Analysis of microplastics in various foods and assessment of aggregate human exposure via food consumption in korea.

Evidence of microplastics in humans has recently been demonstrated. The primary route of human exposure to microplastics is consumption of contaminated food and water. However, quantitative estimations of exposure to microplastics are limited, which hinders human health risk assessments.

Growth promotion effect of red ginseng dietary fiber to probiotics and transcriptome analysis of .

Background: Red ginseng marc, the residue of red ginseng left after water extraction, is rich in dietary fiber. Dietary fiber derived from fruits or vegetables can promote the proliferation of probiotics, and it is a key technology in the food industry to increase the productivity of probiotics by adding growth-enhancing substances such as dietary fiber. In this study, the effect of red ginseng dietary fiber (RGDF) on the growth of probiotic bacterial strains was investigated at the phenotypic and genetic levels.

Anti-Inflammatory Effects of KGC1601 Isolated from and Its Probiotic Characteristics.

We investigated the potential probiotic properties of KGC1601 isolated from . Ginseng cultivated in an experimental field of the Korea Ginseng Research Institute was fermented, followed by single colony selection from MRS agar. We performed 16s-rRNA sequencing and whole-genome analysis to identify and evaluate the biosafety parameters of this strain, respectively.

The balance between Bayesian inference and default mode determines the generation of tinnitus from decreased auditory input: A volume entropy-based study.

Along with phantom pain, tinnitus, a phantom auditory perception occurring in the absence of an external acoustic stimulus, is one of the most representative phantom perceptions that develops in subjects with decreased peripheral sensory input. Although tinnitus is closely associated with peripheral hearing loss (HL), it remains unclear why only some individuals with HL develop tinnitus. In this study, we investigated the differences between 65 HL with tinnitus (HL-T) and 104 HL with no tinnitus (HL-NT) using a resting-state electroencephalography data-based volume entropy model of the brain network, by comparing the afferent node capacities, that quantify the contribution of each node to the spread of information, of all Brodmann areas.

Microplastics in Food: A Review on Analytical Methods and Challenges.

Human exposure to microplastics contained in food has become a significant concern owing to the increasing accumulation of microplastics in the environment. In this paper, we summarize the presence of microplastics in food and the analytical methods used for isolation and identification of microplastics. Although a large number of studies on seafood such as fish and shellfish exist, estimating the overall human exposure to microplastics via food consumption is difficult owing to the lack of studies on other food items.

Screening of cytotoxic or cytostatic flavonoids with quantitative Fluorescent Ubiquitination-based Cell Cycle Indicator-based cell cycle assay.

The Fluorescent Ubiquitination-based Cell Cycle Indicator (FUCCI) system can be used not only to study gene expression at a specific cell cycle stage, but also to monitor cell cycle transitions in real time. In this study, we used a single clone of FUCCI-expressing HeLa cells (FUCCI-HeLa cells) and monitored the cell cycle in individual live cells over time by determining the ratios between red fluorescence (RF) of RFP-Cdt1 and green fluorescence (GF) of GFP-Geminin. Cytotoxic and cytostatic compounds, the latter of which induced G2 or mitotic arrest, were identified based on periodic cycling of the RF/GF and GF/RF ratios in FUCCI-HeLa cells treated with anti-cancer drugs.

Large-scale pharmacogenomics based drug discovery for ITGB3 dependent chemoresistance in mesenchymal lung cancer.

Even when targets responsible for chemoresistance are identified, drug development is often hampered due to the poor druggability of these proteins. We systematically analyzed therapy-resistance with a large-scale cancer cell transcriptome and drug-response datasets and predicted the candidate drugs based on the gene expression profile. Our results implicated the epithelial-mesenchymal transition as a common mechanism underlying resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs.

Multimode-pumped Raman amplification of a higher order mode in a large mode area fiber.

We report the first demonstration of Raman amplification in a fiber of a single Bessel-like higher order mode using a multimode pump source. We amplify the LP-mode with a 559-µm effective mode area at a signal wavelength of 1115 nm in a pure-silica-core step-index fiber. A maximum of 18 dB average power gain is achieved in a 9-m long gain fiber, with output pulse energy of 115 µJ.

BCL2 induced by LAMTOR3/MAPK is a druggable target of chemoradioresistance in mesenchymal lung cancer.

Mesenchymal-type cancers after epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) were recently shown to acquire chemoresistance through expressing EMT specific transcription factors. However, druggable (or actionable) target(s) for chemoresistance in mesenchymal-type lung cancers remain unidentified. Here, we used a public clinical genomic database and mesenchymal lung cancer cells (MLCC) model derived from the A549 lung adenocarcinoma cell line to demonstrate that BCL2 expression, which is highly induced in mesenchymal-type lung cancers, as a predictor of poor prognosis in mesenchymal lung cancer patients and association with acquired chemoradioresistance.

PRMT8 Controls the Pluripotency and Mesodermal Fate of Human Embryonic Stem Cells By Enhancing the PI3K/AKT/SOX2 Axis.

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) supplementation is critical to maintain the pluripotency of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) through activation of PI3K/AKT, rather than MEK/ERK pathway. Thus, elaborate molecular mechanisms that preserve PI3K/AKT signaling upon bFGF stimulation may exist in hPSCs. Protein arginine methyltransferase 8 (PRMT8) was expressed and then its level gradually decreased during spontaneous differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs).

Quercetin induced ROS production triggers mitochondrial cell death of human embryonic stem cells.

Small molecules to selectively induce cell death of undifferentiated human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have been developed with the aim of lowering the risk of teratoma formation during hPSC-based cell therapy. In this context, we have reported that Quercetin (QC) induces cell death selectively in hESCs via p53 mitochondrial localization. However, the detailed molecular mechanism by which hESCs undergo selective cell death induced by QC remains unclear.

Middle Meningeal Artery Embolization in Recurrent Chronic Subdural Hematoma Combined with Arachnoid Cyst.

Chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) is a collection of old blood and its breakdown products between the surface of the brain parenchyma and the outermost layer called the dura. The most common treatment option for primary CSDH is burr-hole trephination; however, the treatment method for recurrent CSDH is still widely debated. An arachnoid cyst (AC) is a sac filled with cerebrospinal fluid located between the brain or spinal cord and the arachnoid membrane, which is one of the three meninges covering the brain or spinal cord.

Clinical Analysis of Delayed Surgical Epidural Hematoma.

Objective: A small epidural hematoma (EDH) that has been diagnosed to be nonsurgical by initial brain computed tomography (CT) can increase in size and need surgical removal, resulting in a poor prognosis. However, there have been few studies, which focused delayed operated EDH. Therefore, we analyzed the clinical factors to determine the predicting factors of delayed operated EDH.

Induction of integrin β3 by sustained ERK activity promotes the invasiveness of TGFβ-induced mesenchymal tumor cells.

The emerging roles of integrin β3 in the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and drug resistance underline its significance in cancer metastasis and recurrence. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the distinctive expression of integrin β3 is less understood. In the present report, we demonstrated that repetitive exposure to transforming growth factor β (TGFβ), a potent inducer of the EMT, significantly increased the expression of integrin β3 in A549 lung cancer cells with distinct mesenchymal properties, such as actin filament reorganization and invasiveness.

Chronic TGFβ stimulation promotes the metastatic potential of lung cancer cells by Snail protein stabilization through integrin β3-Akt-GSK3β signaling.

Chronic exposure to TGFβ, a frequent occurrence for tumor cells in the tumor microenvironment, confers more aggressive phenotypes on cancer cells by promoting their invasion and migration while at the same time increasing their resistance to the growth-inhibitory effect of TGFβ. In this study, a transdifferentiated (TD) A549 cell model, established by chronically exposing A549 cells to TGFβ, showed highly invasive phenotypes in conjunction with attenuation of Smad-dependent signaling. We show that Snail protein, the mRNA expression of which strongly correlates with a poor prognosis in lung cancer patients, was highly stable in TD cells after TGFβ stimulation.