Current opinion on use of luteinizing hormone supplementation in assisted reproduction therapy: an Asian perspective.

LH and FSH have complementary functions in ensuring optimal oocyte maturation and ovulation. In women undergoing assisted reproduction technology protocols with gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogues, LH and FSH concentrations are reduced. While FSH use in assisted reproduction technology is well established, there is no published consensus on the need for exogenous LH in Asian patients. Having reviewed the concept of the LH therapeutic window and differences between recombinant human LH (r-HLH) and human menopausal gonadotrophin, a consensus was reached on which patient subgroups may benefit from LH supplementation. Adjuvant r-HLH gives clinicians precise control over the dose of LH bioactivity administered to target the therapeutic window. The use of r-HLH is recommended in women with poor response in a previous cycle or suboptimal follicular progression in a current cycle by day 6-8 of stimulation. r-HLH should also be considered in women at risk of suboptimal response, specifically age > 35 years. Other risk markers that suggest the need for LH supplementation, which include baseline/day-6 serum LH and anti-Müllerian hormone concentrations, antral follicle count and LH polymorphisms require further research and verification. For measurement of LH response adequacy, the monitoring of follicular progression, oestradiol concentrations and endometrial thickness is recommended.

ChemmineR: a compound mining framework for R.

MOTIVATION: Software applications for structural similarity searching and clustering of small molecules play an important role in drug discovery and chemical genomics. Here, we present the first open-source compound mining framework for the popular statistical programming environment R. The integration with a powerful statistical environment maximizes the flexibility, expandability and programmability of the provided analysis functions. RESULTS: We discuss the algorithms and compound mining utilities provided by the R package ChemmineR. It contains functions for structural similarity searching, clustering of compound libraries with a wide spectrum of classification algorithms and various utilities for managing complex compound data. It also offers a wide range of visualization functions for compound clusters and chemical structures. The package is well integrated with the online ChemMine environment and allows bidirectional communications between the two services. AVAILABILITY: ChemmineR is freely available as an R package from the ChemMine project site: http://bioweb.ucr.edu/ChemMineV2/chemminer