miR-29a Downregulates PIK3CA Expression and Inhibits Cervical Cancer Cell Dynamics: A Comparative Clinical Analysis.

HPV/pap tests are widely used for cervical cancer screening, playing a crucial role in early diagnosis and guiding future treatment options. However, approximately 50% of cervical cancer patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage, which is associated with higher recurrence rates and poorer survival outcomes than early-stage diagnoses. This underscores the need for effective treatments for advanced-stage cervical cancer.

7-Amino-3-phenyl-2-methyl-pyrazolopyrimidine derivatives inhibit human rhinovirus replication.

Small molecules that exhibit broad-spectrum enteroviral inhibitory activity by targeting viral replication proteins are highly desired in antiviral drug discovery studies. To discover new human rhinovirus (hRV) inhibitors, we performed a high-throughput screening of 100,000 compounds from the Korea Chemical Bank library. This search led to identification of two phosphatidylinositol-4-kinase IIIβ (PI4KIIIβ) inhibitors having the pyrazolo-pyrimidine core structure, which display moderate anti-rhinoviral activity along with mild cytotoxicity.

Staphylococcus aureus causes aberrant epidermal lipid composition and skin barrier dysfunction.

Background: Staphylococcus (S) aureus colonization is known to cause skin barrier disruption in atopic dermatitis (AD) patients. However, it has not been studied how S. aureus induces aberrant epidermal lipid composition and skin barrier dysfunction.

Blood Test for Breast Cancer Screening through the Detection of Tumor-Associated Circulating Transcripts.

Liquid biopsy has been emerging for early screening and treatment monitoring at each cancer stage. However, the current blood-based diagnostic tools in breast cancer have not been sufficient to understand patient-derived molecular features of aggressive tumors individually. Herein, we aimed to develop a blood test for the early detection of breast cancer with cost-effective and high-throughput considerations in order to combat the challenges associated with precision oncology using mRNA-based tests.

Promotion of tumorigenesis by miR-1260b-targeting CASP8: Potential diagnostic and prognostic marker for breast cancer.

MicroRNAs are reported as promising biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. miR-1260b is identified as a tumor-associated noncoding microRNA in other cancers, although the role of miR-1260b and its clinical relevance in breast cancer remain unclear. In this study, miR-1260b as a potential prognostic biomarker was observed by univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses in 102 breast tumor tissues.

Identification of Circulating miR-22-3p and miR-93-5p as Stable Endogenous Control in Tuberculosis Study.

The diagnosis and prognosis of tuberculosis remains challenging and necessitates the development of a new test that can accurately diagnose and monitor treatment responses. In this regard, miRNA is becoming a potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker which differentiates treatment respondents from non-respondents for various non-infectious and infectious diseases, including tuberculosis. The concentration of miRNAs varies based on cell type, disease, and site of infection, implicating that selection of an optimal reference gene is crucial, and determines the quantification of transcript level and biological interpretation of the data.

Antigen-Specific Cytokine and Chemokine Gene Expression for Diagnosing Latent and Active Tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis infection exhibits different forms, namely, pulmonary, extrapulmonary, and latent. Here, diagnostic markers based on the gene expression of cytokines and chemokines for differentiating between tuberculosis infection state(s) were identified. Gene expression of seven cytokines (Interferon gamma (IFN-γ), Interferon gamma-induced protein 10 (IP-10), Interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2R), C-X-C Motif Chemokine Ligand 9 (CXCL-9), Interleukin 10 (IL-10), Interleukin 4 (IL-4), and Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNF-α)) in response to tuberculosis antigen was analyzed using real-time polymerase reaction.

Diagnostic Value of Circulating miR-202 in Early-Stage Breast Cancer in South Korea.

: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide. Early stage diagnosis is important for predicting increases in treatment success rates and decreases in patient mortality. Recently, circulating biomarkers such as circulating tumor cells, circulating tumor DNA, exosomes, and circulating microRNAs have been examined as blood-based markers for the diagnosis of breast cancer.

Evaluation of the QuantaMatrix Multiplexed Assay Platform for Molecular Diagnosis of Multidrug- and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Using Clinical Strains Isolated in Myanmar.

Background: Although the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) is decreasing, cases of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB continue to increase. As conventional phenotype drug susceptibility testing (pDST) takes six to eight weeks, molecular assays are widely used to determine drug resistance. we developed QuantaMatrix Multiplexed Assay Platform (QMAP) MDR/XDR assay (QuantaMatrix Inc.