Background: Few studies have compared the efficacy and safety of second-line biological therapies in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients with prior exposure to anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapy. We aim to compare the efficacy and safety between ustekinumab, vedolizumab, and tofacitinib, a current option as second-line biological therapy with different mechanisms in those patients.
Methods: This retrospective multi-center study was conducted across five institutions from 2011 to 2022.
Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is the most prevalent histological type of thyroid cancer (TC) worldwide. Although tumor metastasis occurs in regional lymph nodes, distant metastasis (DM) may also occur. Radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy is an effective treatment for TC; however, resistance to RAI occurs in patients with DM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRapid changes in agricultural environments caused by global warming pose a major challenge to food production and safety. Common wheat () is a hexaploid plant (AABBDD) that shares large numbers of quantitative traits and resistance genes with B and D genomes of species, which are responsible for several metabolic functions and biosynthetic processes, particularly in plant adaptation to biotic as well as abiotic stresses. Comparatively, the abundance of the gene pool is much higher than that of .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntestinal injury is observed in cancer patients after radiotherapy and in individuals exposed to radiation after a nuclear accident. Radiation disrupts normal vascular homeostasis in the gastrointestinal system by inducing endothelial damage and senescence. Despite advances in medical technology, the toxicity of radiation to healthy tissue remains an issue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Plants are frequently subjected to abiotic and biotic stresses, and WRKY proteins play a pivotal role in the response to such stress. OsWRKY11 is induced by pathogens, drought, and heat, suggesting a function in biotic and abiotic stress responses.
Results: This study identified OsWRKY11, a member of WRKY group IIc.
Bakanae disease (BD) has emerged as a serious threat in almost all rice cultivation regions worldwide. Nampyeong is a Korean japonica rice variety known to be resistant to BD. In this study, quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping was performed with F2 and F3 plants derived from a cross between the Nampyeong variety and a susceptible Korean japonica line, DongjinAD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of this study was to observe the change of lumbosacral angle and intervertebral disc (IVD) area. The study was conducted on chronic low back pain (CLBP) female patients for 12 weeks by operating sling exercise and general physical therapy. The 57 CLBP were divided into 2 groups which, sling exercise group (SEG, n=34) and general physical therapy group (PTG, n=23).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent studies confirmed a critical importance of c-Met signaling for liver regeneration by modulating redox balance. Here we used liver-specific conditional knockout mice (MetKO) and a nutritional model of hepatic steatosis to address the role of c-Met in cholesterol-mediated liver toxicity. Liver injury was assessed by histopathology and plasma enzymes levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe relative contribution of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)/MET and epidermal growth factor (EGF)/EGF receptor (EGFR), two key signal transduction systems in the normal and diseased liver, to fate decisions of adult hepatic progenitor cells (HPCs) has not been resolved. Here, we developed a robust culture system that permitted expansion and genetic manipulation of cells capable of multilineage differentiation in vitro and in vivo to examine the individual roles of HGF/MET and EGF/EGFR in HPC self-renewal and binary cell fate decision. By employing loss-of-function and rescue experiments in vitro, we showed that both receptors collaborate to increase the self-renewal of HPCs through activation of the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFunctional gene transfer from the plastid to the nucleus is rare among land plants despite evidence that DNA transfer to the nucleus is relatively frequent. During the course of sequencing plastid genomes from representative species from three rosid genera (Castanea, Prunus, Theobroma) and ongoing projects focusing on the Fagaceae and Passifloraceae, we identified putative losses of rpl22 in these two angiosperm families. We further characterized rpl22 from three species of Passiflora and one species of Quercus and identified sequences that likely represent pseudogenes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPacing Clin Electrophysiol
March 2012
We describe a patient with gastroparesis after radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) as a result of vagus nerve injury. A 42-year-old man underwent redo-RFCA due to recurrent drug-resistant symptomatic atrial fibrillation. The patient complained of indigestion and early satiety 2 weeks after the second procedure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Among available biomaterials, bioceramics have drawn special interest due to their bioactivity and the possibility of tailoring their composition. The degradation rate and formulation of bioceramics can be altered to mimic the compositions of the mineral phase of bone. The aim of this study was to investigate the bone formation effect of amorphous calcium phosphate glass cement (CPGC) synthesized by a melting and quenching process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRetrocyclin-101 (RC101) and Protegrin-1 (PG1) are two important antimicrobial peptides that can be used as therapeutic agents against bacterial and/or viral infections, especially those caused by the HIV-1 or sexually transmitted bacteria. Because of their antimicrobial activity and complex secondary structures, they have not yet been produced in microbial systems and their chemical synthesis is prohibitively expensive. Therefore, we created chloroplast transformation vectors with the RC101 or PG1 coding sequence, fused with GFP to confer stability, furin or Factor Xa cleavage site to liberate the mature peptide from their fusion proteins and a His-tag to aid in their purification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To identify and measure distortions inherent in the casting process of a Class III mandibular cobalt-chromium (Co-Cr) framework to illustrate the problems faced by the laboratory technician and the clinician and to measure the changes that occur during the correction of the fit discrepancy using laser welding.
Materials And Methods: Five identical castings of a Co-Cr alloy partial denture casting were made and measured between 3 widely separated points using the x, y, and z adjustments of a Nikon Measurescope. The same measurements were made after each of the following clinical and laboratory procedures: sprue removal, sectioning of the casting into 3 parts through the posterior meshwork, fitting the segments to the master cast, picking up the segments using resin, and laser welding of the 3 segments.
Chickpea (Cicerarietinum, Leguminosae), an important grain legume, is widely used for food and fodder throughout the world. We sequenced the complete plastid genome of chickpea, which is 125,319bp in size, and contains only one copy of the inverted repeat (IR). The genome encodes 108 genes, including 4 rRNAs, 29 tRNAs, and 75 proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe complete sequence of the chloroplast genome of cassava (Manihot esculenta, Euphorbiaceae) has been determined. The genome is 161,453 bp in length and includes a pair of inverted repeats (IR) of 26,954 bp. The genome includes 128 genes; 96 are single copy and 16 are duplicated in the IR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAngiosperms are the largest and most successful clade of land plants with >250,000 species distributed in nearly every terrestrial habitat. Many phylogenetic studies have been based on DNA sequences of one to several genes, but, despite decades of intensive efforts, relationships among early diverging lineages and several of the major clades remain either incompletely resolved or weakly supported. We performed phylogenetic analyses of 81 plastid genes in 64 sequenced genomes, including 13 new genomes, to estimate relationships among the major angiosperm clades, and the resulting trees are used to examine the evolution of gene and intron content.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComparisons of complete chloroplast genome sequences of Hordeum vulgare, Sorghum bicolor and Agrostis stolonifera to six published grass chloroplast genomes reveal that gene content and order are similar but two microstructural changes have occurred. First, the expansion of the IR at the SSC/IRa boundary that duplicates a portion of the 5' end of ndhH is restricted to the three genera of the subfamily Pooideae (Agrostis, Hordeum and Triticum). Second, a 6 bp deletion in ndhK is shared by Agrostis, Hordeum, Oryza and Triticum, and this event supports the sister relationship between the subfamilies Erhartoideae and Pooideae.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Biomed Mater Res B Appl Biomater
November 2007
The objective of this investigation was to analyze whether various combinations of the ROS scavengers glutathione (GSH), N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), and vitamins C and E decrease DNA damage due to visible-light-irradiated (VL-irradiated) camphorquinone/N,N-dimethyl-p-toluidine (CQ/DMT) compared with individual vitamin C or E. PhiX-174 RF plasmid DNA was used to determine single and double strand breaks as parameters of DNA damage. Individual ROS scavengers and combinations of the antioxidants were added to plasmid DNA treated with VL-irradiated CQ/DMT/Cu (II).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe chloroplast genome sequence of Coffea arabica L., the first sequenced member of the fourth largest family of angiosperms, Rubiaceae, is reported. The genome is 155 189 bp in length, including a pair of inverted repeats of 25,943 bp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRedd1, a recently discovered stress-response gene, is regulated by hypoxia via hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) and by DNA damage via p53/p63; however, the signaling pathway by which its expression is induced by hypoxia has not been elucidated. In the present study, we demonstrated that the expression of Redd1 in response to hypoxia (1% O(2)), hypoxia-mimetic agent, cobalt chloride (CoCl(2)) and high cell density (HCD) requires coactivation of HIF-1alpha and Sp1. CoCl(2) and HCD induced the activation of HIF-1alpha and Sp1 in HeLa cells, and siRNAs targeting HIF-1alpha and Sp1 abrogated Redd1 expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The production of Citrus, the largest fruit crop of international economic value, has recently been imperiled due to the introduction of the bacterial disease Citrus canker. No significant improvements have been made to combat this disease by plant breeding and nuclear transgenic approaches. Chloroplast genetic engineering has a number of advantages over nuclear transformation; it not only increases transgene expression but also facilitates transgene containment, which is one of the major impediments for development of transgenic trees.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Carrot (Daucus carota) is a major food crop in the US and worldwide. Its capacity for storage and its lifecycle as a biennial make it an attractive species for the introduction of foreign genes, especially for oral delivery of vaccines and other therapeutic proteins. Until recently efforts to express recombinant proteins in carrot have had limited success in terms of protein accumulation in the edible tap roots.
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