Gathering Customer Input Prior to Home Page Redesign: An Ontological Study [Poster]

Poster presented at the 2002 AMIA Annual Symposium. This poster discusses an ontological study on gathering input prior to home page redesign

Gathering Customer Input Prior to Home Page Redesign: An Ontological Study

Before redesigning the UT Southwestern Library's home page, we studied how clients organize and describe information. We wanted to identify which library resources and services were considered to be most important by our clients, how clients would organize those resources and services, and the terminology clients would use to describe their groupings. This poster presents the process we developed and identifies the resources necessary to complete this type of study successfully. We describe our card sort methodology, participant-selection process, detailed working procedures, and analysis methods

Methylglyoxal induces endoplasmic reticulum stress and DNA demethylation in the Keap1 promoter of human lens epithelial cells and age-related cataracts

Age-related cataracts are a leading cause of blindness. Previously, we have demonstrated the association of unfolded protein response with various cataractogenic stressors. However, DNA methylation alterations leading to suppression of lenticular antioxidant protection remains unclear. Here, we report the methylglyoxal-mediated sequential events responsible for Keap1 promoter DNA demethylation in human lens epithelial cells, because Keap1 is a negative regulatory protein that regulates the Nrf2 antioxidant protein. Methylglyoxal induces the ER stress and activates the unfolded protein response leading to overproduction of ROS prior to human lens epithelial cells death. Methylglyoxal also suppresses the Nrf2 and DNA methyltransferases but activates the DNA demethylation pathway enzyme, TET1. Bisulfite genomic DNA sequencing confirms the methylglyoxal-mediated Keap1 promoter DNA demethylation leading to over-expression of Keap1 mRNA and protein. Similarly, bisulfite genomic DNA sequencing of human clear lenses (n=15) slowly lose 5-methylcytosine in the Keap1 promoter throughout life, at a rate of 1% per year. By contrast, diabetic cataractous lenses (n=21) lose an average of 90% of the 5-methylcytosine regardless of the age. Over-expressed Keap1 protein is responsible for decreasing the Nrf2 by proteasomal degradation, thereby suppressing the Nrf2 dependent stress protection. This study demonstrates for the first time about the associations of unfolded protein response activation, Nrf2 dependent antioxidant system failure and loss of Keap1 promoter methylation because of altered active and passive DNA demethylation pathway enzymes in human lens epithelial cells by methylglyoxal. As an outcome, cellular redox balance is altered towards lens oxidation and cataract formation