The pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which represents over 90% of pancreatic cancer cases,
has the highest proliferative and metastatic rate in comparison to other pancreatic cancer compartments. This
study is designed to determine whether small nucleolar RNA, H/ACA box 64 (snoRNA64) is associated with
pancreatic cancer initiation and progression. Gene expression data from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO)
repository have shown that snoRNA64 expression is reduced in primary and metastatic pancreatic cancer as
compared to normal tissues based on statistical analysis of the in Silico analysis. Using qPCR techniques,
pancreatic cancer cell lines include PK-1, PK-8, PK-4, and Mia PaCa-2 with different levels of snoRNA64,
including PK-1, PK-8, PK-4, and Mia PaCa-2. The level of expression is correlated with the cell line epithelial
or mesenchymal characteristics. Cell lines displaying epithelial characteristics such as PK-1, PK-8 show high
levels of snoRNA64 meanwhile, cell lines displaying mesenchymal characteristics such as PK-4, Mia PaCa-2
show low levels of snoRNA64. The level of expression is correlated with the cell line epithelial or
mesenchymal characteristics. After knocking down the PK-8 with high snoRNA64 expression, the epithelial
markers E. cadherin (E-cad) and Cytokeratin-8 (CK-8) are decreased, while mesenchymal markers Vimentin
(Vim), Cytokeratin-19 (CK-19), Metalloprotease -2 (MMP-2), and Metalloprotease-3 (MMP-3) are activated.
Those changes suggest that PK-8 responding to the snoRNA64 knock down protocol and increase in
mesenchymal function. Together, snoRNA64 expression may participate in epithelial to mesenchymal
transition (EMT) and mesenchymal to epithelial transition (MET), in which during metastasis these processes
are crucial. In addition, snoRNA64 may be considered as a potential diagnostic biomarker for both early and
invasive stages of PDAC. And due to its gradual expression decreases, it may be considered a barrier in tumor
progression.
Autoimmune hepatitis is an inflammatory disease and its incidence has been increasing. The features of hepatitis are the release of inflammatory cytokines, the elevation of AST and ALT, and hepatocyte apoptosis and necrosis. Concanavalin A considered as essential model represents the acute immune-mediated liver damage in rodents. Thymoquinone is well known herbal compound that exert hepatoprotective, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant activity. In this study, we focus on the immunoregulatory and liver protective effect of thymoquinone in a mouse model of concanavalin A-induced liver injury.
Twenty-four male mice were randomly divided into four groups each containing six animals: Negative control group, concanavalin A model group,
... Show MoreContinuous escalation of the cost of generating energy is preceded by the fact of scary depletion of the energy reserve of the fossil fuels and pollution of the environment as developed and developing countries burn these fuels. To meet the challenge of the impending energy crisis, renewable energy has been growing rapidly in the last decade. Among the renewable energy sources, solar energy is the most extensively available energy, has the least effect on the environment, and is very efficient in terms of energy conversion. Thus, solar energy has become one of the preferred sources of renewable energy. Flat-plate solar collectors are one of the extensively-used and well-known types of solar collectors. However, the effectiveness of the coll
... Show MoreOxidative stress plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of peripheral artery disease (PAD). This study aimed to investigate the effect of clopidogrel on oxidative stress in PAD patients. Seventy subjects were divided into three groups: PAD patients before treatment (B-PAD), PAD patients after treatment with clopidogrel (A-PAD), and healthy controls. Serum levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), and oxidized protein were measured. SOD activities were also determined. The results showed that SOD activities, and SOD specific activities were significantly decreased in PAD patients compared to healthy individuals. After treatment with clopidogrel, SOD activities, and SOD specific activities were continuous
... Show MoreIt is proposed and studied a prey-predator system with a Holling type II functional response that merges predation fear with a predator-dependent prey's refuge. Understanding the impact of fear and refuge on the system's dynamic behavior is one of the objectives. All conceivable steady-states are investigated for their stability. The persistence condition of the system has been established. Local bifurcation analysis is performed in the Sotomayor sense. Extensive numerical simulation with varied parameters was used to explore the system's global dynamics. A limit cycle and a point attractor are the two types of attractors in the system. It's also interesting to note that the system exhibits bi-stability between these 2 types of attractors.
... Show MoreToday in the digital realm, where images constitute the massive resource of the social media base but unfortunately suffer from two issues of size and transmission, compression is the ideal solution. Pixel base techniques are one of the modern spatially optimized modeling techniques of deterministic and probabilistic bases that imply mean, index, and residual. This paper introduces adaptive pixel-based coding techniques for the probabilistic part of a lossy scheme by incorporating the MMSA of the C321 base along with the utilization of the deterministic part losslessly. The tested results achieved higher size reduction performance compared to the traditional pixel-based techniques and the standard JPEG by about 40% and 50%,
... Show MoreSystemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multisystem autoimmune disease that affects 43.7 per 100,000 people worldwide, most commonly presenting in childbearing years. SLE pregnancies are complicated by cardiovascular events in up to 7.8% of cases, which translates to a 3.2- to 31.5-fold increase in severe maternal morbidity and a seven-fold increase in maternal mortality, compared to the general obstetric population. The highest risk is reported in cases with concurrent lupus nephritis or antiphospholipid syndrome [1]. These complications are not surprisingly seen; they are the end result of endothelial dysfunction, immune aberration, and placental dysfunction that precedes clinical decompensation by weeks [2,3].The current approach in mana
... Show MoreMicro-perforated panel (MPP) absorber is increasingly gaining popularity as an alternative sound absorber in buildings compared to the well-known synthetic porous materials. A single MPP has a typical feature of a Helmholtz resonator with a high amplitude of absorption but a narrow absorption frequency bandwidth. To improve the bandwidth, a single MPP can be cascaded with another single MPP to form a double-layer MPP. This paper proposes the introduction of inhomogeneous perforation in the double-layer MPP system (DL-iMPP) to enhance the absorption bandwidth of a double-layer MPP. Mathematical models are proposed using the equivalent electrical circuit model and are validated with experiments with good agreement. It is revealed that the DL-
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