Cancer tissues reflect a greater number of pathological characteristics of cancer compared to cancer cells, so the evaluation of cancer tissues can be effective in determining cancer treatment strategies. Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) can evaluate cancer tissues and even identify molecules while preserving spatial information. Cluster analysis of cancer tissues' MSI data is currently used to evaluate the phenotype heterogeneity of the tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMass spectrometry imaging (MSI) allows us to visualize the spatial distribution of molecular components in a sample. A large amount of mass spectrometry data comprehensively provides molecular distributions. In this study, we focus on the information in the obtained data and use the Shannon entropy as a quantity to analyze MSI data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDo dendritic spines, which comprise the postsynaptic component of most excitatory synapses, exist only for their structural dynamics, receptor trafficking, and chemical and electrical compartmentation? The answer is no. Simultaneous investigation of both spine and presynaptic terminals has recently revealed a novel feature of spine synapses. Spine enlargement pushes the presynaptic terminals with muscle-like force and augments the evoked glutamate release for up to 20 min.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiosgenin is an aglycone of dioscin, a major bioactive steroidal saponin found in plants, including Himalayan Paris (), fenugreek (), and yam ( spp.). We have previously demonstrated that a species of natural yam, , contains a promising bioactive compound diosgenin, which induces anti-carcinogenic and anti-hypertriacylglycerolemic activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeuronal intranuclear inclusion disease (NIID) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by eosinophilic hyaline intranuclear inclusions in the neurons, glial cells, and other somatic cells. Although CGG repeat expansions in NOTCH2NLC have been identified in most East Asian patients with NIID, the pathophysiology of NIID remains unclear. Ubiquitin- and p62-positive intranuclear inclusions are the pathological hallmark of NIID.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe characteristic patterns of mass spectra in imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) strongly reflect the tissue environment. However, the boundaries formed where different tissue environments collide have not been visually assessed. In this study, IMS and convolutional neural network (CNN), one of the deep learning methods, were applied to the extraction of characteristic mass spectra patterns from training brain regions on rodents' brain sections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To reduce disease recurrence after radical surgery for lung squamous cell carcinomas (SQCCs), accurate prediction of recurrent high-risk patients is required for efficient patient selection for adjuvant chemotherapy. Because treatment modalities for recurrent lung SQCCs are scarce compared to lung adenocarcinomas (ADCs), accurately selecting lung SQCC patients for adjuvant chemotherapy after radical surgery is highly important. Predicting lung cancer recurrence with high objectivity is difficult with conventional histopathological prognostic factors; therefore, identification of a novel predictor is expected to be highly beneficial.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale: DIUTHAME (desorption ionization using through-hole alumina membrane), a recently developed matrix-free ionization-assisting substrate, was examined for reproducibility in terms of mass accuracy and intensity using standard lipid and mouse brain sections. The impregnation property of DIUTHAME significantly improved the reproducibility of mass accuracy and intensity compared with 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB).
Methods: Frozen tissue sections were mounted on indium tin oxide-coated glass slides.
Expert Rev Proteomics
October 2021
: Imaging is a technique used for direct visualization of the internal structure or distribution of biomolecules of a living system in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional fashion. Phospholipids are important structural components of biological membranes and have been reported to be associated with various human diseases. Therefore, the visualization of phospholipids is crucial to understand the underlying mechanism of cellular and molecular processes in normal and diseased conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlycine is an important amino acid in the central nervous system. The aberrant conditions of glycine concentrations cause sever neurological disorders, such as nonketotic-hyperglycinemia (NKH), also known as glycine encephalopathy. Therefore, a better understanding of its relative abundance and distribution in the developing and adult brains would provide insights into the pathogeneses of this kind of disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe brain consists of various areas with anatomical features. Neurons communicate with one another via excitatory or inhibitory synaptic transmission. Altered abundance of neurotransmitters, including glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), in specific brain regions is closely involved in severe neurological diseases, such as schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale: The key to successful experiments in matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI-IMS) is to apply the matrix uniformly to the sample. With the development of automated equipment, uniform matrix application has made great progress while the sample preparation required to acquire a better image becomes complicated.
Methods: The approach is to apply the matrix uniformly to tape and adhere it to the tissue section.
Cholinergic neurons play an important role in the higher functions of the brain, such as the memory, cognition, and nociception. However, the exact mechanism behind how the stimulation of all the muscarinic M receptors in the entire brain results in the alleviation of partial sciatic nerve ligation (PSNL)-induced mechanical hypersensitivity has not been investigated. Thus, we examined which subtype of GABA receptor was involved in the alleviation of PSNL-induce mechanical hypersensitivity produced by an intracerebroventricular administration of a muscarinic M receptor agonist, McN-A-343.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDocosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, has significant healthbenefits. Previous studies reported decreased levels of DHA and DHA-containing phosphatidylcholines inthe brain of animals suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia; furthermore,DHA supplementation has been found to improve brain DHA levels and memory efficiency in dementia. Oilextracted from the seeds of (green nut oil; GNO) is also expected to have DHA like effectsas it contains approximately 50% α-linolenic acid, a precursor of DHA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the current study, we aimed to analyze the lipid changes in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) after sciatic nerve transection (SNT) using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI-IMS). We found that the arachidonic acid-containing phosphatidylcholine (AA-PC), PC(16:0/20:4) largely increased, while PC(16:0/18:1), PC(18:0/18:1) and phosphatidic acid (PA)(36:2) levels largely decreased in the DRG following nerve injury. Previous studies show that the increase in PC(16:0/20:4) was associated with neuropathic pain and that decrease in PC(16:0/18:1), PC(18:0/18:1), and PA(36:2) were due to producing lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), an initiator for neuropathic pain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCholinergic systems modulate synaptic transmission across the neuraxis and play an important role in higher brain function including cognition, arousal and nociception. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a fundamental brain region for nociception and chronic pain, and receives cholinergic projections mainly from basal forebrain. Recently, we found that the activation of muscarinic M receptors in the ACC produced antinociceptive behavior in response to mechanical stimulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground Cholinergic systems regulate the synaptic transmission resulting in the contribution of the nociceptive behaviors. Anterior cingulate cortex is a key cortical area to play roles in nociception and chronic pain. However, the effect of the activation of cholinergic system for nociception is still unknown in the cortical area.
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