[Verification of the PREFAB alignment database].

The verification of the PREFAB database containing golden standard protein alignments was performed. It has revealed a significant number of differences between the sequences from PREFAB and PDB databases. It was shown that compared to the sequences given in the PDB database 575 alignments refered to a sequence with a gap; such alignments were excluded. Furthermore, compared to the PDB-sequences a single substitute or the insertions were found for 440 aminoacid sequences from PREFAB database; these sequences were edited. SCOP domain analysis has shown that only 502 alignments in the resulting set contain the sequences from the same family. Finally, eliminating duplicates, we have created a new golden standard alignment database PREFAB-P based on PREFAB; the PREFAB-P database contains 581 alignments.

Effect of pro- and antioxidants on insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance.

We studied the correlation between the effect of α-lipoic acid, emoxipin, reamberin, and mexidol on LPO in vitro and the action of these drugs on insulin sensitivity and tolerance to glucose load in vivo. It was found that the preparations producing prooxidant effect in vitro (α-lipoic acid and reamberin) are characterized by pronounced insulin-potentiating activity, but only slightly increase (α-lipoic acid) or even decrease (reamberin) tolerance to glucose load. 3-Hydroxypyridine derivatives (emoxipin and mexidol) producing an antioxidant effect in vitro increase glucose tolerance, but exhibit relatively weak insulin-potentiating activity. These results suggest that differential use of the studied drugs in patients with diabetes mellitus depending on the type of the disease and individual insulin requirement is a promising trend in medical studies.

[Effect of ascorbic acid and emoxypin on the efficiency of complex chemotherapy for infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis].

AIM: to evaluate the effect of ascorbic acid and emoxypin on the efficiency of complex chemotherapy for infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: One hundred patients with infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis in a phase of decay were examined. The patients were divided into 3 groups. Group 1 received the standard therapy (n = 34); Groups 2 (n = 33) and 3 (n = 33) had additionally daily intravenous dropwise infusions of ascorbic acid (500 mg) (OAO "Novosibkhimpharm") or emoxypin (150 mg) (Moscow Endocrine Plant). The drugs were injected for 10 days. Therapeutic efficiency was evaluated during 12 months. RESULTS: Additional use of ascorbic acid decreased the likelihood of progression of the disease to fibrocavernous tuberculosis and promotes a good completion of 12-month course of therapy providing small posttuberculous changes. The administration of emoxypin contributes to eradication of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, reduces the time of decay cavity closure and a need for surgical treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. CONCLUSION: The findings show it expedient to include ascorbic acid and emoxypin into the combined treatment regimen for infiltrative tuberculosis in a phase of decay.

[Statistical analysis of DNA sequences nearby splicing sites].

Recognition of coding regions within eukaryotic genomes is one of oldest but yet not solved problems of bioinformatics. New high-accuracy methods of splicing sites recognition are needed to solve this problem. A question of current interest is to identify specific features of nucleotide sequences nearby splicing sites and recognize sites in sequence context. We performed a statistical analysis of human genes fragment database and revealed some characteristics of nucleotide sequences in splicing sites neighborhood. Frequencies of all nucleotides and dinucleotides in splicing sites environment were computed and nucleotides and dinucleotides with extremely high\low occurrences were identified. Statistical information obtained in this work can be used in further development of the methods of splicing sites annotation and exon-intron structure recognition.

[Impaired emotional sphere in patients with infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis].

The emotional sphere was studied in 100 patients with infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis. They were ascertained to have anxiety and depressions the degree of which largely reflected the severity of the patients' clinical. The depressive libido loss index was shown to make a valid prediction of decay cavity closure 4 months after the initiation of antituberculous therapy.

[Ordinal scales for quantification of x-ray and clinical manifestations of infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis].

Ordinal scales for quantification of X-ray and clinical manifestations of infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis are proposed. Correlation analysis was made to compare the values of the proposed ordinal scales with the clinicohematological and clinicoimmunological parameters of a systemic reaction to inflammation, as well as with admission body temperature and the blood levels of lipid peroxidation products. The findings suggest the adequate validity of the proposed scales for practical application.

[The effectiveness of ascorbic acid and emoxipin in treatment of infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis].

The aim of this prospective placebo-controlled randomized study was to assess the effectiveness of ascorbic acid or emoxipin in the regimen of the therapy of infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis. Emoxipin vs. ascorbic acid favored the eradication of tuberculosis mycobacteria. Both preparations decreased the blood level of the contra-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), shortened time to the closure of degeneration cavities in tubercular infiltrations, decreased the risk of the development of destructive forms, and lowered the need for surgical interventions for infiltrative pulmonary tuberculosis.

Algorithms and software for support of gene identification experiments.

MOTIVATION: Gene annotation is the final goal of gene prediction algorithms. However, these algorithms frequently make mistakes and therefore the use of gene predictions for sequence annotation is hardly possible. As a result, biologists are forced to conduct time-consuming gene identification experiments by designing appropriate PCR primers to test cDNA libraries or applying RT-PCR, exon trapping/amplification, or other techniques. This process frequently amounts to 'guessing' PCR primers on top of unreliable gene predictions and frequently leads to wasting of experimental efforts. RESULTS: The present paper proposes a simple and reliable algorithm for experimental gene identification which bypasses the unreliable gene prediction step. Studies of the performance of the algorithm on a sample of human genes indicate that an experimental protocol based on the algorithm's predictions achieves an accurate gene identification with relatively few PCR primers. Predictions of PCR primers may be used for exon amplification in preliminary mutation analysis during an attempt to identify a gene responsible for a disease. We propose a simple approach to find a short region from a genomic sequence that with high probability overlaps with some exon of the gene. The algorithm is enhanced to find one or more segments that are probably contained in the translated region of the gene and can be used as PCR primers to select appropriate clones in cDNA libraries by selective amplification. The algorithm is further extended to locate a set of PCR primers that uniformly cover all translated regions and can be used for RT-PCR and further sequencing of (unknown) mRNA.

Combinatorial approaches to gene recognition.

Recognition of genes via exon assembly approaches leads naturally to the use of dynamic programming. We consider the general graph-theoretical formulation of the exon assembly problem and analyze in detail some specific variants: multicriterial optimization in the case of non-linear gene-scoring functions; context-dependent schemes for scoring exons and related procedures for exon filtering; and highly specific recognition of arbitrary gene segments, oligonucleotide probes and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers.

Recognition of genes in human DNA sequences.

A new approach to computer-assisted gene recognition in higher eukaryote DNA is suggested. It allows one to use not only linear functions for scoring structures, but all functions satisfying natural monotonicity conditions. The algorithm constructs the set of structures guaranteed to contain an optimal structure for every function. So, it uncouples the time-consuming step of generation of this set from the fast step of structure scoring, thus making it simple to experiment with different functions. One particular scoring function, taking into account only codon usage and positional nucleotide frequencies of the splicing sites, has been implemented in the Genome Recognition and Exon Assembly Tool program, and has been tested on an independent sample of human genes, yielding 88% sensitivity and 79% specificity.

[The characteristics of immunological homeostasis in women with sterility of tuboperitoneal and mixed origins]. / Osobennosti immunologicheskogo gomeostaza u zhenshchin s besplodiem trubno-peritoneal'nogo i smeshannogo geneza.

Immunologic homeostasis was studied in 272 women suffering from sterility of a tuboperitoneal and mixed origin. The detected drastic disorders of immunologic homeostasis were characterized by predominant disorders of primary immunity mechanisms (leukopenia, monocytopenia, lymphopenia, reduced concentrations of IgA and IgM, lysozyme and complement in the blood serum). Types II, III, and IV immunopathologic reactions to uterine tube tissue homologous antigen suggest their contribution to a chronic inflammatory process. A relationship between severity of morphologic changes in uterine tubes and degree of immunity defects and immunopathologic reaction manifestation was revealed.

[The role of chlamydial infection in the genesis of tuboperitoneal sterility in women]. / Rol' khlamidiinoi infektsii v geneze trubno-peritoneal'nogo besplodiia u zhenshchin.

The incidence of chlamydial infection in women with tuboperitoneal sterility is 49.5%. Clinically inflammatory diseases of the pelvic organs in such an infection are characterized by a primary chronic course with frequent recurrences and involvement of the cervix uteri, urethra, internal genitals, with moderately manifest clinical symptoms. Therapy of chlamydial infection should be combined with individual selection of therapeutic measures with due consideration for the inflammatory process phase and site, for the type of pathologic changes, general and immune status.

[Diagnostic and prognostic possibilities of using the indicators of blood serum middle molecule and medium-molecular peptide levels in inflammatory diseases of the small-pelvic organs]. / Diagnosticheskie i prognosticheskie vozmozhnosti ispol'zovaniia poka- zatelei molekul srednei massy i srednemolekuliarnykh peptidov krovi pri vospalitel'nykh zabolevanniakh organov malogo taza u zhenshchin.

Analysis of the diagnostic and prognostic potentialities of measurements of blood serum medium molecules and medium-molecular peptides in women with inflammatory diseases of the small pelvis organs has been carried out, involving 60 patients and 10 healthy women. Medium molecule levels were estimated with the use of Gabrielyan and Lipatova's method, the level of medium-molecular peptides by the biuret method. The results recommend these measurements to be included in the complex of clinical laboratory investigations carried out in patients with pelvic inflammations for the early detection of purulent ++tubo-ovarian inflammations, endogenous intoxication, and a more rational treatment.

[A scale for the diagnosis of the degree of severity of late pregnancy toxicosis]. / Shkala diagnostiki stepeni tiazhesti pozdnego toksikoza beremennykh.

This paper presents a scale for the evaluation of severity of late toxemia using 15 clinical and laboratory indices as well as central and regional hemodynamic parameters obtained by whole-body rheography and poly-rheography. Interpretation of the severity of late toxemia involved findings of functional postural and pharmacological tests. The scale is recommended for its use in the obstetric practice.

[Clinical evaluation of diagnostic and prognostic correlations in late pregnancy toxemia]. / Klinicheskaia otsenka diagnosticheskikh i prognosticheskikh korreliatsií pri pozdnem toksikoze beremennykh.

Interrelations of blood circulation values evidenced by integral rheography, clinical and laboratory findings and the effect of prenatal and intranatal periods on the fetus were studied in 309 pregnant females with late gestoses. The most informative criteria for diagnosis and prognosis with regard to gestosis severity and its outcomes in pregnancy and labor for the fetus were established.

[Characteristics of central and regional hemodynamics in pregnant women with late toxemia and hypertension]. / Osobennosti tsentral'noi i regionarnoi gemodinamiki u beremennykh s pozdnym toksikozom na fone gipertonicheskoi bolezni.

Central and regional hemodynamic patterns were assessed by combined rheography, including integral rheography, rheopulmonography and longitudinal rheovasography of the shin and the big toe in 86 pregnant patients with combined gestosis in the presence of essential hypertension and neurocirculatory dystonia (CG + EH), 112 patients with pure gestosis (PG) and 100 normal pregnant patients. Central and regional hemodynamic patterns were shown to be dependent on the severity of gestosis, stage of essential hypertension and hemodynamic type in CG + EH patients. The hyperkinetic type was more commonly seen in CG + EH, as compared to PG cases. This type of circulation was associated with high regional rheographic values in the lung, toe and shin, an evidence of a stable systemic and pulmonary vascular perfusion level, maintained in this condition.