Abstract: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a devastatig disease with high mortality. Familial cases of PAH are usually characterized by autosomal dominant transmission with reduced penetrance, and mutations in Bone Morphogenetic Protein receptor type 2 (BMPR2), account for approximately 70% of familial cases, but some familial cases are of unknown genetic etiology. A novel heterozygous missense variant c.608 G>A, G203D in the KCNK3 (potassium channel subfamily K, member 3) gene was identified as a disease causing candidate gene in the family. Five additional heterozygous missense variants were independently identified in 92 unrelated familial PAH and 230 idiopathic PAH patients, genetically independently confirming the results in the first family. All six novel variants were located in highly conserved domains and were predicted to be damaging.

Abstract: To control the ripening of bananas in industrial banana processing, a group of bananas that have been harvested is obtained. The group of bananas has a plurality of bananas attached at a common crown. A first portion of the bananas of the group is placed inside of an ethylene-permeable container. A second portion of the bananas of the group is kept outside of the container. The group of bananas is exposed to ethylene gas, where the first and second portions of bananas are exposed to ethylene gas at approximately the same time to initiate ripening of the first and second portions of bananas at approximately the same time. The first and second portions of bananas are allowed to begin ripening.