Publications by authors named "Pavlovic B"

The disproportionate expansion of telencephalic structures during human evolution involved tradeoffs that imposed greater connectivity and metabolic demands on midbrain dopaminergic neurons. Despite the central role of dopaminergic neurons in human-enriched disorders, molecular specializations associated with human-specific features and vulnerabilities of the dopaminergic system remain unexplored. Here, we establish a phylogeny-in-a-dish approach to examine gene regulatory evolution by differentiating pools of human, chimpanzee, orangutan, and macaque pluripotent stem cells into ventral midbrain organoids capable of forming long-range projections, spontaneous activity, and dopamine release.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study examines how dry-needling affects the quality of life of athletes dealing with myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) using a sample of 50 athletes (38 males, 12 females).
  • Treatments were conducted over four sessions, targeting 55 different muscles, and participants’ quality of life was measured through the SF-36 health survey.
  • Results showed significant improvements in various quality-of-life aspects like physical functioning, emotional problems, and vitality, while general health perception remained unchanged.
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Although metastases to the paranasal sinuses are exceedingly rare, when they do occur, renal clear cell carcinoma is the most frequent primary tumor involved. The aim of this work was to present a case of metastatic clear cell renal carcinoma in the frontal sinus and orbit region, 7 years after the initial diagnosis and treatment. The patient was referred to our clinic due to drooping of the left eyelid and displacement of the left eyeball.

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Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) based screening of prostate cancer (PCa) needs refinement. The aim of this study was the identification of urinary biomarkers to predict the Prostate Imaging-Reporting and Data System (PI-RADS) score and the presence of PCa prior to prostate biopsy. Urine samples from patients with elevated PSA were collected prior to prostate biopsy (cohort = 99).

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Advancements in nanotechnology were vastly applied in medicine and pharmacy, especially in the field of nano-delivery systems. It took a long time for these systems to ensure precise delivery of very delicate molecules, such as RNA, to cells at concentrations that yield remarkable efficiency, with success rates reaching 95.0% and 94.

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Background: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is one of the most common health disorders in humans and has a major impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Of the many factors contributing to the etiology of CRS, less is known about the correlation between CRS and bacterial biofilms and their impact on HRQoL.

Objective: The aim of this prospective study was to investigate the relationship between biofilm-producing bacteria and patients' objective findings and HRQoL.

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Thalamic dysfunction has been implicated in multiple psychiatric disorders. We sought to study the mechanisms by which abnormalities emerge in the context of the 22q11.2 microdeletion, which confers significant genetic risk for psychiatric disorders.

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Fast and reliable evaluation of degradation and performance of cathode active materials (CAMs) for solid-state batteries (SSBs) is crucial to help better understand these systems and enable the synthesis of well-performing CAMs. However, there is a lack of well-thought-out procedures to reliably evaluate CAMs in SSBs. Current approaches often rely on X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) for the evaluation of degradation.

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Deletion of functional sequence is predicted to represent a fundamental mechanism of molecular evolution. Comparative genetic studies of primates have identified thousands of human-specific deletions (hDels), and the -regulatory potential of short (≤31 base pairs) hDels has been assessed using reporter assays. However, how structural variant-sized (≥50 base pairs) hDels influence molecular and cellular processes in their native genomic contexts remains unexplored.

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Electrochemical transformations are a subject of increasing interest in early drug discovery due to its ability to assemble complex scaffolds under rather mild reaction conditions. In this context, we became interested in electrochemical decarboxylative cross-coupling (DCC) protocols of redox-active esters (RAEs) and halo(hetero)arenes. Starting with the one-step electrochemical synthesis of novel methylamino-substituted heterocycles we recognized the potential of this methodology to deliver a novel approach to β- and γ- amino acids by starting from the corresponding RAEs.

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Bacterial biofilms play an important role in the pathogenesis of chronic upper respiratory tract infections. In addition to conventional antimicrobial therapy, N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) and propolis are dietary supplements that are often recommended as supportive therapy for upper respiratory tract infections. However, no data on the beneficial effect of their combination against bacterial biofilms can be found in the scientific literature.

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Unlabelled: Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive cancer with a defective response to DNA damage leading to an enhanced sensitivity to genotoxic agents. Mechanistically, Ewing sarcoma is driven by the fusion transcription factor EWS-FLI1, which reprograms the tumor cell epigenome. The nucleosome remodeling and deacetylase (NuRD) complex is an important regulator of chromatin function, controlling both gene expression and DNA damage repair, and has been associated with EWS-FLI1 activity.

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Comparative studies of great apes provide a window into our evolutionary past, but the extent and identity of cellular differences that emerged during hominin evolution remain largely unexplored. We established a comparative loss-of-function approach to evaluate whether human cells exhibit distinct genetic dependencies. By performing genome-wide CRISPR interference screens in human and chimpanzee pluripotent stem cells, we identified 75 genes with species-specific effects on cellular proliferation.

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Juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma is a rare and highly vascularized tumor that accounts for 0.05 to 0.5% of all head and neck neoplasms.

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Comparative studies of great apes provide a window into our evolutionary past, but the extent and identity of cellular differences that emerged during hominin evolution remain largely unexplored. We established a comparative loss-of-function approach to evaluate whether changes in human cells alter requirements for essential genes. By performing genome-wide CRISPR interference screens in human and chimpanzee pluripotent stem cells, we identified 75 genes with species-specific effects on cellular proliferation.

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Fifty percent of the world's population is infected with which can trigger many gastrointestinal disorders. eradication therapy consists of two to three antimicrobial medicinal products, but they exhibit limited efficacy and may cause adverse side effects. Alternative therapies are urgent.

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Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate cell and biochemical biomarkers and establish their prognostic value in patients with advanced laryngeal cancer.

Material And Methods: A prospective study included 52 patients with advanced laryngeal carcinoma surgically treated at the tertiary referral center. Tumor tissue was immunohistochemically stained for T-cell markers (CD4 and CD8), and levels of cytokines (IL-6 and IL-8) and C-reactive protein were analyzed from blood samples.

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PCa screening is based on the measurements of the serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) to select men with higher risks for tumors and, thus, eligible for prostate biopsy. However, PSA testing has a low specificity, leading to unnecessary biopsies in 50-75% of cases. Therefore, more specific screening opportunities are needed to reduce the number of biopsies performed on healthy men and patients with indolent tumors.

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Cell fusions have a long history of supporting biomedical research. These experimental models, historically referred to as 'somatic cell hybrids', involve combining the plasma membranes of two cells and merging their nuclei within a single cytoplasm. Cell fusion studies involving human and chimpanzee pluripotent stem cells, rather than somatic cells, highlight the need for responsible communication and a revised nomenclature.

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Granulomatosis with polyangiitis is a systemic vasculitis of unknown etiology, characterized by necrotizing granulomas. It is an autoimmune disease affecting small- and medium-sized vessels of upper and lower respiratory tract, kidneys, and other organs. We described a case of a patient with otitis media with effusion as the first manifestations of granulomatosis with polyangiitis.

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Although promising for active immunization in cancer patients, dendritic cells (DCs) vaccines generated display high inter-individual variability in their immunogenicity, which mostly limits their therapeutic efficacy. Gut microbiota composition is a key emerging factor affecting individuals' immune responses, but it is unknown how it affects the variability of donors' precursor cells to differentiate into immunogenic DCs . By analyzing gut microbiota composition in 14 healthy donors, along with the phenotype and cytokines production by monocyte-derived DCs, we found significant correlations between immunogenic properties of DC and microbiota composition.

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Rab GTPases are molecular switches that regulate membrane trafficking in all cells. Neurons have particular demands on membrane trafficking and express numerous Rab GTPases of unknown function. Here, we report the generation and characterization of molecularly defined null mutants for all 26 genes in .

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Inter-individual variation in gene expression has been shown to be heritable and is often associated with differences in disease susceptibility between individuals. Many studies focused on mapping associations between genetic and gene regulatory variation, yet much less attention has been paid to the evolutionary processes that shape the observed differences in gene regulation between individuals in humans or any other primate. To begin addressing this gap, we performed a comparative analysis of gene expression variability and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) in humans and chimpanzees, using gene expression data from primary heart samples.

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The NuRD complex subunit CHD4 is essential for fusion-positive rhabdomyosarcoma (FP-RMS) survival, but the mechanisms underlying this dependency are not understood. Here, a NuRD-specific CRISPR screen demonstrates that FP-RMS is particularly sensitive to CHD4 amongst the NuRD members. Mechanistically, NuRD complex containing CHD4 localizes to super-enhancers where CHD4 generates a chromatin architecture permissive for the binding of the tumor driver and fusion protein PAX3-FOXO1, allowing downstream transcription of its oncogenic program.

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Genetic screens are powerful tools for the functional annotation of genomes. In the context of multicellular organisms, interrogation of gene function is greatly facilitated by methods that allow spatial and temporal control of gene abrogation. Here, we describe a large-scale transgenic short guide (sg) RNA library for efficient CRISPR-based disruption of specific target genes in a constitutive or conditional manner.

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