ABSTRACT
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) , which has caused a large scale of medical edu-cation in recent years, has led to an exploration boom in medical education. By the end of November 2014, on four large domestic and foreign MOOCs platform, a total of 178 medical related MOOCs were found, accounting for 12.2% of the total number of courses, among which public health MOOCs accounted for 44.9%. In terms of medical education, MOOCs are not only a powerful supplement of existing medical ed-ucation and can assist dissemination of medical knowledge, they can also promote pedagogy innovation and improve teaching quality to a certain extent. Moreover, the huge amounts of data collected by MOOCs can also be used to develop research of students' learning behavior. In addition, by recruiting study objects, the researchers have begun to use MOOCs supporting scientific research. As a novel educational development, MOOCs face many challenges while they bring opportuni-ties for medical education. However, active prac-tice and exploration will bring more powerful vitality for its development in the medical field.
ABSTRACT
Objective:To explore the association and gene-environment interaction between single nu-cleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)involved in cell-cell adhesion and non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCL/P)among Chinese population.Methods:A total of 806 NSCL/P trios were drawn by an international consortium,which conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS)using a case-parent trio design to investigate genes affecting risks to NSCL/P.The transmission disequilibrium test (TDT)was used to explore the association between cell-cell adhesion genes,including CDH1,CT-NNB1,PVRL1,PVRL2,PVRL3,ACTN1,VCL,LEF1,and NSCL/P.Conditional Logistic regression models were used to estimate effects on risk of exposed and unexposed children.Four common maternal exposures including maternal smoking,environmental tobacco smoke,alcohol consumption and multivita-min supplementation during pregnancy were included in this study.Results:A total of 226 SNP markers were tested after quality control in this study.Although 23 SNPs in three genes (CTNNB1,CDH1, ACTN1)showed nominal significant association with NSCL/P in the TDT (P 0.000 2).Tests for gene-environment interaction yielded significant results be-tween rs7431 27 in ACTN1 and environmental tobacco smoke (P =0.000 1 )with an estimated OR (case |G and E)=2.00(95%CI:1 .23 -3.26)and OR (case |G no E)=0.59 (95%CI:0.38 -0.90).Among the lower P value results in gene-environment tests,there were no significant results be-tween rs1 475034,rs370535,rs227341 9 in ACTN1,rs1 06871 in CTNNB1 and environmental tobacco smoke interaction.There were also no significant results between rs7634000,rs2971 366,rs2634553, rs1 489032,rs762481 2 in PVRL3 and multivitamin supplementation during pregnancy in gene-environ-ment tests(P >0.000 2).Conclusion:There is no association between cell-cell adhesion genes,inclu-ding CDH1,CTNNB1,PVRL1,PVRL2,PVRL3,ACTN1,VCL,LEF1,and NSCL/P when the genes are considered alone.But our results suggest that SNPs in ACTN1 may influence the risk to NSCL/P through gene-environment interaction.