Identification of small molecule antagonists of sonic hedgehog/heparin binding with activity in hedgehog functional assays.

Sonic hedgehog (Shh) is a morphogen with important roles in embryonic development and in the development of a number of cancers. Its activity is modulated by interactions with binding partners and co-receptors including heparin and heparin sulfate proteoglycans (HSPG). To identify antagonists of Shh/heparin binding, a diverse collection of 34,560 chemicals was screened in single point 384-well format.

Applying a Gene Reversal Rate Computational Methodology to Identify Drugs for a Rare Cancer: Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

The aim of this study was to utilize a computational methodology based on Gene Reversal Rate (GRR) scoring to repurpose existing drugs for a rare and understudied cancer: inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). This method uses IBC-related gene expression signatures (GES) and drug-induced gene expression profiles from the LINCS database to calculate a GRR score for each candidate drug, and is based on the idea that a compound that can counteract gene expression changes of a disease may have potential therapeutic applications for that disease. Genes related to IBC with associated differential expression data (265 up-regulated and 122 down-regulated) were collated from PubMed-indexed publications.

Literature-Wide Association Studies (LWAS) for a Rare Disease: Drug Repurposing for Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

Drug repurposing is an effective means for rapid drug discovery. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a computational methodology based on Literature-Wide Association Studies (LWAS) of PubMed to repurpose existing drugs for a rare inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). We have developed a methodology that conducted LWAS based on the text mining technology Word2Vec.

[Changes of polyamines level in Glycine soja and Glycine max seedlings under NaCl stress].

With internationally common-used Glycine max (the salt-tolerant Lee68) and Glycine soja (the salt-sensitive N23232) as reference, this paper studied the polyamines (PAs) contents and polyamine oxidase (PAO) activities in the highly salt-tolerant BB52 (Glycine soja) seedlings, which showed that under 150mmol x L(-1) NaCl stress for 2d, the decrease of Put and Spd contents was more significant, but that of Spd content was less significant in roots of BB52 than in those of Lee68 and N23232. For leaves, the decrease of Put and increase of Spd contents were markedly observed in BB52. The ascent of (Spm + Spd)/Put ratios and descent of Put/PAs ratios showed a positive relation to their salt tolerance.