Inhibition of cell proliferation and increased-apoptosis of AGS and SNU-5 cancer cells following small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated down-regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1 (VEGFR1)

BACKGROUND: Angiogenesis is vital for development of normal tissue and wound healing; but it play an important role in development of some diseases such as different types of cancer. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and VEGF receptors (VEGFR) are two important key factors in this process. Previous studies have shown that down-regulation of VEGFR1 inhibits cell proliferation, migration, and vascular permeability of endothelial cells. So, blocking VEGF and VEGFR1 have been considered as a target to prevent the growth of tumors.METHODS: In this study, VEGFR1 gene expression was suppressed in AGS and SNU5 cancer cells using RNA interference (RNAi) technology. Down-regulation of VEGFR1 was assessed at mRNA and protein levels using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and western blot methods. Moreover, the viability and apoptosis of these cells were analyzed using MTT and flow cytometry techniques.RESULTS: VEGFR1 expression was significantly down-regulated both in mRNA and protein levels. MTT and flow cytometry results revealed that down-regulation of VEGFR1 inhibited cell proliferation, and induced apoptosis of these cancer cells.CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that VEGFR1 could play an important role in cell proliferation and tumor growth; and it could be considered as a valuable target for controlling tumor cells, and cancer therapies

In vivo reprogramming: A new approach for tissue repair in chronic diseases

Medical researchers and biologists have long been fascinated by the possibility of changing the identity of cells, a phenomenon known as cellular plasticity. Now, we know that differentiated cells can be experimentally coaxed to become pluripotent (cellular reprogramming). Recent studies have demonstrated that changes in cell identity are not limited to the laboratory, but also the tissue cells in live organisms are subjected to this process, too (endogenous cellular reprograming). Nowadays “reprogramming technology” has created new opportunities in understanding human chronic diseases, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine. This technology have enabled the generation of various specific cell types including cardiomyocytes, pancreatic beta cell, and neurons, from patient’s cells such as skin fibroblasts. Reprogramming technology provides a novel cell source for autologous cell transplantation. But, cell transplantation faces several difficult hurdles such as cell production and purification, long-term survival, and functional integration after transplantation. Recently, in vivo reprogramming, which uses endogenous cells for tissue repair, has emerged as a new approach to circumvent cell transplantation. Up till now, in vivo reprogramming has been practiced in the mouse pancreas, heart, brain, and spinal cord with various degrees of success. In this review, we summarize the progress made, therapeutic potentials, and the challenges ahead in this emerging research area

Control Behavior Integrity for Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-physical control systems, such as industrial control systems (ICS), are increasingly targeted by cyberattacks. Such attacks can potentially cause tremendous damage, affect critical infrastructure or even jeopardize human life when the system does not behave as intended. Cyberattacks, however, are not new and decades of security research have developed plenty of solutions to thwart them. Unfortunately, many of these solutions cannot be easily applied to safety-critical cyber-physical systems. Further, the attack surface of ICS is quite different from what can be commonly assumed in classical IT systems. We present Scadman, a system with the goal to preserve the Control Behavior Integrity (CBI) of distributed cyber-physical systems. By observing the system-wide behavior, the correctness of individual controllers in the system can be verified. This allows Scadman to detect a wide range of attacks against controllers, like programmable logic controller (PLCs), including malware attacks, code-reuse and data-only attacks. We implemented and evaluated Scadman based on a real-world water treatment testbed for research and training on ICS security. Our results show that we can detect a wide range of attacks--including attacks that have previously been undetectable by typical state estimation techniques--while causing no false-positive warning for nominal threshold values.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Prenatal and Postnatal Hair Steroid Levels Predict Post-Partum Depression 12 Weeks after Delivery

Within three to six months after delivery, 13%-19% of women suffer from post-partum depression (PPD), understood as a dysfunctional adaptation to the postpartum condition and motherhood. In the present cross-sectional study, we compared the hair steroid levels of women 12 weeks before and after delivery and with or without PPD.; The present study was a cross-sectional study conducted twelve weeks after delivery. At that time, 48 women (mean age: 25.9 years) with PPD and 50 healthy controls (mean age: 25.2 years) completed questionnaires on depressive symptoms. Further, at the same time point, 6 cm lengths of hair strands were taken, providing samples of hair steroids 12 weeks before and 12 weeks after delivery in order to analyze hair steroids (cortisol, cortisone, progesterone, testosterone, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)).; Compared to those of women without PPD, hair steroid levels (cortisol, cortisone, progesterone) were significantly lower in women with PPD both before and after delivery. Lower prenatal cortisone and progesterone levels predicted higher depression scores 12 weeks after delivery. Lower prenatal levels of cortisol and progesterone and higher levels of DHEA, and postnatal lower levels of cortisol, cortisone, and progesterone, along with higher levels of DHEA predicted PPD-status with an accuracy of 98%.; PPD is associated with blunted hair cortisol, cortisone, and progesterone secretions both pre- and postpartum. Such blunted steroid levels appear to reflect a stress responsivity that is less adaptive to acute and transient stressors. It follows that prenatally assessed low hair cortisol and progesterone levels, along with high DHEA levels, are reliable biomarkers of post-partum depression 12 weeks after delivery

In vivo reprogramming: A new approach for tissue repair in chronic diseases

Medical researchers and biologists have long been fascinated by the possibility of changing the identity of cells, a phenomenon known as cellular plasticity. Now, we know that differentiated cells can be experimentally coaxed to become pluripotent (cellular reprogramming). Recent studies have demonstrated that changes in cell identity are not limited to the laboratory, but also the tissue cells in live organisms are subjected to this process, too (endogenous cellular reprograming). Nowadays “reprogramming technology” has created new opportunities in understanding human chronic diseases, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine. This technology have enabled the generation of various specific cell types including cardiomyocytes, pancreatic beta cell, and neurons, from patient’s cells such as skin fibroblasts. Reprogramming technology provides a novel cell source for autologous cell transplantation. But, cell transplantation faces several difficult hurdles such as cell production and purification, long-term survival, and functional integration after transplantation. Recently, in vivo reprogramming, which uses endogenous cells for tissue repair, has emerged as a new approach to circumvent cell transplantation. Up till now, in vivo reprogramming has been practiced in the mouse pancreas, heart, brain, and spinal cord with various degrees of success. In this review, we summarize the progress made, therapeutic potentials, and the challenges ahead in this emerging research area

Cheese consumption in relation to cardiovascular risk factors among Iranian adults- IHHP Study

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: It is expected that dairy products such as cheeses, which are the main source of cholesterol and saturated fat, may lead to the development or increase the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases; however, the results of different studies are inconsistent. This study was conducted to assess the association between cheese consumption and cardiovascular risk factors in an Iranian adult population. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Information from the Isfahan Healthy Heart Program (IHHP) was used for this cross-sectional study with a total of 1,752 participants (782 men and 970 women). Weight, height, waist and hip circumference measurement, as well as fasting blood samples were gathered and biochemical assessments were done. To evaluate the dietary intakes of participants a validated food frequency questionnaire, consists of 49 items, was completed by expert technicians. Consumption of cheese was classified as less than 7 times per week and 7-14 times per week. RESULTS: Higher consumption of cheese was associated with higher C-Reactive Protein (CRP), apolipoprotein A and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) level but not with fasting blood sugar (FBS), total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglyceride (TG) and apolipoprotein B. Higher consumption of cheese was positively associated with consumption of liquid and solid oil, grain, pulses, fruit, vegetable, meat and dairy, and negatively associated with Global Dietary Index. After control for other potential confounders the association between cheese intake and metabolic syndrome (OR: 0.81; 96%CI: 0.71-0.94), low HDL-C level (OR: 0.87; 96%CI: 0.79-0.96) and dyslipidemia (OR: 0.88; 96%CI: 0.79-0.98) became negatively significant. CONCLUSION: This study found an inverse association between the frequency of cheese intake and cardiovascular risk factors; however, further prospective studies are required to confirm the present results and to illustrate its mechanisms

Analysis of Cytogenetic Abnormalities in Iranian Patients with Syndromic Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Case Series

Objective Autism spectrum disorder is a heterogeneous neuropsychiatric group of pervasive development disorder, which is mostly diagnosed through the intricate behavioral phenotype. According to strong genetic involvement, detecting the chromosome regions and the key genes linked to autism can help to elucidate its etiology. The present study aims to investigate the value of cytogenetic analysis in syndromic autism as well as to find an association between autism and chromosome abnormalities. Materials & Methods Thirty-six autism patients from 30 families, diagnosed clinically with DSM-5 criteria, were recruited. The syndromic patients who had additional clinical features involving development delay, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, seizure, language, and intellectual impairment were selected due to elevating the detection rate. Cytogenetics analysis was performed using GTG banding on the patients' cultured fibroblasts. Moreover, array-comparative genomic hybridization was also performed for a patient with a de novo and novel variant.   Results Karyotype analysis in 36 syndromic autism patients detected chromosomal abnormalities in two (5.6%) families, including 46,XY,dup(15)(q11.1q11.2) and 46,XX,ins(7)(q11.1q21.3)dn. In the latter, array-comparative genomic hybridization detected three abnormalities on chromosome 7, including deletion and insertion on both arms; 46,XX,del(7)(q21.11q21.3),dup(7)(p11.2p14.1p12.3)dn. Conclusion We reported a novel and de novo cytogenetic abnormality on chromosome 7 in an Iranian patient diagnosed with syndromic autism. However, the detection rate in syndromic autism was low which implies that it cannot be utilized as the only diagnostic procedure

A simplified mathematical study of thermochemical preparation of particle oxide under counterflow configuration for use in biomedical applications

This study mathematically presents a counterflow non-premixed thermochemical technique for preparing a particle oxide used for cancer diagnosis and treatment. For this purpose, preheating, reaction, melting, and oxidation processes were simulated considering an asymptotic concept. Mass and energy conservation equations in dimensional and non-dimensional forms were solved using MATLAB®. To preserve the continuity in the system and calculate the locations of melting and flame fronts, promising jump conditions were derived. In this research, variations in flame temperature, flame front location and mass fractions of the particle, particle oxide and oxidizer, with position, Lewis number and initial temperature of the particles were investigated. The simulation results were compared with those obtained from an earlier experimental study under the same conditions. Regarding the comparison, an appropriate compatibility was observed between the results. Based on the simulation results, flame temperature was found to be about 1310 K. Positions of flame and melting fronts were found to be − 1.8 mm and − 1.78 mm, respectively

Evaluation of In Vitro Antifungal Activity of Garlic, Thyme, Aloe Vera, and Cinnamon Essential Oils Against Candida Albicans, Aspergillus Flavus, Aspergillus Niger and Mucor Himalis

Introduction: Antifungal drugs have major limitations such as fungal resistance to classical drugs and treatment costs. It has been reported that antifungal activity of some essential oils as safe combinations. Thus, the present study was conducted to investigate the antifungal activity of garlic, thyme, aloe vera and cinnamon essential oils against Candida albicans, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger and Mucor himalis. Methods: Antibacterial activities of essential oils were evaluated by disk diffusion assay. The data were collected for 1, 3, 7 and 10 days. Results: Findings indicated that all essential oils showed similar antifungal activity against A. flavus, A. niger and M. himalis. Garlic essential oil was more efficient against C. albicans compared with other essential oils. Conclusion: The selected essential oils can efficiently show antifungal activity against A. flavus, A. niger and M. himalis, but garlic essential oil showed antifungal activity against the selected fungus Thus, garlic essential oil can be suggested as helper for common antifungal drugs