Publications by authors named "Ju-Yu Chen"

Drug abuse is a severe social problem worldwide. Particularly, the issue of new psychoactive substances (NPSs) have increasingly emerged. NPSs are structural or functional analogs of traditional illicit drugs, such as cocaine, cannabis, and amphetamine; these molecules provide the same or more severe neurological effects.

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  • * A study from National Taiwan University Hospital revealed that out of 58 urine samples testing positive for methcathinone, 31 belonged to individuals without drug use history, linked to common cold medications containing pseudoephedrine.
  • * Findings indicate that methcathinone may be present as an impurity in over-the-counter medications, highlighting the need for better drug screening practices to avoid misinterpretations of results.
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Chemoresistance mechanisms of colorectal cancer remain largely elusive. We aim to compare the difference of chemotherapy responses between FOLFOX-resistant and wild-type colorectal cancer cells by proteomic profiling to suggest novel treatment targets. FOLFOX-resistant colorectal cancer cells DLD1-R and HCT116-R were developed by chronic exposure to progressive FOLFOX doses.

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Determination of urine organic acids (UOAs) is essential to understand the disease progress of inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) and often relies on GC-MS analysis. However, the efficiency of analytical reports is sometimes restricted by data processing due to labor-intensive work if no proper tool is employed. Herein, we present a simple and rapid workflow with an R-based script for automated data processing (AutoDP) of GC-MS raw files to quantitatively analyze essential UOAs.

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The application of dried blood spots (DBS) has gradually increased in different fields because of its several advantages. The hematocrit (Hct) effect is one major analytical challenge that may affect the quantification accuracy of DBS samples and should be investigated when developing a novel DBS method. However, previous studies usually overlooked the Hct-related distribution bias when evaluating the Hct effect.

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Antemortem specimens are sometimes the sole sources available for forensic investigation, and samples collected in nonideal ways are inevitably employed to achieve toxicological analysis. It is essential to assess the effects of blood collection tubes on the recoveries of emerging synthetic cathinones (SC) to estimate actual drug concentrations, and no such systematic investigations have been previously carried out. Seventy-one SC with various LogP values were employed to examine commonly used blood collection tubes, including plasma tubes, serum tubes and gel-containing tubes in recoveries which determined by a reliable LC-MS/MS method.

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Most bio-inspired antireflective nanostructures are extremely vulnerable and suffer from complicated lithography-based fabrication procedures. To address the issues, we report a scalable and simple non-lithography-based approach to engineer robust antireflective structures, inspired by the longtail glasswing butterfly, in a single step. The resulting two-dimensional randomly arranged 80/130/180 nm silica colloids, partially embedded in a polymeric matrix, generate a gradual refractive index transition at the air/substrate interface to suppress light reflection.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study compared clinical characteristics of patients using meth/amphetamine (MA) versus synthetic cathinones (SC) who presented to emergency departments between 2017 and 2021, focusing on symptoms related to recreational drug use.
  • SC users were generally younger than MA users and exhibited higher rates of tachycardia, hyperthermia, and elevated creatinine kinase levels, indicating a greater risk of serious conditions like rhabdomyolysis.
  • The research suggests that SC usage is associated with more severe health complications compared to MA usage, highlighting the need for increased awareness and medical attention for SC users in emergency situations.
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Emerging new psychoactive substances (NPS) poses a great risk to public health. Analyzing these large numbers of NPS and other associated substances often relies on liquid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-QqQ-MS) with multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. However, the differentiation of critical pairs, coeluted isobaric and/or isomeric species, is one of the challenges for this analytical platform.

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Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the most devastating cancers, with an approximate median survival of only 16 months. Although some new insights into the fantastic heterogeneity of this kind of brain tumor have been revealed in recent studies, all subclasses of GBM still demonstrate highly aggressive invasion properties to the surrounding parenchyma. This behavior has become the main obstruction to current curative therapies as invasive GBM cells migrate away from these foci after surgical therapies.

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  • The drug GHB, commonly abused for its euphoric effects, is a controlled substance in Taiwan, leading users to seek unregulated alternatives like GBL and BD. !* -
  • A retrospective study analyzed cases of GHB-related emergencies in Taipei, identifying 12 patients (11 men, 1 woman) who often co-used amphetamines and presented with severe symptoms, including depressed consciousness and respiratory issues. !* -
  • Despite patients recovering within 6 hours, the study emphasizes the need for stricter regulations on GBL and BD to prevent dangerous misuse and protect public health. !*
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  • * While RT-PCR is the primary method for diagnosing COVID-19, it has a concerning false-negative rate, prompting the use of radiographic tools like CT scans and chest X-rays for better initial screening and diagnosis.
  • * The review will address the difficulties in diagnostics, including shortages of sampling kits and delays in PCR testing, and explore future possibilities for improving radiographic methods in the diagnosis of COVID-19 to save lives during the ongoing crisis.
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Background/purpose: Although illicit substance use-induced toxicity or complication is a frequent cause of visit to the emergency department (ED), there are limited data on cases confirmed by liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis. This study aimed to describe clinical presentations of patients who visited the ED because of acute illicit substance-related complications.

Methods: We performed a retrospective study between May 2017 and August 2018 on patients presenting to the ED with positive urine illicit substance analysis by LC-MS/MS.

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  • The study addresses the detection of α-pyrrolidinovalerophenone (α-PVP) and its metabolites in urine, highlighting the challenge of their amphoteric properties which complicate analysis via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS).
  • An automated solid-phase extraction (SPE) method was optimized, showing significant improvement in derivatization efficiency when adding pyridine to the reaction mixture, which enhanced sensitivity and precision of detection.
  • The developed method yielded a linear range of detection and successfully identified α-PVP and its metabolite in a forensic sample, marking a novel approach for analyzing synthetic cathinones in biological specimens.
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In clinical tumor therapy, chemotherapeutic routes have caused severe side effects; current delivery methods are unsatisfactory. Successful design of a remotely folate (FA)-grafted chitosan (CS)-coated magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) with low toxicity, has been achieved. A chemotherapeutic drug such as doxorubicin (DOX), is loaded in the MNP-based matrix (FA-grafted CS-DOX--MNP), which is coated by an activated target tumor molecule of FA-grafted CS biopolymer with the inclusion of tripolyphosphate (TPP) as a linker.

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To date, knowing how to identify the location of chemotherapeutic agents in the human body after injection is still a challenge. Therefore, it is urgent to develop a drug delivery system with molecular imaging tracking ability to accurately understand the distribution, location, and concentration of a drug in living organisms. In this study, we developed bovine serum albumin (BSA)-based nanoparticles (NPs) with dual magnetic resonance (MR) and fluorescence imaging modalities (fluorescein isothiocyanate [FITC]-BSA-Gd/1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea [BCNU] NPs) to deliver BCNU for inhibition of brain tumor cells (MBR 261-2).

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Focused ultrasound (FUS) exposure with the presence of microbubbles has been shown to transiently open the blood-brain barrier (BBB), and thus has potential to enhance the delivery of various kinds of therapeutic agents into brain tumors. The purpose of this study was to assess the preclinical therapeutic efficacy of FUS-BBB opening for enhanced temozolomide (TMZ) delivery in glioma treatment. FUS exposure with microbubbles was delivered to open the BBB of nude mice that were either normal or implanted with U87 human glioma cells.

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As a super-antigen, staphylococcal enterotoxin C2 (SEC2) stimulates the release of massive inflammatory cytokines such as interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), interleukin-1 (IL-1) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) which are documented to implicate osteoblast differentiation. In the present study, SEC2 was found to significantly improve the osteoblast differentiation by up-regulating BMP2 and Runx2/Cbfa1 expression. Interferon (IFN)-inducible gene IFI16, a co-activator of Runx2/Cbfa1, was also activated by SEC2 in the osteoblast differentiation.

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The successful delivery of anti-cancer drugs relies on the simultaneous capability to actively target a specific location, a sufficient lifetime in the active form in the circulation, and traceability and quantification of drug distribution via in vivo medical imaging. Herein, a highly magnetic nanocarrier (HMNC) composed of an Fe(3)O(4) core and an aqueous-stable, self-doped poly[N-(1-one-butyric acid)]aniline (SPAnH) shell was chemically synthesized. This nanocarrier exhibited a high capacity for 1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea (BCNU) drug loading.

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Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by polyglutamine-expanded ataxin-3. SCA3 neurodegeneration is found in the pontine nuclei and cerebellum. Polyglutamine-expanded ataxin-3-Q79 caused apoptotic death of cerebellar and pontine nuclei neurons by upregulating mRNA expression of pro-apoptotic Bax and activating mitochondria-mediated apoptotic cascade.

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