Methods The Pesario Cervical para Evitar Prematuridad (PECEP) trial was undertaken in five hospitals in Spain. Pregnant women (aged 18-43 years) with a cervical length of 25 mm or less were randomly assigned according to a PRT062607 research buy computer-generated allocation sequence by use of central telephone in a 1: 1 ratio to the cervical pessary or

expectant management (without a cervical pessary) group. Because of the nature of the intervention, this study was not masked. The primary outcome was spontaneous delivery before 34 weeks of gestation. Analysis was by intention to treat. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00706264.

Findings 385 pregnant women with a short cervix were assigned to the pessary (n=192) and expectant management groups (n=193), and 190 were analysed in each group. Spontaneous delivery before 34 weeks of gestation was significantly less frequent in the pessary group than in the expectant management group (12 [6%] vs 51 [27%], odds ratio 0.18, 95% CI 0.08-0.37; p<0.0001). No serious adverse effects associated with the use LY294002 in vivo of a cervical pessary were reported.

Interpretation Cervical pessary use could prevent preterm birth in a population of appropriately selected at-risk women previously screened for

cervical length assessment at the midtrimester scan.”
“Parental responsiveness to infant vocalizations is an essential mechanism to ensure parental care, and its importance is reflected in a specific neural substrate, the thalamocingulate circuit, which evolved through mammalian evolution subserving this responsiveness. Recent studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) provide compelling evidence for a comparable mechanism in humans by showing thalamocingulate responses to infant crying. Furthermore, possibly acting on this common neural

substrate, steroid hormones such as estradiol and testosterone, seem to mediate parental behavior both in humans and other animals. Estradiol unmistakably increases parental care, while data for testosterone are less unequivocal. Bafilomycin A1 In humans and several other animals, testosterone levels decrease both in mothers and fathers during parenthood. However, exogenous testosterone in mice seems to increase parenting, and infant crying leads to heightened testosterone levels in human mates. Not only is the way in which testosterone is implicated in parental responsiveness unresolved, but the underlying mechanisms are fully unknown. Accordingly, using fMRI, we measured neural responses of 16 young women who were listening to crying infants in a double blind, placebo-controlled, counterbalanced, testosterone administration experiment. Crucially, heightened activation in the testosterone condition compared to placebo was shown in the thalamocingulate region, insula, and the cerebellum in response to crying.

Interstitial fibrosis and

tubular atrophy were each significantly more prominent in patients with both active and chronic lesions than in those with active lesions CHIR-99021 in vivo alone. The correlation coefficient ranged from 0.222 to 0.811 comparing glomerular and tubulointerstitial indices. In multivariate Cox hazard analysis of tubulointerstitial lesions, indices of interstitial infiltration, tubular atrophy, and interstitial fibrosis were confirmed as significant independent risk factors for renal outcome. Thus, we found that the 2003 ISN/RPS classification system of lupus nephritis, based on glomerular lesions, could also reflect related tubulointerstitial lesions. Hence, we suggest that the extent of tubulointerstitial lesions may be helpful AZD4547 chemical structure in predicting renal outcome in patients with lupus nephritis. Kidney International (2010) 77, 820-829; doi: 10.1038/ki.2010.13; published online

24 February 2010″
“The history of neurosurgery at Rush University is tightly linked to the emergence of neurological surgery in the city of Chicago. Rush Medical College (RMC) was chartered in 1837 and in 1898 began an affiliation with the newly founded University of Chicago (UC), which proceeded to full union in 1923 as the Rush Medical College of the University of Chicago (RMC/UC). Percival Bailey founded neurosurgery at the RMC/UC and started a neurosurgery training program at the South Side campus in 1928. In 1935, Adrien Ver Brugghen started the first neurosurgical training program at the West Side campus at the Presbyterian Hospital/RMC. The major alliances with RMC have involved the Cook County Hospital,

the Presbyterian Hospital, the UC, the University of Illinois, and St. Luke’s Hospital. Those affiliations significantly shaped Rush neurosurgery. The RMC/UC union was dissolved in 1941, and an affiliation was formed with the University of Illinois in Chicago (UI). In 1959, Eric Oldberg, the founder and Chairman of Neurosurgery at the UI, became the next chairman of neurosurgery at Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital, incorporating Levetiracetam it into the UI program. He was succeeded in 1970 by Walter Whisler, who founded the first independent and board-approved neurosurgery residency program in 1972 at the newly reactivated Rush Medical College. Whisler was chairman until 1999, when Leonard Cerullo, founder of the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuro-research, became chairman at Rush. Richard Byrne, appointed in 2007, is the current chairman of the Rush University neurosurgery department.”
“BACKGROUND: Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) predicts worse outcomes following aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). One potential mechanism is that IVH predisposes to the development of delayed ischemic neurological deficits (DINDs).

001) and typical antipsychotics(10.0 +/- 2.1 ng/ml,p <0.01).

Furthermore, a stepwise multiple regression analysis identified types of antipsychotic drugs (beta=-0.37, t=-3.15, p=0.001) and BDNF levels (beta=-0.26, t=-2.51, p = 0.014) as the influencing factor for the positive symptom subscore of PANSS. In addition, there was a sex difference in BDNF levels inpatients with schizophrenia (9.7 +/- 1.9 ng/ml for males vs. 10.4 +/- 2.1 ng/ml for female, p<0.005). but not in see more normal controls. Our findings indicated decreased BDNF serum levels in chronic patients with schizophrenia, which may be related to clinical phenotypes, including gender, antipsychotic treatment and the severity of psychotic symptoms. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. Q-VD-Oph All rights reserved.”
“All positive-strand RNA viruses reorganize host intracellular membranes to assemble their replication complexes. Similarly, brome mosaic virus (BMV) induces two alternate forms of membrane-bound RNA replication complexes: vesicular spherules and

stacks of appressed double-membrane layers. The mechanisms by which these membrane rearrangements are induced, however, remain unclear. We report here that host ACB1-encoded acyl coenzyme A (acyl-CoA) binding protein (ACBP) is required for the assembly and activity of both BMV RNA replication complexes. ACBP is highly conserved among eukaryotes, specifically binds to long-chain fatty acyl-CoA, and to promotes general lipid synthesis. Deleting ACB1 inhibited BMV RNA replication up to 30-fold and resulted in formation of spherules that were similar to 50% smaller but similar to 4-fold more abundant than those in wild-type (wt) cells, consistent with the idea that BMV 1a invaginates and maintains viral spherules by coating the inner spherule membrane. Furthermore, smaller and more frequent spherules were preferentially formed under conditions that induce layer

formation in wt cells. Conversely, cellular karmella structures, which are arrays of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membranes formed upon overexpression of certain cellular ER membrane proteins, were formed normally, indicating a selective inhibition of 1a-induced membrane rearrangements. Restoring altered lipid composition largely complemented the BMV RNA replication defect, suggesting that ACBP was required for maintaining lipid homeostasis. Smaller and more frequent spherules are also induced by 1a mutants with specific substitutions in a membrane-anchoring amphipathic alpha-helix, implying that the 1a-lipid interactions play critical roles in viral replication complex assembly.”
“BACKGROUND: In the past decade, surgery planning has changed significantly. The main reason is the improvements in computer graphical rendering power and display technology, which turned the plain graphics of the mid-1990s into interactive stereoscopic objects.

OBJECTIVE: To report our experiences with 2 virtual reality systems used for planning neurosurgical operations.

With ongoing maturation, RPTP kappa, RPTPJ, RPTPRR, RPTP sigma, RPTP epsilon and RPTP gamma display a different spatiotemporal regulation of mRNAs and proteins in the pre- and postnatal retina. Finally, in adulthood these six RPTPs localize to distinct cellular compartments Navitoclax solubility dmso of multiple retinal neurons. Additional studies in RPTP gamma(-/-) and RPTP beta/zeta(-/-) (also known as PTPRZ1, RPTP beta or RPTP zeta mice at postnatal stage 131 reveal no apparent differences in retinal laminar organization or in the expression pattern of specific retinal cell-type markers when compared with wild type. However,

in RPTP beta/zeta(-/-) retinas, immunoreactivity of vimentin, a marker of Muller glial cells, is selectively

reduced and the morphology of vimentin-immunoreactive radial processes of Muller cells is considerably disturbed. Our results suggest distinct roles of RPTPs in cell proliferation and see more establishing phenotypes of different retinal cells during retinogenesis as well as later in the maintenance of mature retina. (C) 2008 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Rift Valley fever (RVF) virus is a mosquito-borne human and veterinary pathogen associated with large outbreaks of severe disease throughout Africa and more recently the Arabian peninsula. Infection of livestock can result in sweeping “”abortion storms”" and high mortality among young animals. Human infection results in self-limiting febrile disease that in similar to 1 to 2% of patients progresses to more serious complications including hepatitis, encephalitis, and retinitis or a hemorrhagic syndrome with high fatality. The virus S segment-encoded NSs and the M segment-encoded NSm proteins are important virulence factors. The development of safe, effective vaccines and tools to screen and evaluate antiviral compounds JAK inhibitor is critical for future control strategies. Here, we report the successful reverse genetics generation of multiple recombinant enhanced green fluorescent protein-tagged RVF viruses containing either the full-length,

complete virus genome or precise deletions of the NSs gene alone or the NSs/NSm genes in combination, thus creating attenuating deletions on multiple virus genome segments. These viruses were highly attenuated, with no detectable viremia or clinical illness observed with high challenge dosages (1.0 X 10(4) PFU) in the rat lethal disease model. A single-dose immunization regimen induced robust anti-RVF virus immunoglobulin G antibodies (titer, similar to 1:6,400) by day 26 postvaccination. All vaccinated animals that were subsequently challenged with a high dose of virulent RVF virus survived infection and could be serologically differentiated from naive, experimentally infected animals by the lack of NSs antibodies.

A set of coupled first-order differential equations describes the exponential growth of a PC tumor as well as its transformation from a local to systemic disease. The time dependence of the solutions is scaled to the doubling time of the prostate specific antigen (PSADT) because it characterizes

the tumor growth for the individual. The conversion from local to systemic cell populations is described with a parameter e that can be associated with the Gleason score. The model also has three critical cell populations that describe (1) the initiation of the non-local populations, (2) the saturation level of the local tumor, and (3) the cell count likely to cause PC specific death. These parameters are calibrated by reproducing published PC clinical data and

survival tables. The model is then applied to individuals PKC412 datasheet with complete PC diagnostic data in order to calculate the progression to PC specific death. One man has early stage PC as described in the ‘vignette’ patient of Walsh et al. (2007. N. Engl. J. Med. 357, 2696-2705). The second man has a more serious condition and has undergone both local and systemic treatments. Unfortunately, I am that patient. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“BACKGROUND: The retrosigmoid ML323 in vivo (RS) approach provides an excellent access corridor to the cerebellopontine angle. However, 80% of patients experience headaches after RS approaches. OBJECTIVE: We reviewed our prospective database to determine the risk factors influencing headaches after RS procedures.

METHODS: From 2003, craniotomy, instead of selleck inhibitor craniectomy, became our standard approach for RS procedures. Patients’ demographic, management, and outcome data were collected prospectively. We also retrospectively analyzed similar data collected between 2000 and 2003 to compare headache outcomes after RS approaches.

Subgroup analysis of data was performed to identify other risk factors contributing to postoperative headaches.

RESULTS: Of 105 patients (mean age, 56 years; 43 men; 62 women) who underwent RS surgery, 30 underwent craniectomy and 75 underwent craniotomy. There were 57 vestibular schwannomas, 40 microvascular decompressions, and 8 other procedures. The patients’ age, sex, pathological diagnosis, and length of hospital stay were not statistically different in the 2 subgroups. At discharge, postoperative headache was observed in 43% of patients (13/30) after craniectomy and 19% of patients (14/75) after craniotomy (P = .01). The incidence of headache decreased with further follow-up; 10% of patients (3/30) who underwent craniectomy and 1% of patients (1/75) who underwent craniotomy still had headache at 12 months of follow-up.

CONCLUSION: Patients who underwent the RS approach with craniotomy had a significantly lower rate of headache at discharge than did those who underwent craniectomy. These patients continued to have a lower incidence of headache in the long term.

Furthermore, we identified two threonine residues on gB that are essential for the A-1210477 addition of the principal O-glycans acquired by gB and that are also essential for the binding of PILR alpha to gB.”
“Background Combinations of aspirin, clopidogrel, and vitamin K antagonists are widely used in patients after myocardial infarction. However, data for the safety of combinations

are sparse. We examined the risk of hospital admission for bleeding associated with different antithrombotic regimens.

Methods By use of nationwide registers from Denmark, we identified 40 812 patients aged 30 years or older who had been admitted to hospital with first-time myocardial infarction between 2000 and 2005. Claimed prescriptions starting at hospital discharge were used to determine the regimen prescribed according to the following groups: monotherapy with aspirin, clopidogrel,

or vitamin K antagonist; dual therapy with aspirin plus clopidogrel, aspirin plus vitamin K antagonist, or clopidogrel plus vitamin K antagonist; or triple therapy including all three drugs. Risk of hospital admission for bleeding, recurrent myocardial infarction, and death were assessed by Cox proportional hazards models with the drug exposure groups as time-varying covariates.

Findings During a mean follow-up of 476.5 days (SD 142.0), 1891 (4.6%) patients were admitted to hospital with bleeding. The yearly incidence of bleeding was 2.6% for the aspirin group, 4.6% for clopidogrel, 4.3% for vitamin K antagonist, 3.7% for aspirin plus clopidogrel, 5.1% for aspirin plus vitamin K antagonist, see more 12.3% for clopidogrel plus vitamin K antagonist, and 12.0% for triple Linsitinib in vitro therapy. With aspirin as reference, adjusted hazard ratios for bleeding were 1.33 (95% CI 1.11-1.59) for clopidogrel, 1.23 (0.94-1.61) for vitamin K antagonist, 1.47 (1.28-1.69)

for aspirin plus clopidogrel, 1.84 (1.51-2.23) for aspirin plus vitamin K antagonist, 3.52 (2.42-5.11) for clopidogrel plus vitamin K antagonist, and 4.05 (3.08-5.33) for triple therapy. Numbers needed to harm were 81.2 for aspirin plus clopidogrel, 45.4 for aspirin plus vitamin K antagonist, 15.2 for clopidogrel plus vitamin K antagonist, and 12.5 for triple therapy. 702 (37.9%) of 1852 patients with non-fatal bleeding had recurrent myocardial infarction or died during the study period compared with 7178 (18.4%) of 38 960 patients without non-fatal bleeding, (HR 3.00, 2.75-3.27, p<0.0001).

Interpretation In patients with myocardial infarction, risk of hospital admission for bleeding increased with the number of antithrombotic drugs used. Treatment with triple therapy or dual therapy with clopidogrel plus vitamin K antagonist should be prescribed only after thorough individual risk assessment.”
“Background Prophylactic human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines have to provide sustained protection. We assessed efficacy, immunogenicity, and safety of the HPV-16/18 AS04-adjuvanted vaccine up to 6.4 years.

In rats exposed to L-NAME plus sildenafil, differentiation to neurons was completely normalized, reaching 683 +/- 11 neurons/mm(2). In rats exposed to sildenafil alone the number of cells labelled with bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) and NeuN was 841 +/- 16/mm(2). In prefrontal cortex of control rats 48% of the neural stem cells proliferating in gestational day 14 differentiate to neurons, but only 24% in rats exposed to L-NAME. CA3 mw This was corrected by sildenafil, 40% of cells differentiate to neurons. Similar results were obtained for neurons proliferating during all

developmental period. Treatment with L-NAME did not reduce the total number of cells labelled with BrdU, further supporting that L-NAME reduces selectively the differentiation of stem cells to neurons. Similar results were obtained in hippocampus. Treatment with L-NAME reduced the differentiation of

neural stem cells to neurons, although the effect was milder than in prefrontal cortex. These results support that cGMP modulates the fate of neural stem cells in brain in vivo and suggest that high cGMP levels promote its differentiation to neurons while reduced cGMP levels promote differentiation to non-neuronal cells. (C) 2010 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Learned flavor preferences can be strikingly persistent in the face of behavioral extinction. Harris, Shand, Carroll, and Westbrook Tubastatin A solubility dmso (200) suggested that this persistence may be due to flavor preference conditioning’s producing a long-lasting change in the hedonic response to the conditioned stimulus (CS+) flavor. In the present study, the CS+ flavor was presented in simultaneous compound with Repotrectinib cost 16% sucrose, whereas the CS- flavor was presented with 2% sucrose. During subsequent two- and one-bottle tests, the CS+ and CS- flavors were presented in 2% sucrose. Hedonic reactions during training

and test were assessed using an analysis of the microstructure of licking behavior. Conditioning resulted in greater consumption of the CS+ than of the CS- that did not extinguish over repeated two- and one-bottle tests. The mean lick cluster size was higher for the CS+ than for the CS- only on the first cycle of tests. Since lick cluster size can be used as an index of stimulus palatability, the present results indicate that although the hedonic reaction to the CSs did change, this was not maintained across repeated tests. Thus, changes in the hedonic response to the conditioned flavors cannot explain the resistance to the extinction of learned flavor preferences.”
“For the efficient transfer of information across neural circuits, the number of synaptic components at synapses must be appropriately regulated.

It has also been reported that LPS deficiency negatively affects biofilm formation. However, our results demonstrate that the O-antigen-deficient mutant enhances biofilm formation, presumably through a significant increase in hydrophobicity. It is notable that the hydrophobicity of cell LXH254 supplier walls might be a key regulator in controlling biofilm development in B. japonicum.”
“Aims:

To evaluate the suitability of commercially available Petrifilm (TM) EC plates for enumeration of Escherichia coli from soil.

Methods and Results:

A confirmed E. coli strain isolated from liquid swine manure was inoculated into sterilized sandy clay loam

and loam soils at the concentrations of 102, 103, 105 CFU g-1 of soil. The efficiency of recovery on Petrifilm (TM) EC plates for soils spiked with E. coli was compared with standard membrane filtration techniques on m-FC basal medium supplemented with 3-bromo-4-chloro-5-indoyl-beta-d-glucopyranoside (BCIG) and most probable numbers (MPN) techniques in E.

coli medium with 4-methylumbelliferyl-beta-d-glucuronide (EC-MUG) broth. Petrifilm (TM) EC and m-FC (BCIG) methods were then assessed for the ability to recover E. coli from field soils applied with swine manure. No significant differences (P > 0 center dot 05) were observed between Petrifilm (TM) EC, m-FC (BCIG) and MPN methods for the recovery of E. coli from spiked samples, irrespective of soil type. However, recovery of E. coli from manure-applied field soil samples showed a

significant difference (P < 0 center dot 05) between the Petrifilm (TM) EC method and the m-FC method in enumerating BAY 63-2521 cell line E. coli possibly as a result of false positives on m-FC.

Conclusion:

The Petrifilm (TM) EC method is suitable for the enumeration of E. coli from soil with a detection limit of 10 CFU g-1 soil.

Significance and Impact of the Study:

The commercially available Petrifilm (TM) EC method is comparatively low cost, easy to use method for the enumeration of E. coli from soil without the need for further confirmation tests.”
“Aims:

The purpose of this work was to verify whether E. coli is a good indicator of viral contamination in mussels and Adenovirus could represent a better alternative as indicator organism of viral presence to guarantee consumer health protection.

Methods www.selleck.cn/products/sbi-0206965.html and Results:

Eighty samples of mussels from La Spezia Gulf were analysed for E. coli, Salmonella, Adenovirus, Norovirus and hepatitis A virus with cultural and biomolecular tests. The results of bacterial parameters showed E. coli within the law’s limits and the absence of Salmonella. Twelve samples were positive for Adenovirus presence, one for Norovirus genogroup II and two for hepatitis A virus. None of these positive mussels was found to be contaminated with more than one virus at the same time.

Conclusion:

This study showed that there was not a direct correlation between the presence of human pathogenic viruses and bacterial indicators.

this is a crucial oversight because continual depletion promotes the searching efficiencies of some Levy walks above that of ballistic motion. the continual depletion effect is not so important for two- and three-dimensional searches. Nevertheless, we show that Levy walks and ballistic movements can be equally or almost equally effective when searching within two- and three-dimensional environments for randomly and sparsely distributed targets or when searching for targets that are occasionally concealed. We also show that Levy walks are advantageous when searching for targets that can occasionally evade capture. These situations represent common predator-prey interactions in which

predators are involved in ‘imperfect destructive’ searches. Our model suggests that accounting for coevolutionary arms races at the predator-prey detection/reaction scales can explain to some extent Levy walk searching patterns of predators at larger find more scales. This result provides new insights into the Levy walk movement patterns of some destructive for agers. (C) 2009 Elsevier

Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Evidence of prefrontal cortex decline among healthy older adults has been widely reported, although many questions remain regarding the functional heterogeneity of the prefrontal lobes and the uniformity (or lack thereof) with which discrete regions decline with age. MacPherson, Phillips, and Della Sala (2002) AP24534 in vitro previously reported age differences in tasks associated with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) function (executive control), but not for tasks associated with ventromedial prefrontal cortex VE-822 chemical structure (VMPFC) function (emotional/cognitive integration).

The present study, conducted using 39 younger adults and 39 older adults, replicates the MacPherson et al. findings regarding DLPFC functioning. However, and perhaps due to the use of more sensitive tasks, we also find age differences in tasks associated with VMPFC function. Specifically, both univariate and multivariate analyses indicated older adults showed deficits across the DLPFC and VMPFC tasks. Exploratory factor analysis of the task performance scores indicated four underlying dimensions, two related to DLPFC functioning and two related to VMPFC functioning. A set of structural equation models specifying age effects on the four task performance factors was tested, in order to contrast models of process-specific vs. common age effects. Our results suggest that older adults show deficits in emotional/cognitive integration as well as in executive function, and that those effects do include process-specific age deficits. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Body parts are represented in the brain in a very specific fashion, as compared to other three-dimensional objects, with reference to their prototypic shape and multisensory coding.

In contrast, all positions click here could be substituted to some extent when the library mutants were expressed from a multicopy plasmid. For the conserved quartet of charged residues Lys44-Asp71-Lys73-Asp76, a cysteine substitution was found to provide function at positions 71 and 76. A lower pK(a)

for both cysteine mutants supports a mechanism whereby the thiolate group of cysteine substitutes for the negatively charged aspartate side chain. The partial function mutants such as D71C and D76C exhibit reduced catalytic efficiency relative to wild type but nevertheless provide a rate enhancement of 15 orders of magnitude over the uncatalyzed rate indicating the catalytic proficiency of the enzyme is robust and tolerant of mutation.”
“Background. Though highly prevalent, the pathophysiology of orthostatic hypotension (OH), postprandial hypotension (PPH), and carotid sinus hypersensitivity (CSH) are rarely studied together. Therefore, we conducted such a comprehensive study focusing on the common role of the cardiovascular autonomic system. We hypothesized that in geriatric patients, OH, PPH, and CSH are manifestations of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction and investigated state-of-the-art

cardiovascular autonomic function indices in a group of geriatric falls or syncope patients.

Methods. In a cross-sectional study of 203 consecutive eligible falls clinic patients, we compared heart rate variability (HRV), blood pressure variability (BPV), and baroreflex sensitivity (BRS)

as potential Quizartinib autonomic function determinants of the three different hypotensive syndromes.

Results. OH, PPH, and CSH were diagnosed in 53%, 57%, and 50% of the patients, respectively. In a population relevant for geriatric practice, we found no differences in HRV, BPV, and BRS between patients with and without OH, with and without PPH, and with and without CSH, respectively, nor between patients with and without falls, dizziness, or syncope as presenting symptom, respectively.

Conclusions. In geriatric patients with hypotensive syndromes, cardiovascular autonomic function as measured by HRV, BPV, and BRS is comparable to patients without such syndromes. These findings argue against a single or dominant etiological Selleckchem MK1775 factor, that is, cardiac autonomic dysfunction and underline the structured, broad, and multifactorial approach to elderly patients with falls and/or syncope as proposed in the current evidence-based syncope guidelines.”
“DNA-binding protein from starved cells (DPS), a mini-ferritin capable of self-assembling into a 12-meric nano-cage, was chosen as the basis for an alanine-shaving mutagenesis study to investigate the importance of key amino acid residues, located at symmetry-related protein-protein interfaces, in controlling protein stability and self-assembly.