Publications by authors named "K Fukutomi"
Article Synopsis
- Endocytosis-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are tiny particles useful for disease prediction, face challenges in visualization due to their small size being below the optical diffraction limit.
- The study used a plasmonic chip to enhance the fluorescence of single EVs by capturing them and binding fluorescently labeled antibodies, allowing detection of even the smallest EVs as bright spots.
- Techniques involved included evaluating fluorescence intensity and distinguishing single EVs from larger aggregates, ultimately achieving the successful detection of single EVs with multiple targets at various wavelengths.
Aim: Patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) remain at risk for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) even with nucleos(t)ide analog therapy. We evaluated risk factors for HCC development, including serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) RNA, hepatitis B core-related antigen level, and growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) level, a predictor of HCC development in patients with chronic hepatitis C.
Methods: We collected clinical data and stored serum from CHB patients without a history of HCC who were receiving nucleos(t)ide analog treatment for more than 1 year and whose HBV DNA level was less than 3.
Article Synopsis
- - Current treatments for hepatitis B virus (HBV) do not effectively remove its DNA form (cccDNA), but researchers are exploring the use of the CRISPR/Cas9 system to target and reduce cccDNA levels.
- - The study found that inhibiting DNA repair processes, particularly those handled by PARP2 and DNA Ligase 4, can enhance the effectiveness of CRISPR in reducing HBV replication markers in infected liver cells.
- - Additionally, using the PARP inhibitor olaparib further boosted the effectiveness of CRISPR by lowering levels of HBV-related RNA and cccDNA, highlighting a potential new combination therapy for HBV.
Capsid allosteric modulators (CAMs) inhibit the encapsidation of hepatitis B virus (HBV) pregenomic RNA (pgRNA), which contains a pathogen-associated molecular pattern motif. However, the effect of CAMs on the innate immune response of HBV-infected hepatocytes remains unclear, and we examined this effect in this study. Administration of a CAM compound, BAY41-4109 (BAY41), to HBV-infected primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) did not change the total cytoplasmic pgRNA levels but significantly reduced intracapsid pgRNA levels, suggesting that BAY41 increased extracapsid pgRNA levels in the cytoplasm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSIRT1 enhances hepatitis virus B transcription independent of hepatic autophagy.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun
June 2020
Autophagy is an intracellular process that can lead to the degradation of malfunctioned proteins and damaged organelles to maintain homeostasis during cellular stress. Here, we evaluated the change in hepatitis B virus (HBV) production by regulating hepatic autophagy in HBV-producing cells. We examined focusing on a relation with a positive autophagy regulator, sirtuin1 (SIRT1).
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