Background: The rapid accumulation of genomic information in databases necessitates rapid and specific algorithms for extracting biologically meaningful information. More or less complete retroviral sequences, also called proviral or endogenous retroviral sequences; ERVs, constitutes at least 5% of vertebrate genomes. After infecting the host, these retroviruses have integrated in germ line cells, and have then been carried in genomes for at least several 100 million years. A better understanding of structure and function of these sequences can have profound biological and medical consequences.

No abstract

The hydraulic conductivity of the rat proximal tubular wall was determined using colloidal solutions perfused in short (50--200 mum) (SMP) or long (90--200 mum) (LMP) proximal tubular segments. In SMP human serum albumin (HSA) or polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was added to raffinose solutions. A Lp of 0.019 nl-min-1-mm-1-mm Hg-1 was found when high colloid concentrations were used while values of 0.055--0.092 were found when low colloid concentrations were used. In other experiments, the Lp was determined by perfusing short tubular segments with pure raffinose solutions. A value of 0.015 nl-min-1-mm-1-mm Hg-1 was found. This is twice the value found when raffinose solutions were perfused through long tubular segments and it is concluded that the short microperfusion technique overestimates Lp with a factor of two. When microperfusions of long tubular segments were conducted, PVP was added to an equilibrium solution consisting of NaCl (110 mM) and raffinose (80 mM). Lp was found to be 0.018--0.021 when high colloid concentrations were used, while a value of 0.029 was found when a low colloid concentration was used. As found in both SMP and LMP a decrease in Lp's with increasing colloid concentrations indicates that a significant influence of radial concentration differences is highly probable. It is therefore suggested that the highest Lp derived when using the lowest colloid concentrations represents the best estimate. With this Lp value (0.03--0.05 nl-min-1-mm-1-mm Hg-1) and the existing transtubular hydrostatic and oncotic pressure difference it can be calculated that these passive forces might constitute the driving force for 1/3 of the fluid reabsorbed in the proximal tubule.

The EMBnet Conference 2008, focusing on 'Leading Applications and Technologies in Bioinformatics', was organized by the European Molecular Biology network (EMBnet) to celebrate its 20 th anniversary. Since its foundation in 1988, EMBnet has been working to promote collaborative development of bioinformatics services and tools to serve the European community of molecular biology laboratories. This conference was the first meeting organized by the network that was open to the international scientific community outside EMBnet. The conference covered a broad range of research topics in bioinformatics with a main focus on new achievements and trends in emerging technologies supporting genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics analyses such as high-throughput sequencing and data managing, text and data-mining, ontologies and Grid technologies. Papers selected for publication, in this supplement to BMC Bioinformatics, cover a broad range of the topics treated, providing also an overview of the main bioinformatics research fields that the EMBnet community is involved in. EMBnet history, mission and activitiesEMBnet was established in 1988 as an initiative of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) [1]. At that time, high-speed data communication across Europe as well as bioinformatics were in their infancy. The EMBL was accumulating an ever-growing quantity of sequence data and both the molecular biology and the biotechnology research communities needed to have an easy and fast access to those data. Accessing a remote computer using an ordinary command-line oriented terminal was not enough. The solution for eliminating communication delays could only be found in a distribution of data and