymorphisms in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene and the transforming growth factor-alpha (TGFA) gene and risk of oral cancer in Puerto Rico [26].
• DESIGN: A survey was made of parents and respective clinicians in primary care offices in two large practice-based research networks (PROS and ASPN) from 44 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico [27].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of Puerto Rico

• We used polymerase chain reaction-based DNA profiling to construct allelic profiles for residents and visitors of 22 houses in Florida, Puerto Rico, and human DNA from blood meals in Aedes aegypti that were collected in those homes [28].
• The contribution of immunohistochemistry in the diagnosis of pediatric neoplastic lesions in the University of Puerto Rico, School of Medicine [29].
• PARTICIPANTS: Nineteen patients (20 eyes) who developed an MH after bilateral LASIK for the correction of myopia at 10 institutions in Venezuela, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United States. METHODS: Chart review [30].

References