Some isolates of influenza virus (H5N1) in Egypt are resistant to oseltamivir (3 ), and in others, virulent mutations have developed, leading to case-fatality rates of 100% (4 ).
In contrast to the rarity of PI-resistance mutations in patients receiving an initial PI-containing ARV regimen, multiple PI-resistance mutations have developed in the population of heavily treated patients who began ARV therapy in the pre-ART era.
The declining effectiveness of current antibiotics due to the emergence of resistant bacterial strains dictates a pressing need for novel classes of antimicrobial therapies, preferably against molecular sites other than those in which resistance mutations have developed.
As amply demonstrated for BRCA1/ BRCA2 mutations, the cancer risk derived from analyses of cancer kindreds is exaggerated by virtue of selection criteria aimed at collecting families in which most mutation carriers have developed breast cancer.
Genotype-phenotype analysis has shown that SQSTM1 mutations are highly penetrant, such that between 90 100% of individuals within families who carry mutations will have developed the disease by the age of 65 years [ 7- 11].
To better facilitate the appreciation of and interaction with these data and to compare the effects of specific genes in the context of different polymerase mutations, we have developed an online data visualization tool called DIXY (http://bsu-srv.ncl.ac.uk/dixy-pol).
By the time most patients are diagnosed with immunologic failure (using 6 monthly CD4 cell counts) or clinical failure (by clinical history / examination or presence of new opportunistic infections), multiple drug resistance mutations may have developed compromising and complicating future drug treatment options [ 8, 9].
In one large Dutch family with a segregating BRCA1 mutation, there are several mutation carriers who have developed CRC.
High-resolution melting analysis (HRMA) is a well-established method for the screening of mutations, and we have developed a rapid and sensitive HRMA for the detection of CALR exon 9 mutations.
Msh2−/− mice die predominantly from T cell lymphomas but have some intestinal tumors [8] and several members of recently described kindreds carrying biallelic mutations in Msh2 have developed T cell lymphomas [9].
