Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a common and multifactorial arterial disease that is mainly caused by atherosclerosis. Macrophages, lymphocytes and neutrophils have been implicated in atherosclerotic plaque development. Autophagy, a highly conserved cellular process for the removal of long-lived protein and organelles, plays a variety of pathophysiological roles. However, the roles of autophagy in peripheral leucocytes in atherosclerosis and CAD have not been explored.
Materials And Methods: LC3 is a marker gene for autophagy, and LC3-II, a conjugated form of LC3 protein, is a membrane marker for autophagosome and autophagolysosomes. In this study, LC3 gene expression levels and LC3-II protein levels in peripheral leucocytes were measured in patients with CAD (n = 146) and healthy controls (n = 87).
Results: In patients with CAD, LC3 gene expression levels in the peripheral leucocytes were significantly decreased compared with age- and sex-matched healthy controls (P < 0·01). LC3-II protein levels were also significantly decreased in patients with CAD (P < 0·01). Multivariate logistic analyses showed that decreased LC3 gene expression levels were strongly associated with CAD. There were no differences in LC3 transcripts and LC3-II protein levels between subgroups of patients with CAD.
Conclusions: LC3 gene expression in the peripheral leucocytes was significantly decreased in patients with CAD, indicating that autophagosome formation is decreased. These data suggest that autophagy in circulating leucocytes may be involved in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and CAD.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2362.2011.02486.x | DOI Listing |
Brief Bioinform
November 2024
Center for Artificial Intelligence Research, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27101, United States.
Pathway analysis plays a critical role in bioinformatics, enabling researchers to identify biological pathways associated with various conditions by analyzing gene expression data. However, the rise of large, multi-center datasets has highlighted limitations in traditional methods like Over-Representation Analysis (ORA) and Functional Class Scoring (FCS), which struggle with low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) and large sample sizes. To tackle these challenges, we use a deep learning-based classification method, Gene PointNet, and a novel $P$-value computation approach leveraging the confusion matrix to address pathway analysis tasks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Cancer Res
January 2025
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States.
Purpose: After failing primary and secondary hormonal therapy, castration-resistant and neuroendocrine prostate cancer metastatic to the bone is invariably lethal, although treatment with docetaxel and carboplatin can modestly improve survival. Therefore, agents targeting biologically relevant pathways in PCa and potentially synergizing with docetaxel and carboplatin in inhibiting bone metastasis growth are urgently needed.
Experimental Design: Phosphorylated (activated) AXL expression in human prostate cancer bone metastases was assessed by immunohistochemical staining.
STAR Protoc
January 2025
Department of Statistics, University of Georgia, 310 Herty Drive, Athens, GA 30602, USA. Electronic address:
Spatial transcriptomics enhances our understanding of cellular organization by mapping gene expression data to precise tissue locations. Here, we present a protocol for using weighted ensemble method for spatial transcriptomics (WEST), which uses ensemble techniques to boost the robustness and accuracy of existing algorithms. We describe steps for preprocessing data, obtaining embeddings from individual algorithms, and ensemble integrating all embeddings as a similarity matrix.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Transl Med
January 2025
Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Sci Transl Med
January 2025
Graduate Program in Human Genetics, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 1501 NW 10th Avenue (M-860), Miami, FL 33136, USA.
Primary mitochondrial disorders are most often caused by deleterious mutations in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Here, we used a mitochondrial DddA-derived cytosine base editor (DdCBE) to introduce a compensatory edit in a mouse model that carries the pathological mutation in the mitochondrial transfer RNA (tRNA) alanine (mt-tRNA) gene. Because the original m.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!