Despite the G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) being the largest family of signalling proteins at the surface of cells, their potential to be targeted in cancer therapy is still under-utilised. This review highlights the contribution of these receptors to the process of oncogenesis and points to some likely challenges that might be encountered in targeting them. GPCR-signalling pathways are often complex and can be tissue-specific. Cancer cells hijack these communication networks to their proliferative advantage. The role of selected GPCRs in the different hallmarks of cancer is examined to highlight the complexity of targeting these receptors for therapeutic benefit. Our increasing knowledge of the mechanisms governing the molecular functions of GPCRs may help to identify new targets to treat specific types of cancers.
Background: Accurate measurement of a patient’s height and weight is an essential part of diagnosis and therapy, but there is some controversy as to how to calculate the height and weight of patients with disabilities. Objective: This study aims to use anthropometric measurements (arm span, length of leg, chest circumference, and waist circumference) to find a model (alternatives) that can allow the calculation of the height and the body weight of patients with disabilities. Additionally, a model for the prediction of weight and height measurements of patients with disabilities was established. Method: Four hander patients aged 20-80 years were enrolled in this study and divided into two groups, 210 (52.5%) male and 190 (47.5%) fe
... Show MoreThe appearance of Mixed Mode Oscillations (MMOs) and chaotic spiking in a Light Emitting Diode (LED) with optoelectronic feedback theoretically and experimentally have been reported. The transition between periodic and chaotic mixed-mode states has been investigated by varying feedback strength. In incoherent semiconductor chaotically spiking attractors with optoelectronic feedback have been observed to be the result of canard phenomena in three-dimensional phase space (incomplete homoclinic scenarios).
Low-pressure capacitively coupled RF discharge Ar plasma has been studied using Langmuir probe. The electron temperature, electron density and Debay length were calculated under different pressures and electrode gap. In this work the RF Langmuir probe is designed using 4MHz filter as compensation circuit and I-V probe characteristic have been investigated. The pressure varied from 0.07 mbar to 0.1 mbar while electrode gap varied from 2-5 cm. The plasma was generated using power supply at 4MHz frequency with power 300 W. The flowmeter is used to control Argon gas flow in the range of 600 standard cubic centimeters per minute (sccm). The electron temperature drops slowly with pressure and it's gradually decreased when expanding the electro
... Show MoreA new bio-electrochemical system was proposed for simultaneous removal of organic matters and salinity from actual domestic wastewater and synthetically prepared saline water, respectively. The performance of a three-chambered microbial osmotic fuel cell (MOFC) provided with forward osmosis (FO) membrane and cation exchange membrane (CEM) was evaluated with respect to the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal from wastewater, electricity generation, and desalination of saline water. The MOFC wasinoculated with activated sludge and fueled with actual domestic wastewater. Results revealed that maximum removal efficiency of COD from wastewater, TDS removal efficiency from saline water, power density, and current density were
... Show MoreBackground: Prolactin is a hormone, as well as a cytokine which is synthesized and secreted from the anterior pituitary gland and various extra pituitary sites including immune cells under control of a superdistal promoter that contains a single nucleotide polymorphism -1149 G/T. Rheumatoid Arthritis has been associated with increased serum prolactin levels.Objectives: To investigate the association of the extra pituitary -1149 G/T promoter polymorphism among Iraqi rheumatoid arthritis patients and prolactin levels.Methods: We tested 73 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 40 healthy individuals. The DNA samples were genotyped using the Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction fragment Length Polymorphism method and the levels of prolacti
... Show MoreA theoretical model is developed to determine time evolution of temperature at the surface of an opaque target placed in air for cases characterized by the formation of laser supported absorption waves (LSAW) plasmas. The model takes into account both plasma dynamics and time variation of incident laser pulse (i.e. pulse shape or profile).Shock tube relations were employed in formulating plasma dynamics over target surface. Gaussian function was chosen in formulating the pulse profile in the present modeling
In today's world, the science of bioinformatics is developing rapidly, especially with regard to the analysis and study of biological networks. Scientists have used various nature-inspired algorithms to find protein complexes in protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. These networks help scientists guess the molecular function of unknown proteins and show how cells work regularly. It is very common in PPI networks for a protein to participate in multiple functions and belong to many complexes, and as a result, complexes may overlap in the PPI networks. However, developing an efficient and reliable method to address the problem of detecting overlapping protein complexes remains a challenge since it is considered a complex and har
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Background: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease with an increasing prevalence worldwide and characterized by an increase in oxidative stress and inflammation. The most important factor that is responsible for oxidative stress and production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is hyperglycemia. The major targets of ROS are proteins. The most common and widely used biomarker of severe oxidative protein damage is protein carbonyl content.
The study was designed to assess the serum level of protein carbonyl as a marker of protein oxidation in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and to evaluate the effect of age, body weight, waist circumference, diabetic control and disease duration on the level
... Show MoreThe use of piezocatalysis with photocatalysis in the degradation of organic pollutants has become an attractive research field due to the enhanced synergistic effect of the two processes. Herein, binary composites of AgBr decorated onto Br-doped g-C3N4 in different weight percentages (AgBr content was varied from 10 wt% to 40 wt%) have been built as heterojunction piezo-photo catalysts with a highly efficient performance. The 20 wt%AgBr/Br-g-C3N4 catalysts showed synergistically improved piezo-photo catalytic decomposition toward Methylene blue (MB) under visible-light and sonication exposure in a simple constructed split-plate airlift contactor, completing 99.7 % degradation of MB within 60 min. The heterogeneous junction established among
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