IL-4 Inhibits IL-1β-Induced Depressive-Like Behavior and Central Neurotransmitter Alterations

It has been known that activation of the central innate immune system or exposure to stress can disrupt balance of anti-/proinflammatory cytokines. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in the modulation of depressive-like behaviors, the hormonal and neurotransmitter systems in rats. We investigated whether centrally administered IL-1β is associated with activation of CNS inflammatory pathways and behavioral changes and whether treatment with IL-4 could modulate IL-1β-induced depressive-like behaviors and central neurotransmitter systems. Infusion of IL-4 significantly decreased IL-1β-induced anhedonic responses and increased social exploration and total activity. Treatment with IL-4 markedly blocked IL-1β-induced increase in PGE2 and CORT levels. Also, IL-4 reduced IL-1β-induced 5-HT levels by inhibiting tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) mRNA and activating serotonin transporter (SERT) in the hippocampus, and levels of NE were increased by activating tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) mRNA expression. These results demonstrate that IL-4 may locally contribute to the regulation of noradrenergic and serotonergic neurotransmission and may inhibit IL-1β-induced behavioral and immunological changes. The present results suggest that IL-4 modulates IL-1β-induced depressive behavior by inhibiting IL-1β-induced central glial activation and neurotransmitter alterations. IL-4 reduced central and systemic mediatory inflammatory activation, as well as reversing the IL-1β-induced alterations in neurotransmitter levels. The present findings contribute a biochemical pathway regulated by IL-4 that may have therapeutic utility for treatment of IL-1β-induced depressive behavior and neuroinflammation which warrants further study

A preliminary checklist of scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) intercepted in Korea on dracaena and ficus plants (Asparagales: Asparagaceae, Rosales: Moraceae) imported from southern Asia

The checklist revealed 40 species of scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) intercepted at Korean ports of entry on dracaena and ficus plants from southern Asia from 1996 to 2014. Brief diagnostic criteria and related information of the intercepted species are given to assist in the identifiation of specimens of scale insects intercepted from these plant hosts. Additionally, this preliminary checklist of scale insects could be utilized as a basis for preventive measures in quarantine

Chronic Treatment with Squid Phosphatidylserine Activates Glucose Uptake and Ameliorates TMT-Induced Cognitive Deficit in Rats via Activation of Cholinergic Systems

The present study examined the effects of squid phosphatidylserine (Squid-PS) on the learning and memory function and the neural activity in rats with TMT-induced memory deficits. The rats were administered saline or squid derived Squid-PS (Squid-PS 50 mg kg−1, p.o.) daily for 21 days. The cognitive improving efficacy of Squid-PS on the amnesic rats, which was induced by TMT, was investigated by assessing the passive avoidance task and by performing choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and acetylcholinesterase (AchE) immunohistochemistry. 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose and performed a positron emission tomography (PET) scan was also performed. In the passive avoidance test, the control group which were injected with TMT showed a markedly lower latency time than the non-treated normal group (P < 0.05). However, treatment of Squid-PS significantly recovered the impairment of memory compared to the control group (P < 0.05). Consistent with the behavioral data, Squid-PS significantly alleviated the loss of ChAT immunoreactive neurons in the hippocampal CA3 compared to that of the control group (P < 0.01). Also, Squid-PS significantly increased the AchE positive neurons in the hippocampal CA1 and CA3. In the PET analysis, Squid-PS treatment increased the glucose uptake more than twofold in the frontal lobe and the hippocampus (P < 0.05, resp.). These results suggest that Squid-PS may be useful for improving the cognitive function via regulation of cholinergic enzyme activity and neural activity

An Exploratory Study on the Association Between Social Capital and Self-Rated Health of South Korean Women with Disabilities

The purpose of this chapter was to explore the relationship between social capital and self-rated health status as assessed in the activities of the everyday life of South Korean women with disabilities. For this purpose, the authors analyzed the 8th data of the panel survey of employment for the disabled (PSED) that included a sample of 275 women with disabilities who are paid worker. The authors found that working environment, working hours, personal development possibilities, communication-and interpersonal-relationships, the fairness of performance assessment, welfare benefits, training opportunities, and job satisfaction differed significantly in relation to the self-rated health status of women with disabilities. The authors also found that for working hours, communication, and interpersonal relationships, significantly higher self-rated health status was found for satisfied compared to the satisfaction group. For personal development possibilities, welfare benefits, and training opportunities, self-rated health status was significantly higher for the satisfaction group than the dissatisfied group. For fairness of the performance assessment, self-rated health status of the satisfaction group was significantly higher than in the dissatisfied and the normal group. Therefore, in order to improve the self-rated health of South Korean women with disabilities, it is necessary to provide working environment considering their disability characteristics and various training opportunities in their workplace

A homozygous Keap1-knockout human embryonic stem cell line generated using CRISPR/Cas9 mediates gene targeting

Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (keap1) is a cysteine-rich protein that interacts with transcription factor Nrf2 in a redox-sensitive manner, leading to the degradation of Nrf2 (Kim et al., 2014a). Disruption of Keap1 results in the induction of Nrf2-related signaling pathways involving the expression of a set of anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory genes. We generated biallelic mutants of the Keap1 gene using a CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing method in the H9 human embryonic stem cell (hESC). The Keap1 homozygous-knockout H9 cell line retained normal morphology, gene expression, and in vivo differentiation potential. (C) 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.

Feature Re-calibration based Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classification

Whole slide image (WSI) classification is a fundamental task for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases; but, curation of accurate labels is time-consuming and limits the application of fully-supervised methods. To address this, multiple instance learning (MIL) is a popular method that poses classification as a weakly supervised learning task with slide-level labels only. While current MIL methods apply variants of the attention mechanism to re-weight instance features with stronger models, scant attention is paid to the properties of the data distribution. In this work, we propose to re-calibrate the distribution of a WSI bag (instances) by using the statistics of the max-instance (critical) feature. We assume that in binary MIL, positive bags have larger feature magnitudes than negatives, thus we can enforce the model to maximize the discrepancy between bags with a metric feature loss that models positive bags as out-of-distribution. To achieve this, unlike existing MIL methods that use single-batch training modes, we propose balanced-batch sampling to effectively use the feature loss i.e., (+/-) bags simultaneously. Further, we employ a position encoding module (PEM) to model spatial/morphological information, and perform pooling by multi-head self-attention (PSMA) with a Transformer encoder. Experimental results on existing benchmark datasets show our approach is effective and improves over state-of-the-art MIL methods.Comment: MICCAI 202

Recovery of the mitochondrial COI barcode region in diverse Hexapoda through tRNA-based primers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>DNA barcoding uses a 650 bp segment of the mitochondrial cytochrome <it>c </it>oxidase I (COI) gene as the basis for an identification system for members of the animal kingdom and some other groups of eukaryotes. PCR amplification of the barcode region is a key step in the analytical chain, but it sometimes fails because of a lack of homology between the standard primer sets and target DNA.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two forward PCR primers were developed following analysis of all known arthropod mitochondrial genome arrangements and sequence alignment of the tRNA-W gene which was usually located within 200 bp upstream of the COI gene. These two primers were combined with a standard reverse primer (LepR1) to produce a cocktail which generated a barcode amplicon from 125 of 141 species that included representatives of 121 different families of Hexapoda. High quality sequences were recovered from 79% of the species including groups, such as scale insects, that invariably fail to amplify with standard primers.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A cocktail of two tRNA-W forward primers coupled with a standard reverse primer amplifies COI for most hexapods, allowing characterization of the standard barcode primer binding region in COI 5' as well as the barcode segment. The current results show that primers designed to bind to highly conserved gene regions upstream of COI will aid the amplification of this gene region in species where standard primers fail and provide valuable information to design a primer for problem groups.</p

Mitigating Health Inequalities of Socially Vulnerable in South Korea: Role for Social Work

The purpose of this study is to develop a social work education strategy for mitigating health inequalities among the socially vulnerable. The limitations of the healthcare approach to health promotion and health inequality, which we examined through the health belief model describing an individual’s health behavior, emphasize the prevention of diseases that have not yet occurred or are likely to occur, healthcare management for them, and the functions and role of the community in the process, based on the individual’s spontaneity to practice health behaviors. Therefore, to compensate for these limitations, it is deemed necessary to add healthcare curriculum, such as public health, social epidemiology, and etiology, to the existing curriculum of social work based on an in-depth understanding of social vulnerability and social environment as well as the importance of preventing and managing diseases

The Utilization of Traditional Herbal Medicine for Treatment in Traditional Korean Medicine Clinics

A cross-sectional study has been conducted to detect the facts about the use of traditional herbal medicines (THMs) in South Korea. The questionnaire has been adopted from the 2017 National Survey for the usage of traditional Korean medicine (TKM) and consumption of THMs. A total number of 1346 participants have been involved in this study. Results showed that the non-decoction types of herbal medicines, which are mostly used for therapeutic purposes (89.0%), and the decoction types of herbal medicines were not only used for the purpose of treatment of diseases (62.5%) but also health improvement purposes (21.9%). Results presented that decoction types of THMs are used for musculoskeletal diseases (56.0%), digestive diseases (21.3%), and respiratory diseases (6.3%), whereas the non-decoction types of THMs are commonly used in musculoskeletal diseases (55.6%), respiratory diseases (20.5%), and digestive diseases (18.1%). Future studies are highly recommended to detect more details about the medical use of THMs in South Korea