• Title/Summary/Keyword: translational research

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MicroRNAs in Human Diseases: From Autoimmune Diseases to Skin, Psychiatric and Neurodegenerative Diseases

  • Ha, Tai-You
    • IMMUNE NETWORK
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    • v.11 no.5
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    • pp.227-244
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    • 2011
  • MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNA molecules that negatively regulate gene expression via degradation or translational repression of their target messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Recent studies have clearly demonstrated that miRNAs play critical roles in several biologic processes, including cell cycle, differentiation, cell development, cell growth, and apoptosis and that miRNAs are highly expressed in regulatory T (Treg) cells and a wide range of miRNAs are involved in the regulation of immunity and in the prevention of autoimmunity. It has been increasingly reported that miRNAs are associated with various human diseases like autoimmune disease, skin disease, neurological disease and psychiatric disease. Recently, the identification of miRNAs in skin has added a new dimension in the regulatory network and attracted significant interest in this novel layer of gene regulation. Although miRNA research in the field of dermatology is still relatively new, miRNAs have been the subject of much dermatological interest in skin morphogenesis and in regulating angiogenesis. In addition, miRNAs are moving rapidly center stage as key regulators of neuronal development and function in addition to important contributions to neurodegenerative disorder. Moreover, there is now compelling evidence that dysregulation of miRNA networks is implicated in the development and onset of human neruodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Tourette's syndrome, Down syndrome, depression and schizophrenia. In this review, I briefly summarize the current studies about the roles of miRNAs in various autoimmune diseases, skin diseases, psychoneurological disorders and mental stress.

Pemetrexed is Mildly Active with Good Tolerability for Treatment of Patients with Colorectal Cancer

  • Zhang, Hui-Qing;Lian, Chang-Hong;Ping, Yao-Dong;Song, Wen-Bin;Lu, Qing-Pu;Xie, Shu-Zhe;Lin, Tao;Cheng, Lin-Zhong
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.19
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    • pp.8391-8394
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    • 2014
  • Purpose: This systematic analysis was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pemetrexed based salvage chemotherapy for treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Methods: Clinical studies evaluating the efficacy and safety of pemetrexed based regimens on response and safety for patients with colorectal cancer were identified using a predefined search strategy. Pooled response rates (RRs) were calculated. Results: For pemetrexed based regimens, 4 clinical studies including 201 patients with advanced colorectal cancer were considered eligible for inclusion. The analysis suggested that, in all patients, pooled RR was 20.4% (41/201). Major adverse effects were neutropenia, anorexia, fatigue, and anemia. No treatment related death occurred with pemetrexed based treatment. Conclusion: This systematic analysis suggests that pemetrexed based regimens are associated with mild activity with good tolerability in treating patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Direct construction of a four-dimensional mesh model from a three-dimensional object with continuous rigid body movement

  • Otomo, Ikuru;Onosato, Masahiko;Tanaka, Fumiki
    • Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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    • v.1 no.2
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    • pp.96-102
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    • 2014
  • In the field of design and manufacturing, there are many problems with managing dynamic states of three-dimensional (3D) objects. In order to solve these problems, the four-dimensional (4D) mesh model and its modeling system have been proposed. The 4D mesh model is defined as a 4D object model that is bounded by tetrahedral cells, and can represent spatio-temporal changes of a 3D object continuously. The 4D mesh model helps to solve dynamic problems of 3D models as geometric problems. However, the construction of the 4D mesh model is limited on the time-series 3D voxel data based method. This method is memory-hogging and requires much computing time. In this research, we propose a new method of constructing the 4D mesh model that derives from the 3D mesh model with continuous rigid body movement. This method is realized by making a swept shape of a 3D mesh model in the fourth dimension and its tetrahedralization. Here, the rigid body movement is a screwed movement, which is a combination of translational and rotational movement.

REGULATION OF RAT ADRENAL MEDULLARY PHENYLETHANOL AMINE N-METHYLTRANSFERASE

  • Yoo, Young-Sook;Wong, Dona L.
    • Toxicological Research
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    • v.6 no.1
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    • pp.89-97
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    • 1990
  • Neural regulation of phenylethanolamine N-meth-yltransferase (PNMT) was studied with reserpine as a neuronal agent in rat adrenal medulla. The enzyme activity assay and northern blot analysis were performed to determine whether the induction of PNMT activity after reserpine treatment was associated with elevation of mRNA coding for PNMT. The i.p. administration of reserpine (2.5 mg/kg) on alternate days fot 4 injections to rats brought about 30% increase of adrenal medullary PNMT activity and approximately 60% stimulation of the PNMT mRNA level in rat adrenal gland. A dose of 10 mg/kg of reserpine was chosen to perform optimum induction of PNMT activity in the rat adrenal gland based on the results of dose response curve of reserpine. Time course reserpine (10 mg/kg) effects on the rat adrenal medullary PNMT were as follows: 1. Peripheral PNMT activity reached maximum level after 7 days of drug treatment on alternate days. 2. Trans-synaptic stimulation by reserpine increased pretranslational activity of rat adrenal PNMT, but not translational activity. 3. Immunotitration of PNMT molecule after reserpine treatment indicated that reserpine produced an enzyme with greater antibody affinity than endogenous molecule in the rat adrenal gland.

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Development of New Optimized Sampling method for 3D Shape Recovery in the Presence of Noise

  • Lee, Hyeong-Geun;Jang, Hoon-Seok
    • The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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    • v.13 no.2
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    • pp.113-122
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    • 2020
  • Noise affects the accuracy of three-dimensional shape recovery. Its occurrence is unpredictable and depends on several mechanical, environmental, and other factors. When two-dimensional image sequences are obtained for shape from focus (SFF), mechanical vibration occurs in the translational stage, causing an error in the three-dimensional shape recovery. To address this issue, mechanical vibration is modeled using Newton's second law and the principle of the rack and pinion gear. Then, an optimal sampling step size considering the mechanical vibration is suggested through theoretical demonstration. Experiments conducted with real objects verify the effectiveness of the proposed sampling step size. In this paper, in a realistic environment with noise, the potential of obtaining more accurate three-dimensional reconstruction results of the objects is explored by acquiring the optimal sampling step size, which improves the sampling step size relative to those reported in a previous study performed under similar conditions.

A Study on RCS and Scattering Point Analysis Based on Measured Data for Maritime Ship (실측자료 기반 함정 RCS 측정 및 산란점 분석 연구)

  • Jung, Hoi-In;Park, Sang-Hong;Choi, Jae-Ho;Kim, Kyung-Tae
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.97-105
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    • 2020
  • In order to set up radar cross section(RCS) reduction factors for a target, the scattering point position of the target should be identified through inverse synthetic aperture radar(ISAR) image analysis. For this purpose, ISAR image focusing is important. Maritime ship is non-linear maneuvering in the sea, however, which blur the ISAR image. To solve this problem, translational and rotational motion compensation are essential to form focused ISAR image. In this paper, hourglass and ISAR image analysis are performed on the collected data in the sea instead of using the prediction software tool, which takes much time and cost to make computer-aided design(CAD) model of the ship.

Fine Tuning and Cross-talking of TGF-β Signal by Inhibitory Smads

  • Park, Seok-Hee
    • BMB Reports
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    • v.38 no.1
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    • pp.9-16
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    • 2005
  • Transforming Growth Factor (TGF)-$\beta$ family, including TGF-$\beta$, bone morphorgenic protein (BMP), and activn, plays an important role in essential cellular functions such as proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, tissue remodeling, angiognesis, immune responses, and cell adhesions. TGF-$\beta$ predominantly transmits the signals through serine/threonine receptor kinases and cytoplasmic proteins called Smads. Since the discovery of TGF-$\beta$ in the early 1980s, the dysregulation of TGF-$\beta$/Smad signaling has been implicated in the pathogenesis of human diseases. Among signal transducers in TGF-$\beta$/Smad signaling, inhibitory Smads (I-Smads), Smad6 and Smad7, act as major negative regulators forming autoinhibitory feedback loops and mediate the cross-talking with other signaling pathways. Expressions of I-Smads are mainly regulated on the transcriptional levels and post-translational protein degradations and their intracellular levels are tightly controlled to maintain the homeostatic balances. However, abnormal levels of I-Smads in the pathological conditions elicit the altered TGF-$\beta$ signaling in cells, eventually causing TGF-$\beta$-related human diseases. Thus, exploring the molecular mechanisms about the regulations of I-Smads may provide the therapeutic clues for human diseases induced by the abnormal TGF-$\beta$ signaling.

Sensor placement for structural health monitoring of Canton Tower

  • Yi, Ting-Hua;Li, Hong-Nan;Gu, Ming
    • Smart Structures and Systems
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    • v.10 no.4_5
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    • pp.313-329
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    • 2012
  • A challenging issue in design and implementation of an effective structural health monitoring (SHM) system is to determine where a number of sensors are properly installed. In this paper, research on the optimal sensor placement (OSP) is carried out on the Canton Tower (formerly named Guangzhou New Television Tower) of 610 m high. To avoid the intensive computationally-demanding problem caused by tens of thousands of degrees of freedom (DOFs) involved in the dynamic analysis, the three dimension finite element (FE) model of the Canton Tower is first simplified to a system with less DOFs. Considering that the sensors can be physically arranged only in the translational DOFs of the structure, but not in the rotational DOFs, a new method of taking the horizontal DOF as the master DOF and rotational DOF as the slave DOF, and reducing the slave DOF by model reduction is proposed. The reduced model is obtained by IIRS method and compared with the models reduced by Guyan, Kuhar, and IRS methods. Finally, the OSP of the Canton Tower is obtained by a kind of dual-structure coding based generalized genetic algorithm (GGA).

Citrus Fruits and their Bioactive Ingredients: Leading Four Horsemen from Front

  • Farooqi, Ammad Ahmad;Wang, Zhiqiang;Hasnain, Sidra;Attar, Rukset;Aslam, Ayesha;Mansoor, Qaisar;Ismail, Muhammad
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.16 no.6
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    • pp.2575-2580
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    • 2015
  • Cancer is a multifaceted and genomically complex disease and rapidly accumulating high impact research is deepening our understanding related to the mechanisms underlying cancer development, progression and resistance to therapeutics. Increasingly it is being realized that genetic/epigenetic mutations, inactivation of tumor suppressor genes, overexpression of oncogenes, deregulation of intracellular signaling cascades and loss of apoptosis are some of the extensively studied aspects. Confluence of information suggested that rapidly developing resistance to therapeutics is adding another layer of complexity and overwhelmingly increasing preclinical studies are identifying different natural agents with efficacy and minimal off-target effects. We partition this multi-component review into citrus fruits and their bioactive ingredients mediating rebalancing of pro- and anti-apoptotic proteins to induce apoptosis in resistant cancer cells. We also discuss how oncogenic protein networks are targeted in cancer cells and how these findings may be verified in preclinical studies.

Recently Emerging Signaling Landscape of Ataxia-Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM) Kinase

  • Farooqi, Ammad Ahmad;Attar, Rukset;Arslan, Belkis Atasever;Romero, Mirna Azalea;ul Haq, Muhammad Fahim;Qadir, Muhammad Imran
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.16
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    • pp.6485-6488
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    • 2014
  • Research over the years has progressively and sequentially provided near complete resolution of regulators of the DNA repair pathways which are so important for cancer prevention. Ataxia-telangiectasia mutated kinase (ATM), a high-molecular-weight PI3K-family kinase has emerged as a master regulator of DNA damage signaling and extensive cross-talk between ATM and downstream proteins forms an interlaced signaling network. There is rapidly growing scientific evidence emphasizing newly emerging paradigms in ATM biology. In this review, we provide latest information regarding how oxidative stress induced activation of ATM can be utilized as a therapeutic target in different cancer cell lines and in xenografted mice. Moreover, crosstalk between autophagy and ATM is also discussed with focus on how autophagy inhibition induces apoptosis in cancer cells.