Acute immune thrombocytopenic purpura in an adolescent with 2009 novel H1N1 influenza A virus infection

AbstractAlthough both leukopenia and thrombocytopenia are not uncommon hematological findings among patients with novel 2009 H1N1 influenza virus infection, immune thrombocytopenic purpura has rarely been shown to be associated with this novel influenza A infection. Here, we describe a previously healthy adolescent who presented with fever, influenza-like symptoms and acute onset of generalized petechiae and active oral mucosa bleeding on the third day of his illness. Severe leukopenia and thrombocytopenia were found. There was neither malignancy nor blast cells found by bone marrow aspiration. Real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was positive for novel 2009 H1N1 influenza infection. Novel influenza-associated atypical immune thrombocytopenic purpura was diagnosed. The patient recovered uneventfully after oseltamivir and methylprednisolone therapy

miRNA arm selection and isomiR distribution in gastric cancer

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-protein-coding RNAs. miRNA genes need several biogenesis steps to form function miRNAs. However, the precise mechanism and biology involved in the mature miRNA molecules are not clearly investigated. In this study, we conducted in-depth analyses to examine the arm selection and isomiRs using NGS platform. METHODS: We sequenced small RNAs from one pair of normal and gastric tumor tissues with Solexa platform. By analyzing the NGS data, we quantified the expression profiles of miRNAs and isomiRs in gastric tissues. Then, we measured the expression ratios of 5p arm to 3p arm of the same pre-miRNAs. And, we used Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test to examine isomiR pattern difference between tissues. RESULTS: Our result showed the 5p arm and 3p arm miRNA derived from the same pre-miRNAs have different tissue expression preference, one preferred normal tissue and the other preferred tumor tissue, which strongly implied that there could be other mechanism controlling mature miRNA selection in addition to the known hydrogen-bonding selection rule. Furthermore, by using the KS test, we demonstrated that some isomiR types preferentially occur in normal gastric tissue but other types prefer tumor gastric tissue. CONCLUSIONS: Arm selections and isomiR patterns are significantly varied in human cancers by using deep sequencing NGS data. Our results provided a novel research topic in miRNA regulation study. With advanced bioinformatics and molecular biology studies, more robust conclusions and insight into miRNA regulation can be achieved in the near future

Discovery and characterization of medaka miRNA genes by next generation sequencing platform

Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous non-protein-coding RNA genes which exist in a wide variety of organisms, including animals, plants, virus and even unicellular organisms. Medaka (Oryzias latipes) is a useful model organism among vertebrate animals. However, no medaka miRNAs have been investigated systematically. It is beneficial to conduct a genome-wide miRNA discovery study using the next generation sequencing (NGS) technology, which has emerged as a powerful sequencing tool for high-throughput analysis. Results In this study, we adopted ABI SOLiD platform to generate small RNA sequence reads from medaka tissues, followed by mapping these sequence reads back to medaka genome. The mapped genomic loci were considered as candidate miRNAs and further processed by a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. As result, we identified 599 novel medaka pre-miRNAs, many of which were found to encode more than one isomiRs. Besides, additional minor miRNAs (also called miRNA star) can be also detected with the improvement of sequencing depth. These quantifiable isomiRs and minor miRNAs enable us to further characterize medaka miRNA genes in many aspects. First of all, many medaka candidate pre-miRNAs position close to each other, forming many miRNA clusters, some of which are also conserved across other vertebrate animals. Secondly, during miRNA maturation, there is an arm selection preference of mature miRNAs within precursors. We observed the differences on arm selection preference between our candidate pre-miRNAs and their orthologous ones. We classified these differences into three categories based on the distribution of NGS reads. Finally, we also investigated the relationship between conservation status and expression level of miRNA genes. We concluded that the evolutionally conserved miRNAs were usually the most abundant ones. Conclusions Medaka is a widely used model animal and usually involved in many biomedical studies, including the ones on development biology. Identifying and characterizing medaka miRNA genes would benefit the studies using medaka as a model organism

SinicView: A visualization environment for comparisons of multiple nucleotide sequence alignment tools

BACKGROUND: Deluged by the rate and complexity of completed genomic sequences, the need to align longer sequences becomes more urgent, and many more tools have thus been developed. In the initial stage of genomic sequence analysis, a biologist is usually faced with the questions of how to choose the best tool to align sequences of interest and how to analyze and visualize the alignment results, and then with the question of whether poorly aligned regions produced by the tool are indeed not homologous or are just results due to inappropriate alignment tools or scoring systems used. Although several systematic evaluations of multiple sequence alignment (MSA) programs have been proposed, they may not provide a standard-bearer for most biologists because those poorly aligned regions in these evaluations are never discussed. Thus, a tool that allows cross comparison of the alignment results obtained by different tools simultaneously could help a biologist evaluate their correctness and accuracy. RESULTS: In this paper, we present a versatile alignment visualization system, called SinicView, (for Sequence-aligning INnovative and Interactive Comparison VIEWer), which allows the user to efficiently compare and evaluate assorted nucleotide alignment results obtained by different tools. SinicView calculates similarity of the alignment outputs under a fixed window using the sum-of-pairs method and provides scoring profiles of each set of aligned sequences. The user can visually compare alignment results either in graphic scoring profiles or in plain text format of the aligned nucleotides along with the annotations information. We illustrate the capabilities of our visualization system by comparing alignment results obtained by MLAGAN, MAVID, and MULTIZ, respectively. CONCLUSION: With SinicView, users can use their own data sequences to compare various alignment tools or scoring systems and select the most suitable one to perform alignment in the initial stage of sequence analysis

Retroperitoneoscopic laparo-endoscopic single-site radical nephrectomy (RLESS-RN): initial experience with a homemade port

We successfully performed 6 LESS radical nephrectomy via the retroperitoneal approach (RLESS) using the Alexis wound retractor as a single access with conventional laparoscopic instruments. The results demonstrated that our RLESS technique of radical nephrectomy is a safe and feasible procedure for management of localized renal cancer

Comparison of Renal Function and Other Health Outcomes in Vegetarians versus Omnivores in Taiwan

Renal disease is one of the top 10 leading causes of death, and the incidence of end-stage renal disease in Taiwan is the highest in the world. Many dietitians consider the diet of plant origin consumed by vegans to be ‘lighter’ and ‘more healthful’ than the diet of both plant and animal origin consumed by omnivores. Dietary protein has significant effects on renal functions. The study explored the effects of both the diets on renal functions. The study subjects included 102 Buddhist nun vegetarians and an equal number of matched control group (omnivores). A cross-sectional study was performed to investigate the effects of the diet of plant origin and the diet of both plant and animal origin on renal functions. There was no difference in the renal functions between the two groups. However, systolic blood pressure, blood urea nitrogen, serum sodium, glucose, cholesterol levels, and urinary specific gravity were lower in the vegetarian group. Although these results were compatible with general concepts regarding diet of plant origin, after adjusting for age, the duration of intake of this diet had no effect on the renal functions. Based on the findings, it is concluded that the renal functions, in terms of the estimated glomerular filtration rate, were not different between the vegetarians and the omnivores

High levels of serum macrophage migration inhibitory factor and interleukin 10 are associated with a rapidly fatal outcome in patients with severe sepsis

SummaryObjectivesThe aim of this study was to delineate the association between high macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and interleukin 10 (IL-10) levels in the early phase of sepsis and rapidly fatal outcome.MethodsOne hundred and fifty-three adult subjects with the main diagnosis of severe sepsis (including septic shock) admitted directly from the emergency department of two tertiary medical centers and one regional teaching hospital between January 2009 and December 2011, were included prospectively. MIF and IL-10 levels were measured and outcomes were analyzed by Cox regression analysis according to the following outcomes: rapidly fatal outcome (RFO, death within 48h), late fatal outcome (LFO, death between 48h and 28 days), and survival at 28 days.ResultsAmong the three outcome groups, IL-10 levels were significantly higher in the RFO group (p < 0.001) and no significant differences were seen between the LFO and survivor groups. After Cox regression analysis, each incremental elevation of 1000 pg/ml in both IL-10 and MIF was independently associated with RFO in patients with severe sepsis. Each incremental elevation of 1000 pg/ml in IL-10 increased the RFO risk by a factor of 1.312 (95% confidence interval 1.094–1.575; p=0.003); this was the most significant factor leading to RFO in patients with severe sepsis.ConclusionsPatients with RFO exhibited simultaneously high MIF and IL-10 levels in the early phase of severe sepsis. Incremental increases in both IL-10 and MIF levels were associated with RFO in this patient group, and of the two, IL-10 was the most significant factor linked to RFO

Active Component of Antrodia cinnamomea

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a highly lethal cancer. Previously, we identify head and neck cancer initiating cells (HN-CICs), which are highly tumorigenic and resistant to conventional therapy. Therefore, development of drug candidates that effectively target HN-CICs would benefit future head and neck cancer therapy. In this study, we first successfully screened for an active component, named YMGKI-1, from natural products of Antrodia cinnamomea Mycelia (ACM), which can target the stemness properties of HNSCC. Treatment of YMGKI-1 significantly downregulated the aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity, one of the characteristics of CIC in HNSCC cells. Additionally, the tumorigenic properties of HNSCC cells were attenuated by YMGKI-1 treatment in vivo. Further, the stemness properties of HN-CICs, which are responsible for the malignancy of HNSCC, were also diminished by YMGKI-1 treatment. Strikingly, YMGKI-1 also effectively suppressed the cell viability of HN-CICs but not normal stem cells. Finally, YMGKI-1 induces the cell death of HN-CICs by dysregulating the exaggerated autophagic signaling pathways. Together, our results indicate that YMGKI-1 successfully lessens stemness properties and tumorigenicity of HN-CICs. These findings provide a new drug candidate from purified components of ACM as an alternative therapy for head and neck cancer in the future

Transcriptional regulation of miR-196b by ETS2 in gastric cancer cells

E26 transformation-specific sequence (ETS)-2 is a transcriptional modulator located on chromosome 21, alterations in its expression have been implicated with a reduced incidence of solid tumors in Down syndrome patients. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are thought to participate in diverse biological functions; however, the regulation of miRNAs is not well characterized. Recently, we reported that miR-196b is highly expressed in gastric cancers. Herein, we demonstrate that miR-196b expression was significantly repressed by ETS2 during gastric cancer oncogenesis. We demonstrate that knockdown of endogenous ETS2 expression increases miR-196b expression. A genomic region between −751 and −824 bp upstream of the miR-196b transcriptional start site was found to be critical for the repression activity. This putative regulatory promoter region contains three potential ETS2-binding motifs. Mutations within the ETS2 binding sites blocked the repression activity of ETS2. Furthermore, knockdown of ETS2 or overexpression of miR-196b significantly induced migration and invasion in gastric cancer cells. In addition, alterations in ETS2 and miR-196b expression in gastric cancer cell lines affected the expression of epithelial–mesenchymal transition-related genes. The levels of vimentin, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 and MMP9 were drastically induced, but levels of E-cadherin were decreased in shETS2- or miR-196b-transfected cells. Our data indicate that ETS2 plays a key role in controlling the expression of miR-196b, and miR-196b may mediate the tumor suppressor effects of ETS2. We demonstrated that miR-196b was transcriptionally regulated by ETS2 and there was an inverse expression profile between miR-196b and ETS2 in clinical samples. This finding could be beneficial for the development of effective cancer diagnostic and alternative therapeutic strategies