Publications by authors named "Nagaoka K"

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure triggers pulmonary inflammation, leading to compromised lung function in broiler. As amplified by policy restrictions on antibiotic usage, seeking antibiotic alternatives has become imperative. Mogroside V (MGV) has been reported to have a beneficial role in livestock and poultry production due to its remarkable anti-inflammatory effects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive malignancy with a poor prognosis. Mac2-binding protein glycosylated isomer (M2BPGi), a known biomarker for liver fibrosis, is also elevated in other fibrotic tissues. However, its role in PDAC remains unexplored.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Gastric cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths and the study focuses on improving personalized treatment approaches through genomic data analysis.* -
  • Researchers analyzed genetic information from 65 advanced gastric cancer patients to develop a machine learning model that predicts chemotherapy outcomes with 70-80% accuracy.* -
  • The study highlights tumor-associated neutrophils as significant predictors of treatment success, suggesting they could be used as biomarkers for better tailored therapies.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, Japan's health insurance system allowed continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) telephone consultations to extend clinic visit intervals. This study aimed to determine whether 6-month CPAP adherence in the telemedicine (TM) group was inferior to that in the standard care group.

Methods: Patients receiving long-term CPAP therapy for at least 6 months for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) from two clinics in Japan were recruited between May and July 2020.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Sore throat is a prevalent symptom of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), particularly when caused by the Omicron variants. However, the association between sore throat and immune responses to different severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 variants remains unclear. This study aimed to elucidate the characteristics of immune responses associated with sore throat in patients with COVID-19 before and after the emergence of Omicron.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Stress significantly affects gastrointestinal and mental health, and the gut microbiota plays a pivotal role in this process. Enterococcus faecalis strain EC-12 (EC-12) is a lactic acid bacterium that has several health benefits. To investigate the impact of oral supplementation with heat-killed EC-12 on the discomfort caused by stress, a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted with students under academic stress taking EC-12 (n = 14) or a placebo (n = 13) daily for one week.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Antibiotics are used in swine production for growth promotion and disease prevention, raising concerns about environmental contamination and antibiotic resistance. In this study, we investigated the effects of enramycin supplementation on piglet growth, gut microbiota and blood metabolites. Enramycin promotes piglet growth and temporarily reduces diarrhoea.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Biliary amputation neuroma is a rare benign tumor that can occur after surgeries like cholecystectomy, causing challenges in distinguishing it from cholangiocarcinoma.
  • A case involving a 64-year-old man showed a bile duct tumor discovered incidentally, leading to multiple biopsies that initially did not rule out cancer, but surgery revealed it to be a benign amputation neuroma.
  • The findings highlight the importance of considering amputation neuromas in patients with prior bile duct surgeries and the usefulness of rapid intraoperative histological examination to prevent unnecessary extensive surgeries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Protein complexes are crucial structures that control many biological processes. Harnessing these structures could be valuable for therapeutic therapy. However, their instability and short lifespans need to be addressed for effective use.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Case 1: A 71-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with progressive fever and dyspnea, which had developed three days after the onset of COVID-19. Initial chest computed tomography (CT) revealed a pulmonary lesion consistent with a secondary bacterial infection. Streptococcus pyogenes was isolated from cultures of primary sputum collected from the endotracheal tube, and identified as the causative microorganism.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Biliary tract cancer (BTC) has a poor prognosis and limited treatment options, but advances in next generation sequencing have made comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) more common in clinical practice.
  • A study analyzed genomic and clinical data from 85 BTC patients who underwent CGP testing, revealing that 73% received new treatment recommendations, predominantly for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC).
  • Patients treated with genomically matched therapy, particularly pemigatinib for those with the FGFR2 fusion gene, showed significantly longer overall survival compared to those who did not receive such therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

There is no established treatment for bleeding bile duct varices (BDVs). We report the first case of portal vein (PV) stenting completely eradicating bleeding BDVs. A 70-year-old male with malignant lymphoma developed BDVs due to PV obstruction, which had caused compression and stricture of the distal bile duct.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hydrogen is a promising combustion improver for use with ammonia fuels, but a cost-effective method for easily producing hydrogen from ammonia at a high rate has yet to be developed. Here, we show that microwave irradiation instantly triggers oxidative decomposition of ammonia over a Co/CeZrO catalyst to produce hydrogen at a high rate. The microwave irradiation rapidly heats the inside of the catalyst from room temperature to the catalytic auto-ignition temperature of ammonia, thus initiating exothermic oxidative decomposition of ammonia to produce hydrogen.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vibrio parahaemolyticus has two sets of type III secretion systems that are major pathogenic factors: T3SS1 (cytotoxicity) and T3SS2 (enterotoxicity). V. parahaemolyticus mainly colonizes the distal small intestine after oral infection and may be exposed to carbon-limiting stress due to the lack of readily available carbohydrates in this environment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A 69-year-old female was presented with a history of sigmoid colon cancer, uterine cancer, and intrahepatic carcinomas. After computed tomography revealed a disseminated nodule located in the peritoneum, colonoscopy demonstrated a rather flat-to-slightly elevated lesion with a depressed area located in the ascending colon. The flat component showed color similar to its surrounding area, and the depressed area showed redness and an expanded appearance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Aim: Serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) before the administration of atezolizumab plus bevacizumab (Atez + Bev) is a prognostic biomarker in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with Atez + Bev. We previously revealed that the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and serum chemokine levels during treatment with Atez + Bev were more useful as prognostic biomarkers. Therefore, we examined the predictive ability of serum IL-6 for the efficacy of Atez + Bev in patients with HCC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tizoxanide (TZX) is an active metabolite of nitazoxanide (NTZ) originally developed as an antiparasitic agent, and is predominantly metabolized into TZX glucuronide. In the present study, TZX glucuronidation by the liver and intestinal microsomes of humans, monkeys, dogs, rats, and mice, and recombinant human UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) were examined. The kinetics of TZX glucuronidation by the liver and intestinal microsomes followed the Michaelis-Menten or biphasic model, with species-specific variations in the intrinsic clearance (CL).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Sleep health is known to be multidimensional, and there is increasing clinical interest in composite sleep health scores that capture the number of adverse sleep characteristics. We investigated whether a composite sleep health score was associated with depressive symptoms in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP).

Methods: Participants were OSA patients using CPAP (n = 1768, (92.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The level of neutralizing antibodies required to confer protection against COVID-19 breakthrough infections (BIs) is unclear, and the ability to know the immune status of individuals against the rapidly changing endemic variants is limited. We assessed longitudinal serum anti-RBD antibody levels and neutralizing activities (NTs) against Omicron BA.5 and XBB.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

(233/250) Retinal vein occlusion (RVO) causes macular edema and retinal ischemia resulting in visual field and vision loss. A bispecific antibody that blocks VEGF-A and angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) has been recently launched and applied clinically to treat macular edema, but the role of Ang-2 in the pathogenesis of RVO is still unclear. In this study, we investigated the effects of the anti-VEGF-A/anti-Ang-2 bispecific antibody (BsAb) in a murine RVO model.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Early life environment influences mammalian brain development, a growing area of research within the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease framework, necessitating a deeper understanding of early life factors on children's brain development. This study introduces a mouse model, knockout mice, to investigate the relationship between breast milk, the gut microbiome, and brain development. The results reveal that breast milk's reactive oxygen species (ROS) are vital in shaping the neonatal gut microbiota.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Cancer immunotherapy aims to unleash the immune system's potential against cancer cells, providing sustained relief for tumors responsive to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). While promising in gastric cancer (GC) trials, the efficacy of ICIs diminishes in the context of peritoneal dissemination. Our objective is to identify strategies to enhance the impact of ICI treatment specifically for cases involving peritoneal dissemination in GC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Despite the importance of abscess lesions in clinical decisions regarding anaerobic bacteremia (AB), their impact on clinical characteristics remains unclear. Herein, we aimed to elucidate the clinical factors associated with AB that were unaccompanied by detectable abscess lesions during the initial phase of infection.

Methods: This was a multicenter retrospective observational study involving patients with culture-proven AB at six tertiary hospitals in Japan between January 2012 and March 2022.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study explored the connection between microRNA levels in serum extracellular vesicles and the regression of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C who achieved a sustained virological response through direct-acting antiviral therapy.
  • - It involved analyzing a group of CHC patients, classifying them based on their levels of Mac-2-binding protein glycosylation isomer (M2BPGi), and specifically investigating miRNAs after treatment.
  • - The findings identified miR-223-3p as a significant predictor for liver fibrosis regression, showing that higher levels at 24 weeks post-treatment were linked to improved outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The gut microbiota (GM) is essential for mammalian health. Although the association between infant GM and breast milk (BM) composition has been well established in humans, such a relationship has not been investigated in horses. Hence, this study was conducted to analyze the GM formation of foals during lactation and determine the presence of low-molecular-weight metabolites in mares' BM and their role in shaping foals' GM.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF