The electroencephalogram (EEG) has recently emerged as a pivotal tool in brain imaging analysis, playing a crucial role in accurately interpreting brain functions and states. To address the problem that the presence of ocular artifacts in the EEG signals of patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) severely affects the accuracy of sleep staging recognition, we propose a method that integrates a support vector machine (SVM) with genetic algorithm (GA)-optimized variational mode decomposition (VMD) and second-order blind identification (SOBI) for the removal of ocular artifacts from single-channel EEG signals. The SVM is utilized to identify artifact-contaminated segments within preprocessed single-channel EEG signals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Sleep apnoea syndrome (SAS) is a serious sleep disorder and early detection of sleep apnoea not only reduces treatment costs but also saves lives. Conventional polysomnography (PSG) is widely regarded as the gold standard diagnostic tool for sleep apnoea. However, this method is expensive, time-consuming and inherently disruptive to sleep.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast cancer (BC) is one of the most common malignant tumors in women. CircRNA/miRNA/mRNA regulatory axes have been shown to be involved in the pathogenesis of BC. Here, we sought to analyze the functional mechanism of circ_0104345 in BC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a multifactorial chronic disease of the eye. Several candidate pathways have been hypothesized to play a role in AMD pathogenesis. Our work and those of others suggests inflammasome activity as a mechanism associated with retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell demise.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAquaporin 1 (AQP1) plays an important role in endothelial functions and is regulated by MEF2C. However, how AQP1 level is stabilized to maintain endothelial water homeostasis is still not clear. Here, we show that AQP1 expression is significantly upregulated by MEF2C transcriptionally and inhibited by miR-133a-3p.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBACKGROUND The TMEFF2 gene encodes the transmembrane protein with EGF like and two follistatin-like domains 2 and has been reported to be a tumor suppressor gene, but its role remains unknown in pancreatic cancer. This study aimed to investigate the expression of TMEFF2 in human pancreatic cancer tissue and the effects of knockdown of TMEFF2 on cell, proliferation, and apoptosis in human pancreatic cell lines. MATERIAL AND METHODS Thirty-five samples of human pancreatic tissue and adjacent normal pancreatic tissue, and five human pancreatic cancer cell lines, CAPAN1, ASPC1, BXPC3, SW1990, and CFPAC were studied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransmembrane protein with epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like and two follistatin motifs 2 (TMEFF2) is downregulated in human gastric cancer, and its levels are associated with tumor aggressiveness. Herein, a positive correlation was identified between serum vitamin C levels (µg/ml) and mRNA levels of TMEFF2 in gastric cancer tissue. TMEFF2 silencing promotes cell proliferation in GES-1 normal human gastric epithelial cells and AGS human gastric adenocarcinoma cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicroRNAs (miRNA/miRs) are small, non-coding RNA molecules (19-25 nucleotides in length), which function to regulate gene expression. It has been reported that miR-128 serves an important role in regulating cancer cell growth; increasing evidence has indicated that the expression of miR-128 is decreased in pancreatic cancer (PC) cells. However, the specific mechanisms of miR-128 in regulating PC cell growth are unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The membrane attack complex (MAC) is a key player in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and is a putative activator of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Amyloid beta (Aβ), a component of drusen deposits, has also been implicated in inflammasome activation by our work and those of others. However, the interactions of MAC and Aβ are still poorly understood, especially their roles in aging and retinal degenerative pathologies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in people 50 years of age or older in developed countries. The homozygous CC genotype in the complement factor H (CFH) Y402H single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP; rs1061170) is widely recognized as a risk factor for the development of AMD. In this study, we examined vitreal levels of granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), a hematopoietic cytokine, and macrophages in the choroid of postmortem human eyes genotyped for the CFH Y402H SNP.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMediators Inflamm
January 2016
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of legal blindness in the elderly in industrialized countries. AMD is a multifactorial disease influenced by both genetic and environmental risk factors. Progression of AMD is characterized by an increase in the number and size of drusen, extracellular deposits, which accumulate between the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and Bruch's membrane (BM) in outer retina.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAltered expression of TROP2 is observed in various types of human cancers. However, the clinical significance and pathological role of TROP2 in gallbladder cancer (GBC) remains unclear. The main objective of this investigation was to clarify the relationships between TROP2 expression and the clinicopathological features of patients with GBC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic inflammation is a key pathogenic process in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Amyloid-beta (Aβ) is a constituent of AMD drusen and promotes the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome which facilitates the production of cytokines. We investigated the role of transcription factor NF-κB in the activation of inflammasome in the RPE and the effect of vinpocetine, a dietary supplement with inhibitory effect on NF-κΒ.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To investigate the relationship between systemic cytokines, the complement factor H (CFH) Y402H polymorphism, drusen load, and subfoveal choroidal thickness in patients with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Methods: Forty-four dry AMD patients under care of the Retina Service at the University of British Columbia were enrolled.
Background: Recent genomic technologies have propelled our understanding of the mechanisms underlying complex eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Genotyping postmortem eye tissues for known single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with AMD may prove valuable, especially when combined with information obtained through other methods such as immunohistochemistry, western blot, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and proteomics. Initially intending to genotype postmortem eye tissues for AMD-related SNPs, our group became interested in isolating and comparing the quality of DNA from the iris and retina of postmortem donor eyes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe show that an innate defense-regulator peptide (IDR-1) was protective in mouse models of infection with important Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. When given from 48 h before to 6 h after infection, the peptide was effective by both local and systemic administration. Because protection by IDR-1 was prevented by in vivo depletion of monocytes and macrophages, but not neutrophils or B- and T-lymphocytes, we conclude that monocytes and macrophages are key effector cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOur previous studies, using differential mRNA display, suggested that the mouse Nip21 gene may be involved in myocarditis development in the coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3)-infected mouse heart. Sequence comparison indicated that the mouse Nip21 gene shares high sequence homology to human Nip2. This human protein is known to interact with both the apoptosis inhibitor Bcl-2 and a homologous protein, the adenovirus E1B 19-kDa protein.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF