Multidisciplinary discussion (MDD) requiring close communication between specialists (clinicians, radiologists and pathologists) is the gold standard for the diagnosis of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs). However, MDD by specialists is not always feasible because they are often separated by time and location. An online database would facilitate data sharing and MDD. Our aims were to develop a nationwide cloud-based integrated database containing clinical, radiological and pathological data of patients with IIPs along with a web-based MDD system, and to validate the diagnostic utility of web-based MDD in IIPs.Clinical data, high-resolution computed tomography images and lung biopsy slides from patients with IIPs were digitised and uploaded to separate servers to develop a cloud-based integrated database. Web-based MDD was performed using the database and video-conferencing to reach a diagnosis.Clinical, radiological and pathological data of 524 patients in 39 institutions were collected, uploaded and incorporated into the cloud-based integrated database. Subsequently, web-based MDDs with a pulmonologist, radiologist and pathologist using the database and video-conferencing were successfully performed for the 465 cases with adequate data. Overall, the web-based MDD changed the institutional diagnosis in 219 cases (47%). Notably, the MDD diagnosis yielded better prognostic separation among the IIPs than did the institutional diagnosis.This is the first study of developing a nationwide cloud-based integrated database containing clinical, radiological and pathological data for web-based MDD in patients with IIPs. The database and the web-based MDD system that we built made MDD more feasible in practice, potentially increasing accurate diagnosis of IIPs.

Correlations of gene-to-gene co-expression and metabolite-to-metabolite co-accumulation calculated from large amounts of transcriptome and metabolome data are useful for uncovering unknown functions of genes, functional diversities of gene family members and regulatory mechanisms of metabolic pathway flows. Many databases and tools are available to interpret quantitative transcriptome and metabolome data, but there are only limited ones that connect correlation data to biological knowledge and can be utilized to find biological significance of it. We report here a new metabolic pathway database, KaPPA-View4 (http://kpv.kazusa.or.jp/kpv4/), which is able to overlay gene-to-gene and/or metabolite-to-metabolite relationships as curves on a metabolic pathway map, or on a combination of up to four maps. This representation would help to discover, for example, novel functions of a transcription factor that regulates genes on a metabolic pathway. Pathway maps of the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and maps generated from their gene classifications are available at KaPPA-View4 KEGG version (http://kpv.kazusa.or.jp/kpv4-kegg/). At present, gene co-expression data from the databases ATTED-II, COXPRESdb, CoP and MiBASE for human, mouse, rat, Arabidopsis, rice, tomato and other plants are available.

ABSTRACT

These results suggest that AP, ACT, AP, HBP, and HMW-HBP protect EMD-stimulated PDL cells from P. gingivalis and may be therapeutically useful supplements for EMD therapy.

;The superior ability of citrate excretion in a carrot (Daucus carota L.) mutant cell line, namely IPG (insoluble phosphate grower) [Takita et al. (1999a) Plant Cell Physiol. 40: 489] cells has been characterized in terms of citrate transport at the plasma membrane. IPG cells released about a 20-fold increase in citrate in comparison with malate, while the concentration of malate was only 35% lower than that of citrate in the cell sap. Citrate excretion was sensitive to anion channel blockers, such as niflumic acid and anthracene-9-carboxylic acid. These results indicate that IPG cells release citrate through the plasma membrane using citrate specific anion channels. The rate of citrate release from IPG cells was not affected by the concentration of aluminum (0 and 50 mM), soluble P i (0 or 2 mM) and the pH (4.5-5.6) of the medium, suggesting that anion channels would not be regulated by such external conditions. Citrate excretion correlated with the H + efflux, possibly from the action of H + -ATPase on the plasma membrane. The activity of plasma membrane H + -ATPase was about three times higher in IPG cells than in wild-type cells, and might be involved in the high citrate excretion ability.Keywords: Aluminum phosphate -Anion channel -Citrate excretion -Daucus carota -H + -ATPase.Abbreviations: A-9-C, anthracene-9-carboxylic acid; DIDS, 4,4¢-diisothiocyanostilbene-2,2¢-disulfonic acid; EA, ethacrynic acid; IPG, insoluble phosphate grower; NA, niflumic acid; WT, wild-type. IntroductionOrganic acid excretion from roots, which plays various roles in efficient nutrient uptake (e.g. phosphate, Schactman et al. 1998; iron, Hirsch and Sussman 1999) and the alleviation of metal toxicities (e.g. aluminum, Miyasaka et al. 1991, Ma 2000, is thought to be one of the most important plant traits for adaptation to problem soils. For example, certain plant species showing an aluminum tolerance or a high P i -acquisition ability, such as Cassia tora L. (Ma et al. 1997) and lupin (Gardner et al. 1981), release large amounts of organic acids from their roots. Genetic manipulation may be one approach to introduce such traits into crop plants. In fact, transgenic tobacco (de la Fuente et al. 1997) and Arabidopsis (Koyama et al. 2000), with overexpression of the citrate synthase gene from bacteria and plants, increased citrate excretion from the roots. On the other hand, overexpression of a malate dehydrogenase in alfalfa (Tesfaye et al. 2001) causes enhanced citrate excretion from the roots, and in turn improves growth in either the presence of Al in the growing medium or with an Al-phosphate as the sole phosphate source. These results indicate that the modification of organic acid metabolisms is a target for improving organic acid excretion from the roots of crop plants. Additionally, several studies have suggested that organic acid transport through plasma membranes is another important factor for attaining high organic acid excretion abilities from roots (Ryan et al. 1995).There are two distinct patterns of organic acid excret...