miR-10 and Its Negative Correlation with Serum IL-35 Concentration and Positive Correlation with STAT5a Expression in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Circulating free-cell miRNAs are increasingly important as potential non-invasive biomarkers due to the easy accessibility of clinical materials. Moreover, their epigenetic role may provide insight into the mechanisms of pathogenesis. Nevertheless, these aspects are mostly studied in the area of oncological diseases.

IL-1β, IL-10 and TNF-α polymorphisms may affect systemic lupus erythematosus risk and phenotype.

Objectives: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease, and IL-1β, IL-10, and TNF-α genes are important in the pathogenesis of this disease. We studied the impact of IL-1β-511, IL-1β +3953, IL-10 -592, IL-10 -1082, TNF-α -308, TNF-α -238, and TNF-α +489 polymorphisms on SLE risk and phenotype in SLE patients and healthy controls.

Methods: We genotyped SLE patients and healthy controls by real-time PCR on QuantStudio 5 (Applied Biosystems) and measured levels of cytokines by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Th17/Treg-Related Transcriptional Factor Expression and Cytokine Profile in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Objectives: The aim of our study was to determine whether there is a correlation between transcription factors expression and Th17/Treg ratio, cytokine profile in the RA phenotype as well as to identify transcription factors that could be a potential biomarker for RA.

Methods: The study was conducted on 45 patients with RA, 27 patients with OA and 46 healthy controls (HCs). Th17 and Treg frequency was determined by flow cytometry (15 patients with RA/OA and 15 subjects of HC).

Variety of endosomal TLRs and Interferons (IFN-α, IFN-β, IFN-γ) expression profiles in patients with SLE, SSc and MCTD.

We investigated Toll-like receptor (TLR)-3/-7/-8/-9 and interferon (IFN)-α/β/γ mRNA expression in whole blood and serum IFN-α/β/γ levels in patients with mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and systemic sclerosis (SSc) and in healthy subjects to assess the association between the TLR-IFN expression and severity of and susceptibility to diseases, and identify potential biomarkers. Expression of the IFN-γ, TLR-3 and TLR-8 was detected only in SLE patients. TLR-7, IFN-α and IFN-β expression was highest in SLE, while TLR-9 expression was highest in SSc patients.

The Interplay between Transcriptional Factors and MicroRNAs as an Important Factor for Th17/Treg Balance in RA Patients.

MicroRNAs regulate gene expression of transcriptional factors, which influence Th17/Treg (regulatory T cells) balance, establishing the molecular mechanism of genetic and epigenetic regulation of Treg and Th17 cells is crucial for understanding rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pathogenesis. The study goal was to understand the potential impact of the selected microRNAs expression profiles on Treg/Th17 cells frequency, RA phenotype, the expression profile of selected microRNAs, and their correlation with the expression profiles of selected transcriptional factors: SOCS1, SMAD3, SMAD4, STAT3, STAT5 in RA; we used osteoarthritis (OA) and healthy controls (HCs) as controls. The study was conducted on 14 RA and 11 OA patients, and 15 HCs.

Cytotoxic Action of N-aryl, Furan-derived Aminophosphonates against HT29 and HCT116 Cancer Cell Lines.

Background: The anticancer activity of aminophosphonic derivatives has been described extensively, some recent papers included furan-derived aminophosphonates and their cytostatic action against various cancer cells.

Objective: A series of twelve furan-derived dibenzyl and diphenyl aminophosphonates 2a-f and 3a-f was synthesized and tested in aspect of their cytotoxic action on two cell lines of colorectal cancer: HT29 and HCT116. Seven of them are new compounds, while the rest five have already been published by us, together with their cytotoxic action against squamous esophageal cancer cells.

Convenient Synthesis of [closo-BH-1-I] and [closo-BH-1,10-I] Anions.

Two iodo derivatives, [closo-BH-1-I] (1) and [closo-BH-1,10-I] (2), were obtained from the parent [closo-BH] anion in a two-step process and about 60% and 80% overall yields, respectively. Molecular and crystal structures of 2[PrN] were established with XRD methods: I422; a = b = 10.1531(1) Å, c = 18.