Publications by authors named "Motoi Y"

Lysosomal stress due to the accumulation of nucleic acids (NAs) activates endosomal TLRs in macrophages. Here, we show that lysosomal RNA stress, caused by the lack of RNase T2, induces macrophage accumulation in multiple organs such as the spleen and liver through TLR13 activation by microbiota-derived ribosomal RNAs. TLR13 triggered emergency myelopoiesis, increasing the number of myeloid progenitors in the bone marrow and spleen.

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In super-aged societies, dementia has become a critical issue, underscoring the urgent need for tools to assess cognitive status effectively in various sectors, including financial and business settings. Facial and speech features have been tried as cost-effective biomarkers of dementia including Alzheimer's disease (AD). We aimed to establish an easy, automatic, and extensive screening tool for AD using a chatbot and artificial intelligence.

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  • Current Alzheimer's disease (AD) treatments are inadequate, with tau protein aggregation correlating strongly with symptoms, highlighting the need for effective therapies targeting tau pathology.
  • A study screened 763 FDA-approved compounds for their ability to inhibit tau aggregation using AD seeds, narrowing down to 4 potential candidates, including lansoprazole as the most promising option.
  • In mice studies, intranasal administration of lansoprazole improved movement and reduced tau aggregation, suggesting its potential as a repositioned drug for treating AD.
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Neuroinflammation contributes to the pathology and progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and it can be observed even with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a prodromal phase of AD. Free water (FW) imaging estimates the extracellular water content and has been used to study neuroinflammation across several neurological diseases including AD. Recently, the role of gut microbiota has been implicated in the pathogenesis of AD.

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  • - This study explores the lack of standardized criteria for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease (AD) in adults with Down syndrome (DS) and examines specific symptoms along with the average age of diagnosis for dementia stages.
  • - Researchers analyzed data from 14 articles, identifying early symptoms of AD in DS, which included irritability, apathy, and sleep disturbances, and noted a mean diagnosis age of approximately 53 for prodromal symptoms and 56 for AD.
  • - The findings suggest that the severity of intellectual disability may influence the diagnosis of mild dementia in patients with DS, highlighting the need for age-appropriate cognitive assessments and further research using biomarkers.
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Loss-of-function mutations in the lysosomal nucleoside transporter SLC29A3 cause lysosomal nucleoside storage and histiocytosis: phagocyte accumulation in multiple organs. However, little is known about the mechanism by which lysosomal nucleoside storage drives histiocytosis. Herein, histiocytosis in Slc29a3-/- mice was shown to depend on Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7), which senses a combination of nucleosides and oligoribonucleotides (ORNs).

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Background: Thiopurines continue to play an important role in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It is well known that thiopurines can cause several adverse reactions. Especially, hematopoietic toxicity may lead to severe agranulocytosis.

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Objective: Amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) can reliably detect senile plaques and fluorinated ligands are approved for clinical use. However, the clinical impact of amyloid PET imaging is still under investigation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic impact and clinical utility in patient management of amyloid PET using F-florbetapir in patients with cognitive impairment and suspected Alzheimer's disease (AD).

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  • The α-Synuclein V15A variant has been linked to Parkinson's disease in two Caucasian families, but its significance was previously unclear.
  • Researchers conducted a comprehensive analysis of the variant's effects on phospholipid binding and protein aggregation in cells, discovering it to be rare and potentially pathogenic.
  • V15A showed stronger amplification of α-Syn fibrils compared to wild-type and had a lowered affinity for phospholipids, suggesting it could contribute to Parkinson's disease development.
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Background & Aims: Coexistence of obesity and decreased muscle strength, defined as sarcopenic obesity, is often observed in the older adults. The present study investigated whether sarcopenic obesity, defined as reduced handgrip strength and increased body mass index (BMI), is associated with cognitive impairment.

Methods: Study participants include 1615 older adults aged 65-84 years who lived in an urban area of Tokyo, Japan and participated in the Bunkyo Health Study.

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  • A study was conducted on 2,527 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients to explore the effects of parkin RBR E3 ubiquitin protein ligase (PRKN) variants, enrolling 2,322 patients, including those with familial and sporadic PD.
  • Out of 242 patients with identified PRKN variants, 13 were newly discovered, and patients were categorized based on whether they had one or two mutated alleles.
  • Those with two mutated alleles experienced earlier onset of PD symptoms and exhibited more severe disease progression over 15 years compared to those with only one mutated allele, indicating a correlation between the number of mutations and symptom severity.
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Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease characterized by autoantibody production and multiple organ damage. Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7), an innate immune RNA sensor expressed in monocytes/macrophages, dendritic cells (DCs), and B cells, promotes disease progression. However, little is known about the cellular mechanisms through which TLR7 drives lupus nephritis.

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  • * In a study of 1,531 older adults in Tokyo, 16.4% of participants were found to have SLI, with increased risk linked to lower levels of insulin sensitivity and muscle strength.
  • * Those with the lowest insulin sensitivity and muscle strength were found to be 4.33 times more likely to experience SLI compared to those with the highest levels, highlighting the combined risk these factors pose.
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Background: The amyloid-β oligomers, consisting of 10-20 monomers (AβO10-20), have strong neurotoxicity and are associated with cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, their role in patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is poorly understood.

Objective: We hypothesized that cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) AβO10-20 accumulates in patients with iNPH, and its clearance after CSF shunting contributes to neurological improvement.

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Although l-carnitine alleviated white-matter lesions in an experimental study, the treatment effects of l-carnitine on white-matter microstructural damage and cognitive decline in hemodialysis patients are unknown. Using novel diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) techniques, white-matter microstructural changes together with cognitive decline in hemodialysis patients and the effects of l-carnitine on such disorders were investigated. Fourteen hemodialysis patients underwent dMRI and laboratory and neuropsychological tests, which were compared across seven patients each in two groups according to duration of l-carnitine treatment: (1) no or short-term l-carnitine treatment (NSTLC), and (2) long-term l-carnitine treatment (LTLC).

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  • Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the specific mechanisms connecting the two are not fully understood.
  • Researchers found that SGK1, a protein activated by a chronic high-fat diet (HFD), plays a role in promoting tau pathology, a hallmark of AD, by phosphorylating tau and activating the kinase GSK-3ß.
  • Increased levels of SGK1 in the hippocampus lead to neurodegeneration and cognitive impairments, suggesting that SGK1 connects T2DM and AD by influencing tau pathology in response to glucocorticoids and high blood sugar.
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Dementia has an enormous impact on medical and financial resources in aging societies like Japan. Diagnosis of dementia can be made by physical and mental examinations, imaging tests, and findings of high abnormal proteins in cerebrospinal fluids. In addition, genetic tests can be performed in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and Parkinson's disease (PD).

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Different conformational strains of tau have been implicated in the clinicopathological heterogeneity of tauopathies. In this study, we hypothesized that distinct strains are degraded in a different manner. Lithium, a drug for bipolar disorder, had previously been reported to reduce aggregation-prone protein content by promoting autophagy.

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Background: Human tauopathy brain injections into the mouse brain induce the development of tau aggregates, which spread to functionally connected brain regions; however, the features of this neurotoxicity remain unclear. One reason may be short observational periods because previous studies mostly used mutated-tau transgenic mice and needed to complete the study before these mice developed neurofibrillary tangles.

Objective: To examine whether long-term incubation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain in the mouse brain cause functional decline.

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Toll-like receptors (TLRs) impact myeloid cell responsiveness to environmental cues such as pathogen components and metabolites. Although TLR protein expression in monocytes and tissue macrophages is thought to be optimized for microenvironments in each tissue, a comprehensive study has not been reported. We here examined protein expression of endogenous TLRs in tissue-resident myeloid cells.

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In tauopathies, tau forms pathogenic fibrils with distinct conformations (termed "tau strains") and acts as an aggregation "seed" templating the conversion of normal tau into isomorphic fibrils. Previous research showed that the aggregation core of tau fibril covers the C-terminal region (243-406 amino acids (aa)) and differs among the diseases. However, the mechanisms by which distinct fibrous structures are formed and inherited via templated aggregation are still unknown.

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Purpose: Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) are geriatric diseases and common causes of dementia. Recently, many studies on the segmentation, disease detection, or classification of MRI using deep learning have been conducted. The aim of this study was to differentiate iNPH and AD using a residual extraction approach in the deep learning method.

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