Anti-Atherogenic Effect of Stem Cell Nanovesicles Targeting Disturbed Flow Sites.

Atherosclerosis development leads to irreversible cascades, highlighting the unmet need for improved methods of early diagnosis and prevention. Disturbed flow formation is one of the earliest atherogenic events, resulting in increased endothelial permeability and subsequent monocyte recruitment. Here, a mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-derived nanovesicle (NV) that can target disturbed flow sites with the peptide GSPREYTSYMPH (PREY) (PMSC-NVs) is presented which is selected through phage display screening of a hundred million peptides.

Understanding of the functional role(s) of the Activating Transcription Factor 4(ATF4) in HIV regulation and production.

The activating transcription factor (ATF) 4 belongs to the ATF/CREB (cAMP Response Element Binding bZIP [Basic Leucine Zipper]) transcription factor family, and plays a central role in the UPR (Unfolded Protein Response) process in cells. The induction of ATF4 expression has previously been shown to increase the replication of HIV-1. However, the detailed mechanism underlying this effect and the factors involved in the regulation of ATF4 function are still unknown.

Investigation of functional roles of transcription termination factor-1 (TTF-I) in HIV-1 replication.

Transcription termination factor-1 (TTF-I) is an RNA polymerase 1-mediated transcription terminator and consisting of a C-terminal DNA-binding domain, central domain, and N-terminal regulatory domain. This protein binds to a so-called 'Sal box' composed of an 11-base pair motif. The interaction of TTF-I with the 'Sal box' is important for many cellular events, including efficient termination of RNA polymerase-1 activity involved in pre-rRNA synthesis and formation of a chromatin loop.

Investigation of function and regulation of the YB-1 cellular factor in HIV replication.

Y-box binding protein 1 (YB-1) is a member of the cold-shock domain (CSD) protein superfamily. It participates in a wide variety of cellular events, including transcription, RNA splicing, translation, DNA repair, drug resistance, and stress responses. We investigated putative functions of YB-1 in HIV-1 replication.

Information-theoretic discrepancy based iterative reconstructions (IDIR) for polychromatic x-ray tomography.

Purpose: X-ray photons generated from a typical x-ray source for clinical applications exhibit a broad range of wavelengths, and the interactions between individual particles and biological substances depend on particles' energy levels. Most existing reconstruction methods for transmission tomography, however, neglect this polychromatic nature of measurements and rely on the monochromatic approximation. In this study, we developed a new family of iterative methods that incorporates the exact polychromatic model into tomographic image recovery, which improves the accuracy and quality of reconstruction.

Complex wavefront shaping for optimal depth-selective focusing in optical coherence tomography.

We report on an approach to exploit multiple light scattering by shaping the incident wavefront in optical coherence tomography (OCT). Most of the reflected signal from biological tissue consists of multiply scattered light, which is regarded as noise in OCT. A digital mirror device (DMD) is utilized to shape the incident wavefront such that the maximal energy is focused at a specific depth in a highly scattering sample using a coherence-gated reflectance signal as feedback.

Factors affecting the psychophysical image quality evaluation of mobile phone displays: the case of transmissive liquid-crystal displays.

Display manufacturers require new data and computational models that consider the effect of ambient illumination in order to develop higher-quality displays. In this study, typical variations of small-sized mobile LCDs that exist in the real world were first simulated using a device characterization technique. In addition, psychophysical attributes (e.