Genome-wide identification of long non-coding RNAs in tomato plants irradiated by neutrons followed by infection with Tomato yellow leaf curl virus

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in regulating many biological processes. In this study, tomato seeds were first irradiated by neutrons. Eight tomato mutants were then selected and infected by Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV). RNA sequencing followed by bioinformatics analyses identified 1,563 tomato lncRNAs. About half of the lncRNAs were derived from intergenic regions, whereas antisense lncRNAs accounted for 35%. There were fewer lncRNAs identified in our study than in other studies identifying tomato lncRNAs. Functional classification of 794 lncRNAs associated with tomato genes showed that many lncRNAs were associated with binding functions required for interactions with other molecules and localized in the cytosol and membrane. In addition, we identified 19 up-regulated and 11 down-regulated tomato lncRNAs by comparing TYLCV infected plants to non-infected plants using previously published data. Based on these results, the lncRNAs identified in this study provide important resources for characterization of tomato lncRNAs in response to TYLCV infection

Imaging Findings in a Case of Mixed Acinar-Endocrine Carcinoma of the Pancreas

Mixed acinar-endocrine carcinoma (MAEC) of the pancreas is extremely uncommon. We report here a rare case of MAEC of the pancreas presenting as watery diarrhea. This is the first report in the English-language literature that describes the imaging findings of MAEC of the pancreas, including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and MR cholangiopancreatography features

Development of a Mobile Application, “Wild Flowers of Bukhansan National Park (version 1.0)”, for Identification of Plants in Bukhansan National Park

AbstractWe developed the educational purpose mobile application, named “Wild Flowers of Bukhansan National Park (version 1.0)”, aiming for easy identification of wildflowers for students and visitors in the park. When visitors find a flower or part of plant in the park, visitors can search for its name utilizing the pictures and characters provided in their own smartphone mobile devices or tablet PCs. The application provides pictures of wildflowers in the park and character-based searching system based on 12 diagnostic features (e.g., growth form, leaf arrangement, flower symmetry, petal color, petal number, sepal number, etc). We adopted the complete floristic survey of Chung and Lee (1962) and added species that we confirmed their distribution in the park during the development of this application. In summary, number of vascular plants in this park was estimated to be 428 taxa including 100 families, 280 genera, 327 species, 1 subspecies, 50 varieties, and 5 formas. We provided a total of 588 pictures representing 358 taxa and each taxon includes multiple pictures in many cases. Included identification quizzes can be an efficient educational tool as well as fun activity for students and visitors who are learning plant species in Korea. Our next step will include GPS function in the application for indicating visitor's location and for providing previously reported sites of the species that we interested in the map of the park. The future application which includes GPS function will be a valuable tool for the monitoring of rare plants, plant researches related to the climate changes, etc. We currently provide Korean iPhone version only, and English version and both of android versions will be serviced soon

Generalized Granuloma Annulare in Infancy Following Bacillus Calmette-Guerin Vaccination

Generalized granuloma annulare (GGA) is a rare benign granulomatous dermatosis characterized by disseminated necrobiotic dermal papules. Histologically, it presents as a lymphohistiocytic granuloma associated with varying degrees of connective tissue degeneration. It usually occurs in adults and rarely affects infants. Herein, we report an interesting case of GGA which occurred in a 3 month-old girl in association with Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccination

A Case of Cicatricial Alopecia Associated with Erlotinib

Erlotinib is a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Erlotinib has been used primarily to treat non-small cell lung cancer. In addition to its role in tumor cells, EGFR is also an important regulator of growth and differentiation in the skin and hair. Therefore, EGFR-TKIs have been associated with a number of cutaneous side effects including follicular acneiform eruptions, cutaneous xerosis, chronic paronychia, desquamation, seborrheic dermatitis, and hair texture changes. Herein, we report a rare case of a 61-year-old woman who was treated with erlotinib and experienced cicatricial alopecia

Trousseau's Syndrome in Association with Cholangiocarcinoma: Positive Tests for Coagulation Factors and Anticardiolipin Antibody

Thromboembolic events are reported to occur with a high frequency in the setting of malignancy. However, reports on an association between cholangiocarcinoma and pulmonary thromboembolism, thus far, are almost lacking. We present here an unusual case of a 56-yr-old patient presenting cholangiocarcinoma and unexplained pulmonary thromboembolism. The patient had been quite healthy before the diagnosis. Coagulation tests showed elevated levels of fibrinogen, fibrinogen degradation product (FDP), D-dimer, and IgM anticardiolipin antibody (aCL Ab). The thromboemboli were resolved 3 weeks after anticoagulant therapy using low-molecular-weight-heparin. Then, follow-up coagulation tests showed a marked decrease to normal in aCL Ab titer as well as the normalization of FDP and D-dimer levels. In this case, we describe pulmonary thromboembolism caused by hypercoagulable state associated with cholangiocarcinoma and speculate that such a thrombotic phenomenon could be regressed by anticoagulant therapy

Smaller pineal gland is associated with rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder in Alzheimers disease

Background To investigate the association between pineal gland volume and symptoms of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) in Alzheimers disease (AD) patients without any feature of dementia with Lewy bodies. Methods We enrolled 296 community-dwelling probable AD patients who did not meet the diagnostic criteria for possible or probable dementia with Lewy bodies. Among them, 93 were amyloid beta (Aβ) positive on 18F-florbetaben amyloid brain positron emission tomography. We measured RBD symptoms using the REM Sleep Behavior Disorder Screening Questionnaire (RBDSQ) and defined probable RBD (pRBD) as the RBDSQ of 5 or higher. We manually segmented pineal gland on 3T structural T1-weighted brain magnetic resonance imaging. Results The participants with pRBD had smaller pineal parenchyma volume (VPP) than those without pRBD (p <  0.001). The smaller the VPP, the more severe the RBD symptoms (p <  0.001). VPP was inversely associated with risk of prevalent pRBD (odds ratio = 0.909, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.878–0.942, p <  0.001). Area under the receiver operator characteristic curve for pRBD of VPP was 0.80 (95% CI = 0.750–0.844, p <  0.0001). These results were not changed when we analyzed the 93 participants with Aβ-positive AD separately. Conclusions In AD patients, reduced pineal gland volume may be associated with RBD.This study was supported by the grants from the Korean Health Technology R&D Project, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (grant no.HI09C1379 [A092077]) and the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Promotion (IITP) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (2018-2-00861, Intelligent SW Technology Development for Medical Data Analysis)