Plasma cytokine levels representing chemokines involved in the T-helper cell immune system and hematopoiesis were lower in the children with AD compared with unrelated siblings without AD necessitating further studies to confirm immunological disturbances influencing hematopiesis and antibody production in the children with AD. Linking genes that encode immune related proteins and cytokines are important to study for their impact on critical periods of brain development and function.

Kallikrein 6 (KLK6) is a trypsin-like serine peptidase whose relevance in various types of cancers is currently being explored. Previous studies have shown that KLK6 mRNA is upregulated in colon and gastric cancers; however, the regulatory mechanisms and phenotypic consequences of this upregulation are largely unknown. Activating K-RAS mutations are common in colon cancer, occurring in approximately 50% of cases. We have recently reported the upregulation of KLK6 mRNA in Caco2 human colon cancer cells stably transfected with a mutant K-RAS allele (K-RAS G12V ). In this study we examined the pattern of K-RAS-dependent KLK6 expression and secretion in colon cancer cells. Using pharmacological inhibitors of pathways downstream of K-RAS, we could show that the PI3K and p42/44 MAPK pathways play an important role in the induction of KLK6 in mutant K-RAS-expressing colon cancer cells. Increased KLK6 expression enhanced colon cancer cell migration through laminin and Matrigel. Inhibition of KLK6 using small interference RNA treatment or a specific KLK6 antibody in Caco2 cells stably expressing the mutant K-RAS and in SW480 cells carrying a mutation in the K-RAS oncogene resulted in a reduction in invasiveness through cell culture inserts. These data support the oncogenic role of KLK6 in colorectal cancer.

The A1 kit identified the typical deletions and smaller atypical deletions, whereas the B1 kit was more informative for identifying microdeletions including the IC and SNORD116 regions. Both kits should be made available for accurate characterization of PWS/AS deletion subtypes as well as evaluating for IC and SNORD116 microdeletions.

To determine if ethanol consumption and alcoholism cause global DNA methylation disturbances, we examined alcoholics and controls using methylation specific microarrays to detect all annotated gene and non-coding micro-RNA promoters and their CpG islands. DNA was isolated and immunoprecipitated from the frontal cortex of 10 alcoholics and 10 age and gender-matched controls then labeled prior to co-hybridization. A modified Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was used to predict differentially enriched regions (peaks) from log-ratio estimates of amplified vs input DNA. More than 180,000 targets were identified for each subject which correlated with >30,000 distinct, integrated peaks or high probability methylation loci. Peaks were mapped to regions near 17,810 separate annotated genes per subject representing hypothetical methylation targets. No global methylation differences were observed between the two subject groups with 80% genetic overlap, but extreme methylation was observed in both groups at specific loci corresponding with known methylated genes (e.g., H19) and potentially other genes of unknown methylation status. Methylation density patterns targeting CpG islands visually correlated with recognized chromosome banding. Our study provides insight into global epigenetic regulation in the human brain in relationship to controls and potentially novel targets for hypothesis generation and follow-up studies of alcoholism.