Innate Immune Training Initiates Efferocytosis to Protect against Lung Injury.

Innate immune training involves myelopoiesis, dynamic gene modulation, and functional reprogramming of myeloid cells in response to secondary heterologous challenges. The present study evaluates whether systemic innate immune training can protect tissues from local injury. Systemic pretreatment of mice with β-glucan, a trained immunity agonist, reduces the mortality rate of mice with bleomycin-induced lung injury and fibrosis, as well as decreasing collagen deposition in the lungs.

Panoramic dental tomosynthesis imaging by use of CBCT projection data.

Dental CBCT and panoramic images are important imaging modalities used in dental diagnosis and treatment planning. In order to acquire a panoramic image without an additional panoramic scan, in this study, we proposed a method of reconstructing a panoramic image by extracting panoramic projection data from dental CBCT projection data. After specifying the patient's dental arch from the patient's CBCT image, panoramic projection data are extracted from the CBCT projection data along the appropriate panoramic scan trajectory that fits the dental arch.

Special Issue: Resistance to Targeted Therapies in Human Cancer.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for approximately 10 million deaths in 2020 [...

MicroRNA-34a-5p as a promising early circulating preclinical biomarker of doxorubicin-induced chronic cardiotoxicity.

Cardiotoxicity is a serious adverse effect of an anticancer drug, doxorubicin (DOX), which can occur within a year or decades after completion of therapy. The present study was designed to address a knowledge gap concerning a lack of circulating biomarkers capable of predicting the risk of cardiotoxicity induced by DOX. Profiling of 2083 microRNAs (miRNAs) in mouse plasma revealed 81 differentially expressed miRNAs 1 week after 6, 9, 12, 18, or 24 mg/kg total cumulative DOX doses (early-onset model) or saline (SAL).

Doxorubicin-induced delayed-onset subclinical cardiotoxicity in mice.

Subclinical cardiotoxicity at low total cumulative doxorubicin (DOX) doses can manifest into cardiomyopathy in long-term cancer survivors. However, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. In male B6C3F mice, assessment of cardiac function by echocardiography was performed at 1, 4, 10, 17, and 24 weeks after exposure to 6, 9, 12, and 24 mg/kg total cumulative DOX doses or saline (SAL) to monitor development of delayed-onset cardiotoxicity.

Production of Membrane Vesicles in Cultured with or without Sub-Inhibitory Concentrations of Antibiotics and Their Innate Immune Responses In Vitro.

Listeriosis is a food-borne illness caused by . Ampicillin (AMP) alone or in combination with gentamicin (GEN) is the first-line treatment option. Membrane vesicle (MV) production in under antibiotic stress conditions and pathologic roles of these MVs in hosts have not been reported yet.

A synthesizing method for signal-enhanced and artifact-reduced mammogram from digital breast tomosynthesis.

In this paper, we propose a method for compositing a synthetic mammogram (SM) from digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) slice images. The method consists of four parts. The first part is image reconstruction of DBT from the acquired projection data by use of backprojection-filtration (BPF) algorithm with a low-frequency boosting scheme and a high-density object reduction technique embedded.

Wnt-PLC-IP-Connexin-Ca axis maintains ependymal motile cilia in zebrafish spinal cord.

Ependymal cells (ECs) are multiciliated neuroepithelial cells that line the ventricles of the brain and the central canal of the spinal cord (SC). How ependymal motile cilia are maintained remains largely unexplored. Here we show that zebrafish embryos deficient in Wnt signaling have defective motile cilia, yet harbor intact basal bodies.

Del-1, an Endogenous Inhibitor of TGF-β Activation, Attenuates Fibrosis.

Uncontrolled activation of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β results in a wide range of pathologic conditions. Therapeutic interventions to regulate TGF-β signaling during fibrosis have been developed but the effectiveness is still limited. Here, we show that developmental endothelial locus-1 (Del-1) ameliorates fibrosis in mice by inhibiting α integrin-mediated activation of TGF-β.

The effect of the type of anesthesia on the quality of postoperative recovery after orthopedic forearm surgery.

Background: Although the quality of postoperative recovery may be affected by factors, there are few investigations whether the type of anesthesia also affects it. In this single-blinded, prospective, observational study, we compared the quality of postoperative recovery in patients undergoing orthopedic forearm surgery under general or regional anesthesia (brachial plexus block).

Methods: Ninety-seven subjects, aged 18-65 years and American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status I or II, undergoing orthopedic forearm surgery, were allocated to general or regional anesthesia group.

Combination therapy of low-dose cyclosporine and steroid in adults with IgA nephropathy .

Background: A few clinical trials in IgA nephropathy (IgAN) have shown that cyclosporine A (CyA) had therapeutic efficacy in reducing proteinuria.

Materials And Methods: This is a retrospective study, and all cases were selected based on kidney biopsy-proven IgAN. We reviewed the data of IgAN patients in the glomerulonephritis registry at Kyung Hee University Medical center and collected data on 86 patients with urinary protein/Cr ratio (PCR; g/g) > 0.

The Relationship between Epidemiologic Factors and Usage Pattern of Hair Care Products in Korea.

Background: For hair care products that are used almost everyday, it is important to estimate the cumulative dosage of long-term exposure and to assess the effects on the human body. Little data are available to evaluate actual daily usage in Asian populations.

Objective: Reliable exposure data for hair care products is essential to conduct safety assessments.

Different epithelial cell response to membrane vesicles produced by Listeria monocytogenes cultured with or without salt stress.

We have previously shown that Listeria monocytogenes, a causative agent of listeriosis, can produce membrane vesicles (MVs) during in vitro culture. The aim of this study was to investigate the ability of MVs from L. monocytogenes cultured with or without salt stress to induce cytotoxicity and pro-inflammatory responses in colon epithelial Caco-2 cells.

Candidate early predictive plasma protein markers of doxorubicin-induced chronic cardiotoxicity in B6C3F mice.

Cardiotoxicity is a serious adverse effect of doxorubicin (DOX) treatment in cancer patients. Currently, there is a lack of sensitive biomarkers to predict the risk of DOX-induced cardiotoxicity. Using SOMAmer-based proteomic technology, 1129 proteins were profiled to identify potential early biomarkers of cardiotoxicity in plasma from male B6C3F mice given a weekly intravenous dose of 3 mg/kg DOX or saline (SAL) for 2, 3, 4, 6, or 8 weeks (6, 9, 12, 18, or 24 mg/kg cumulative DOX doses, respectively).

Socioeconomic factors influencing cosmetic usage patterns.

Despite daily exposure to chemicals in cosmetic products, there are few studies on the exposure levels to cosmetics particularly in Asians. We sought to investigate the usage pattern of cosmetics, including eye makeup products, fragrances, color makeups, and hair and nail care products, in Koreans. An online survey of 1,800 participants (908 males and 892 females, aged 15-59 years) from 5 Metropolitan cities (Seoul, Incheon, Daejeon, Daegu, and Busan) in Korea was conducted.

Optimal dose reduction algorithm using an attenuation-based tube current modulation method for cone-beam CT imaging.

To reduce the radiation dose given to patients, a tube current modulation (TCM) method has been widely used in diagnostic CT systems. However, the TCM method has not yet been applied to a kV-CBCT system on a LINAC machine. The purpose of this study is to investigate if a TCM method would be desirable in a kV-CBCT system for image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) or not.

Salt stress affects global protein expression profiles of extracellular membrane-derived vesicles of Listeria monocytogenes.

Our previous study has suggested that Listeria monocytogenes produces extracellular membrane vesicles (MVs) and its general stress transcription factor sigma B (σ) affects the production of MVs under energy stress. The objective of this study was to evaluate the production of MVs and perform global protein profiling for MVs with or without salt stress to understand the function of MVs in the pathogenesis of L. monocytogenes.

A Feasibility Study of Low-Dose Single-Scan Dual-Energy Cone-Beam CT in Many-View Under-Sampling Framework.

A single-scan dual-energy low-dose cone-beam CT (CBCT) imaging technique that exploits a multi-slit filter is proposed in this paper. The multi-slit filter installed between the x-ray source and the scanned object is reciprocated during a scan. The x-ray beams through the slits would generate relatively low-energy x-ray projection data, while the filtered beams would make high-energy projection data.

Both absolute and relative quantification of urinary mRNA are useful for non-invasive diagnosis of acute kidney allograft rejection.

Urinary mRNA analysis with three-gene set (18S rRNA, CD3ε, and IP-10) has been suggested as a non-invasive biomarker of acute rejection (AR) in kidney transplant recipients using quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). Application of droplet digital PCR (ddPCR), which has been suggested to provide higher sensitivity, accuracy, and absolute quantification without standard curves, could be a useful method for the quantifying low concentration of urinary mRNA. We investigated the urinary expression of these three genes in Korean patients with kidney transplantation and also evaluated the usefulness of ddPCR.

Efficient digitalization method for dental restorations using micro-CT data.

The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of using micro-CT scan of dental impressions for fabricating dental restorations and to compare the dimensional accuracy of dental models generated from various methods. The key idea of the proposed protocol is that dental impression of patients can be accurately digitized by micro-CT scan and that one can make digital cast model from micro-CT data directly. As air regions of the micro-CT scan data of dental impression are equivalent to the real teeth and surrounding structures, one can segment the air regions and fabricate digital cast model in the STL format out of them.

A novel pre-processing technique for improving image quality in digital breast tomosynthesis.

Purpose: Nonlinear pre-reconstruction processing of the projection data in computed tomography (CT) where accurate recovery of the CT numbers is important for diagnosis is usually discouraged, for such a processing would violate the physics of image formation in CT. However, one can devise a pre-processing step to enhance detectability of lesions in digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) where accurate recovery of the CT numbers is fundamentally impossible due to the incompleteness of the scanned data. Since the detection of lesions such as micro-calcifications and mass in breasts is the purpose of using DBT, it is justified that a technique producing higher detectability of lesions is a virtue.