• 대한의생명과학회지
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.237-246
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• 2019

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) refers to the expansion and the enlarged myocardium due to the increased resistance to ejection from the left ventricle to the aorta and/or the periphery, or the long-term burden imposed by the blood increase. Hypertension is a major risk factor that accounts for more than 50% of the causes of cardiovascular disease. If hypertension endure in the long term, the myocardium responds to abnormal heartbeat in the heart. Therefore, the prevalence of left ventricular hypertrophy also increases. As a result of genome-wide association study (GWAS) analysis for European people, PDGFC, MARK3, and BCL2 were related to blood pressures. In this study, the genetic polymorphisms of PDGFC, MARK3, and BCL2 were extracted and selected based on Korean genomic and epidemiologic data, and then logistic regression analysis was performed on LVH. As a result, one SNP (rs9307953) in PDGFC gene, four SNPs (rs6575983, rs17679475, rs2273703 and rs10141388) in MARK3 gene and two SNPs (rs17756073 and rs17070739) in BCL2 gene were statistically significant. The rs6575983 of the MARK3 gene showed the highest significance level ($P=7.2{\times}10^{-3}$) among the SNPs and the relative risk of 1.08 (95% confidence interval: 1.06 to 1.45). These results suggest that the polymorphisms of PDGFC, MARK3, and BCL2 not only affect European blood pressures but also correlate with LVH in Korean. These results suggest that increased understanding of the genetic correlations of the pathogenesis of LVH.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• 제29권5호
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• pp.551-561
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• 2021

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy. Patients with well-differentiated thyroid cancers, such as papillary and follicular cancers, have a favorable prognosis. However, poorly differentiated thyroid cancers, such as medullary, squamous and anaplastic advanced thyroid cancers, are very aggressive and insensitive to radioiodine treatment. Thus, novel therapies that attenuate metastasis are urgently needed. We found that both PDGFC and PDGFRA are predominantly expressed in thyroid cancers and that the survival rate is significantly lower in patients with high PDGFRA expression. This finding indicates the important role of PDGF/PDGFR signaling in thyroid cancer development. Next, we established a SW579 squamous thyroid cancer cell line with 95.6% PDGFRA gene insertion and deletions (indels) through CRISPR/Cas9. Protein and invasion analysis showed a dramatic loss in EMT marker expression and metastatic ability. Furthermore, xenograft tumors derived from PDGFRA geneedited SW579 cells exhibited a minor decrease in tumor growth. However, distant lung metastasis was completely abolished upon PDGFRA gene editing, implying that PDGFRA could be an effective target to inhibit distant metastasis in advanced thyroid cancers. To translate this finding to the clinic, we used the most relevant multikinase inhibitor, imatinib, to inhibit PDGFRA signaling. The results showed that imatinib significantly suppressed cell growth, induced cell cycle arrest and cell death in SW579 cells. Our developed noninvasive apoptosis detection sensor (NIADS) indicated that imatinib induced cell apoptosis through caspase-3 activation. In conclusion, we believe that developing a specific and selective targeted therapy for PDGFRA would effectively suppress PDGFRA-mediated cancer aggressiveness in advanced thyroid cancers.