Publications by authors named "Sergio Sara"

Article Synopsis
  • A study was conducted to see if adding platelet reactivity (PR) evaluation to the existing ACEF score could enhance the diagnostic accuracy for patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) treated with percutaneous coronary intervention.
  • The findings showed that the new PR-ACEF score significantly outperformed the original ACEF score in predicting outcomes such as death and myocardial infarction (MI) as well as major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE).
  • The PR-ACEF score also demonstrated strong long-term predictive ability, with high values indicating a greater risk of death/MI and MACE over a 5-year period.
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Background And Aims: Conflicting data are available regarding the association between periprocedural myocardial infarction (PMI) and mortality following percutaneous coronary intervention. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the incidence and prognostic implication of PMI according to the Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction (UDMI), the Academic Research Consortium (ARC)-2 definition, and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) definition.

Methods: Studies reporting adjusted effect estimates were systematically searched.

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Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, primarily associated with dopaminergic neuron depletion in the Substantia Nigra. Current treatment focuses on compensating for dopamine (DA) deficiency, but the blood-brain barrier (BBB) poses challenges for effective drug delivery. Using differentiated SH-SY5Y cells, we investigated the co-administration of DA and the antioxidant Grape Seed Extract (GSE) to study the cytobiocompability, the cytoprotection against the neurotoxin Rotenone, and their antioxidant effects.

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Gynecological cancer management remains challenging and a better understanding of molecular mechanisms that lead to carcinogenesis and development of these diseases is needed to improve the therapeutic approaches. The Na/H exchanger regulatory factor 1 (NHERF1) is a scaffold protein that contains modular protein-interaction domains able to interact with molecules with an impact on carcinogenesis and cancer progression. During recent years, its involvement in gynecological cancers has been explored, suggesting that NHERF1 could be a potential biomarker for the development of new targeted therapies suitable to the management of these tumors.

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Mechanical cues sensed by tumor cells in their microenvironment can influence important mechanisms including adhesion, invasion and proliferation. However, a common mechanosensitive protein and/or pathway can be regulated in different ways among diverse types of tumors. Of particular interest are human breast epithelial cancers, which markedly exhibit a heterogeneous pattern of nuclear β-catenin localization, a protein known to be involved in both mechanotransduction and tumorigenesis.

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Importance: Contact lens microbial keratitis (CLMK) is the most common cause of microbial keratitis in our community.

Background: Define the trend in rate of CLMK and define patient demographics/culture results that may have a predictive value in patients with CLMK.

Design: Retrospective review of clinical records of patients with MK.

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Purpose: To describe the usage patterns of steroids in bacterial keratitis and to analyze the effect of steroids on patients' visual outcomes.

Methods: This was a single-center retrospective review of patients with culture-positive bacterial keratitis treated between 1999 and 2015 at Princess Alexandra Hospital (Brisbane, Australia). Patients with culture-positive bacterial keratitis were identified through the Queensland Pathology Database, and clinical information was gathered through a subsequent medical record review.

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Nuclear activated β-catenin plays a causative role in colorectal cancers (CRC) but remains an elusive therapeutic target. Using human CRC cells harboring different Wnt/β-catenin pathway mutations in APC/KRAS or β-catenin/KRAS genes, and both genetic and pharmacological knockdown approaches, we show that oncogenic β-catenin signaling negatively regulates the expression of NHERF1 (Na/H exchanger 3 regulating factor 1), a PDZ-adaptor protein that is usually lost or downregulated in early dysplastic adenomas to exacerbate nuclear β-catenin activity. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays demonstrated that β-catenin represses NHERF1 via TCF4 directly, while the association between TCF1 and the Nherf1 promoter increased upon β-catenin knockdown.

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We designed 3-aroyl-1,4-diarylpyrrole (ARDAP) derivatives as potential anticancer agents having different substituents at the 1- or 4-phenyl ring. ARDAP compounds exhibited potent inhibition of tubulin polymerization, binding of colchicine to tubulin, and cancer cell growth. ARDAP derivative inhibited the proliferation of BCR/ABL-expressing KU812 and LAMA84 cells from chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients in blast crisis and of hematopoietic cells ectopically expressing the imatinib mesylate (IM)-sensitive KBM5-WT or its IM-resistant KBM5-T315I mutation.

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The past few years has seen a resurgence of syphilis. It is predominantly associated within men who have sex with men and also within heterosexual Indigenous Australians. Possessing the ability to mimic a variety of ocular diseases, it typically manifests as uveitis, although it can affect any structure within the eye.

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Mycotic keratitis is an ocular infective process derived from any fungal species capable of corneal invasion. Despite its rarity in developed countries, its challenging and elusive diagnosis may result in keratoplasty or enucleation following failed medical management. Filamentous fungi such as Fusarium are often implicated in mycotic keratitis.

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The presentation of proteins on surfaces is fundamental to numerous cell culture and tissue engineering applications. While a number of physisorption and cross-linking methods exist to facilitate this process, few avoid denaturation of proteins or allow control over protein orientation, both of which are critical to the functionality of many signal proteins and ligands. Often recombinant protein sequences include a poly-histidine tag to facilitate purification.

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NEAT1 RNA, a highly abundant 4 kb ncRNA, is retained in nuclei in approximately 10 to 20 large foci that we show are completely coincident with paraspeckles, nuclear domains implicated in mRNA nuclear retention. Depletion of NEAT1 RNA via RNAi eradicates paraspeckles, suggesting that it controls sequestration of the paraspeckle proteins PSP1 and p54, factors linked to A-I editing. Unlike overexpression of PSP1, NEAT1 overexpression increases paraspeckle number, and paraspeckles emanate exclusively from the NEAT1 transcription site.

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The heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) A2 is a multi-tasking protein that acts in the cytoplasm and nucleus. We have explored the possibility that this protein is associated with telomeres and participates in their maintenance. Rat brain hnRNP A2 was shown to have two nucleic acid binding sites.

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