Development of clinical ontology for mood disorder with combination of psychomedical information.

We have developed a new educational/clinical ontology named the "Haghighi-Koeda Mood Disorder Ontology", which involves both medical and psychological approaches for mood disorders in order to promote the exchange of information between psychiatrists and psychologists. Data was gathered from more than 5000 articles published in journals and websites specialized in life science. We evaluated and selected articles which were related to 4 main categories of mood disorders. Using Protege 3.4 beta, information related to mood disorders was classified by class/subclass tree in an ontological structure. Then we developed a web-based interface system on the internet enabling the implementation of the ontology. In addition, we have designed an online scale for automated diagnosis of mood disorder. For evaluating experiments, we compare this ontology with "Decisionbase" of which content deals with mood disorders. Evaluation was in accordance with our selected criteria via the AHP (Analysis of Hierarchical Processing) method. The results demonstrated the noteworthy superiority of our ontology. We believe that combining knowledge of medical science with that in psychological fields is a key to improving the quality of diagnosis and promoting appropriate treaTMent in all psychiatric disorders.

Formaldehyde cross-linking of proteins to osteoclast differentiation factor promoter for the identification of biofunctional proteins.

OBJECTIVE: To find the optimal cross-linking condition for nuclear factor (NF)Y (A, B, C), and find the transcription factors involved in osteoclast differentiation factor (ODF) expression. METHODS: This experiment was carried out from 2002 to 2003 in Handa Lab, Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan. To search for the NFY-binding condition, optimal formaldehyde cross-linking was detected, and the complex was purified by immunoprecipitation. Some proteins were detected as interactors. Interaction between NFYs and the ODF promoter was detected by polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: The optimal cross-linking condition for NFYs was determined using 10 samples with 0.7-1.3% formaldehyde, and 3-15 minutes incubation time. The results showed the interaction of NFY A, B, and C with each other for ODF promoter binding and involvement of other factors like vitamin D receptor in ODF expression. CONCLUSION: Optimal cross-linking conditions vary, based on protein concentration, pH, additives, temperature, number of reactive groups, spacer arm length, and buffer volume and composition.