Moon and suicide: a true effect or a false-positive finding?

This paper is a response to the study of Meyer-Rochow et al. (2020), who found a statistically significant increase of suicides during full moon among women in the region of Oulu, Finland. We argue that this may be a false-positive finding because of subgroups not specified a-priori and the many negative previous findings. Furthermore, we could not replicate the findings in a larger Austrian sample.

pCRM1exportome: database of predicted CRM1-dependent Nuclear Export Signal (NES) motifs in cancer-related genes

Motivation The consensus pattern of Nuclear Export Signal (NES) is a short sequence motif that is commonly identified in protein sequences, whether the motif acts as an NES (true positive) or not (false positive). Finding more plausible NES functioning regions among the vast array of consensus-matching segments would provide an interesting resource for further experimental validation. Better defined NES should also allow meaningful mapping of cancer-related mutation positions, leading to plausible explanations for the relationship between nuclear export and disease. Results Possible NES candidate regions are extracted from the cancer-related human reference proteome. Extracted NES are scored for reliability by combining sequence-based and structure-based approaches. The confidently identified NES candidate motifs were checked for overlap with cancer-related mutation positions annotated in the COSMIC database. Among the ∼700 cancer-related sequences in the COSMIC Cancer Gene Census, 178 sequences are predicted to have possible NES motifs containing cancer-related mutations at their key positions. These lists are organized into our database (pCRM1exportome), and other protein sequences in the human reference proteome can also be retrieved by their UniProt IDs. Availability and implementation The database is freely available at http://prodata.swmed.edu/pCRM1exportome. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Incidence and Significance of Hypermetabolic PET-CT Findings in Unilateral TVF Motion Impairment

Objective To determine the incidence and significance of asymmetric hypermetabolic laryngeal findings on positron emission tomography–computed tomography (PET-CT) in patients with unilateral true vocal fold (TVF) motion abnormalities. Study Design Retrospective cohort. Setting Single-center tertiary care institution. Subjects and Methods The medical records of patients with unilateral TVF motion abnormalities were reviewed. The incidence of normal and asymmetric hypermetabolic laryngeal findings was calculated in patients who underwent PET-CT and laryngeal examination, operative laryngoscopy with biopsy, or injection medialization laryngoplasty. Results A total of 135 patients with unilateral TVF motion abnormalities underwent PET-CT. After exclusion of patients who completed new or surveillance imaging for a laryngeal neoplasm (n = 27), asymmetric hypermetabolic findings in the larynx were noted in 21 (19%) cases: 13 (12%) on the contralateral side of the impaired TVF, 8 (7%) on the ipsilateral side. Two (25%) patients with ipsilateral hypermetabolism had concerning subsequent fiberoptic laryngeal examinations prompting operative biopsy. There was no evidence of inflammatory or neoplastic disease in all patients with contralateral hypermetabolic findings. Fifteen patients completed PET-CT scans after injection medialization procedures; 6 (40%) displayed avidity ipsilateral to the side of the injection. The median time from injection to scan was 27 days, as opposed to 193 days in the unremarkable scans ( P = .011). Conclusion Contralateral hypermetabolism in patients with unilateral TVF motion abnormalities may represent a false-positive finding. Ipsilateral hypermetabolic uptake without recent fold instrumentation warrants prompt diagnostic evaluation.