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Signal Transduction

Methodology

Signal transduction, the biochemical manner in which a cell converts signals within seconds in response to a variety of stimuli, covers a broad spectrum of the biological sciences, and our analysis of the research over the past decade and over the past two years is no less broad.

The most-cited signal transduction paper over the past 10 years is the 1998 Annual Review of Biochemistry paper, "TGF-beta signal transduction," (Massague J, 67:753-91), with 1,714 total citations. This review covers the known aspects of the TGF-beta signal transduction pathways, mutations in which can result in cancers and developmental disorders. Other factors playing a role in signal transduction that have been highly cited over the past decade include lipid rafts, MAP kinases, NF-kappa B, p38, TNF receptors, and protein tyrosine phosphatases.

The two-year list includes papers covering signal transduction in plants, bacteria, and mammalian cells. Important original articles include "A physical and functional map of the human TNF-alpha NF-kappa B signal transduction pathway," (Bouwmeester T, et al., Nature Cell Biology 6[2]: 97+, February 2004), which not only helps to spell out the TNF-alpha/NF-kappa B signal transduction pathway, but may also be applicable for related pathways in human disease; and "Quantum dot ligands provide new insights into erbB/HER receptor-mediated signal transduction," (Lidke DS, et al., Nature Biotechnology 22[2]: 198-203, February 2004), which describes a new method for imaging signal transduction in living cells. Other aspects of signal transduction covered in reviews and original articles published in the past two years include inhibitors of cytokine signal transduction, pathways regulating cyclooxygenase-2 expression, Nox4 and insulin signal transduction, and the role of endosomes in signal transduction control.

Methodology

To construct this database, papers were extracted based on title-supplied keywords for Signal Transduction. The keywords used were as follows: 

signal transduction*

The baseline time span for this database is 1996-2006 (third bimonthly). The resulting database contained 4,948 (10 years) and  920 (2 years) papers; 16,105 authors; 64 countries; 1,092 journals; and 2,284 institutions.

Rankings

Once the database was in place, it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers (two- and ten-year periods), authors, journals, institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1996-2006 (third bimonthly, a ten-year plus six month period).

The top 20 papers are ranked according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds and corresponding percentages used to determine scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper, and total papers respectively are as follows:

Entity: Scientists Institutions Countries Journals
Thresholds: 5 38 13 9
Percentage: 1% 1% 50% 10%

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