Articles

Proceedings of the 6th Annual United States Army Institute of Surgical Research Summer Undergraduate Research Internship Program 2018

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Influence of FTO rs9939609 and Mediterranean diet on body composition and weight loss: a randomized clinical trial

The Mediterranean diet (MeD) plays a key role in the prevention of obesity. Among the genes involved in obesity, the Fat mass and obesity-associated gene (FTO) is one of the most known, but its interaction wit...

Authors: Laura Di Renzo, Giorgia Cioccoloni, Simone Falco, Ludovico Abenavoli, Alessandra Moia, Paola Sinibaldi Salimei and Antonino De Lorenzo

Significance of intrinsic breast cancer subtypes on the long-term prognosis after neoadjuvant chemotherapy

The prognosis of breast cancer and the treatment response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) differ depending on the intrinsic molecular subtypes. We evaluated the prognostic significance of immunohistological ...

Authors: Wataru Goto, Shinichiro Kashiwagi, Koji Takada, Yuka Asano, Katsuyuki Takahashi, Hisakazu Fujita, Tsutomu Takashima, Shuhei Tomita, Kosei Hirakawa and Masaichi Ohira

Simvastatin attenuates tibial bone loss in rats with type 1 diabetes and periodontitis

Diabetes induces long bone loss and aggravation of periodontitis-induced alveolar bone loss. Simvastatin (SIM), which is a lipid-lowering agent is known to have an anabolic effect on bone. Therefore, we invest...

Authors: Ae Ri Kim, Ji-Hye Kim, Aeryun Kim, Yongsung Sohn, Jeong-Heon Cha, Eun-Jung Bak and Yun-Jung Yoo

Is it possible to overcome issues of external validity in preclinical animal research? Why most animal models are bound to fail

The pharmaceutical industry is in the midst of a productivity crisis and rates of translation from bench to bedside are dismal. Patients are being let down by the current system of drug discovery; of the sever...

Authors: Pandora Pound and Merel Ritskes-Hoitinga

Analysis of longitudinal semicontinuous data using marginalized two-part model

Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), is a secreted matricellular factor that has been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease in diabetic subjects. Despite the biological role of CTGF in diabetes...

Authors: Miran A. Jaffa, Mulugeta Gebregziabher, Sara M. Garrett, Deirdre K. Luttrell, Kenneth E. Lipson, Louis M. Luttrell and Ayad A. Jaffa

Periostin involved in the activated hepatic stellate cells-induced progression of residual hepatocellular carcinoma after sublethal heat treatment: its role and potential for therapeutic inhibition

Incomplete thermal ablation may induce invasiveness of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here, we investigated whether activated hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) would accelerate the progression of residual HCC aft...

Authors: Rui Zhang, Xia-Hui Lin, Min Ma, Jie Chen, Jun Chen, Dong-Mei Gao, Jie-Feng Cui and Rong-Xin Chen

Fragment size and level of cell-free DNA provide prognostic information in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer

It was recently demonstrated that the size of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) fragments that originates from tumor cells are shorter than cfDNA fragments that originates from non-malignant cells. We investigated whether...

Authors: Morten Lapin, Satu Oltedal, Kjersti Tjensvoll, Tove Buhl, Rune Smaaland, Herish Garresori, Milind Javle, Nils Idar Glenjen, Bente Kristin Abelseth, Bjørnar Gilje and Oddmund Nordgård

Status of programmed death-ligand 1 expression in sarcomas

Sarcomas are challenging to study because of their rarity and histomorphological complexity. PD1 and PD-L1 inhibitors showed a promising anti-tumor effect in solid tumors, where a relationship between PD-L1 ex...

Authors: Hyung Kyu Park, Mingi Kim, Minjung Sung, Seung Eun Lee, Yu Jin Kim and Yoon-La Choi

Galectin-3 predicts response and outcomes after cardiac resynchronization therapy

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) reduces symptoms, morbidity and mortality in chronic heart failure patients with wide QRS complexes. However, approximately one third of CRT patients are non-responders....

Authors: Clémentine Andre, Eric Piver, Romain Perault, Arnaud Bisson, Julien Pucheux, Emmanuelle Vermes, Bertrand Pierre, Laurent Fauchier, Dominique Babuty and Nicolas Clementy

Peptide vaccine against chikungunya virus: immuno-informatics combined with molecular docking approach

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), causes massive outbreaks of chikungunya infection in several regions of Asia, Africa and Central/South America. Being positive sense RNA virus, CHIKV replication within the host resu...

Authors: Muhammad Tahir ul Qamar, Amna Bari, Muhammad Muzammal Adeel, Arooma Maryam, Usman Ali Ashfaq, Xiaoyong Du, Iqra Muneer, Hafiz Ishfaq Ahmad and Jia Wang

The immune response to sub-clinical mastitis is impaired in HIV-infected women

Subclinical mastitis (SCM) is relatively common in lactating women and may be associated with HIV shedding in breast milk. The potential association between HIV infection and breast milk immunologic factors an...

Authors: Roxane Schaub, Stéphanie Badiou, Johannes Viljoen, Pierre Dujols, Karine Bolloré, Philippe Van de Perre, Marie-Louise Newell, Ruth Bland, Nicolas Nagot and Edouard Tuaillon

Genomic approaches in the search for molecular biomarkers in chronic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is recognised as a global public health problem, more prevalent in older persons and associated with multiple co-morbidities. Diabetes mellitus and hypertension are common aetiolog...

Authors: M. Cañadas-Garre, K. Anderson, J. McGoldrick, A. P. Maxwell and A. J. McKnight

iTRAQ-based quantitative analysis of age-specific variations in salivary proteome of caries-susceptible individuals

Human saliva is a protein-rich, easily accessible source of potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of oral and systemic diseases. However, little is known about the changes in salivary proteome associated with...

Authors: Kun Wang, Xiuqing Wang, Sainan Zheng, Yumei Niu, Wenyue Zheng, Xi Qin, Zhongcheng Li, Junyuan Luo, Wentao Jiang, Xuedong Zhou, Wei Li and Linglin Zhang

CD25 and TGF-β blockade based on predictive integrated immune ratio inhibits tumor growth in pancreatic cancer

The prognosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains poor due to the difficulty of disease diagnosis and therapy. Immunotherapy has had robust performance against several malignancies, including PD...

Authors: Ning Pu, Guochao Zhao, Hanlin Yin, Jian-ang Li, Abulimiti Nuerxiati, Dansong Wang, Xuefeng Xu, Tiantao Kuang, Dayong Jin, Wenhui Lou and Wenchuan Wu

An increase in myocardial 18-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake is associated with left ventricular ejection fraction decline in Hodgkin lymphoma patients treated with anthracycline

Doxorubicin (DOX)-based chemotherapy for Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) yields excellent disease-free survival, but poses a substantial risk of subsequent left ventricular (LV) dysfunction and heart failure, typically ...

Authors: Matteo Sarocchi, Matteo Bauckneht, Eleonora Arboscello, Selene Capitanio, Cecilia Marini, Silvia Morbelli, Maurizio Miglino, Angela Giovanna Congiu, Giorgio Ghigliotti, Manrico Balbi, Claudio Brunelli, Gianmario Sambuceti, Pietro Ameri and Paolo Spallarossa

Targeted deletion of Insm2 in mice result in reduced insulin secretion and glucose intolerance

Neurogenin3 (Ngn3) and neurogenic differentiation 1 (NeuroD1), two crucial transcriptional factors involved in human diabetes (OMIM: 601724) and islet development, have been previously found to directly target...

Authors: Lin Wang, Zhong Sheng Sun, Bingwu Xiang, Chi-ju Wei, Yan Wang, Kevin Sun, Guanjie Chen, Michael S. Lan, Gilberto N. Carmona, Abner L. Notkins and Tao Cai

Heterogeneity of insulin resistance and beta cell dysfunction in gestational diabetes mellitus: a prospective cohort study of perinatal outcomes

Insulin resistance and beta cell dysfunction were reported to be responsible for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). However, little is known about the heterogeneity of these factors and its influences on per...

Authors: Yingfeng Liu, Wolin Hou, Xiyan Meng, Weijing Zhao, Jiemin Pan, Junling Tang, Yajuan Huang, Minfang Tao and Fang Liu

Podocalyxin-like protein as a predictive biomarker for benefit of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in resectable gastric and esophageal adenocarcinoma

We have previously shown that podocalyxin-like protein (PODXL) is a prognostic biomarker for poor survival in gastric and esophageal adenocarcinoma treated with surgery up-front. The aim of the present study w...

Authors: David Borg, Anna H. Larsson, Charlotta Hedner, Björn Nodin, Anders Johnsson and Karin Jirström

Stability enhancement of clinical grade multipotent mesenchymal stromal cell-based products

Successful delivery of cell-based therapeutics into patients is compromised by their short shelf-life upon release from production facilities due to the living nature of the active component that rapidly loses...

Authors: Clémentine Mirabel, Eduard Puente-Massaguer, Anna del Mazo-Barbara, Blanca Reyes, Philip Morton, Francesc Gòdia and Joaquim Vives

A modified method for isolation of human cardiomyocytes to model cardiac diseases

Cardiomyocytes derived from animals and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are two main cellular models to study cardiovascular diseases, however, neither provides precise modeling of the response of matur...

Authors: Guang-ran Guo, Liang Chen, Man Rao, Kai Chen, Jiang-ping Song and Sheng-shou Hu

Analysis of circulating tumour cell and the epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) status during eribulin-based treatment in 22 patients with metastatic breast cancer: a pilot study

Liquid biopsy approaches, such as measuring circulating tumour cells (CTCs), have recently been introduced in several clinical studies. However, the development of CTCs as a predictive marker for treatment eff...

Authors: Yoshiya Horimoto, Emi Tokuda, Fumi Murakami, Toshitaka Uomori, Takanori Himuro, Katsuya Nakai, Gotaro Orihata, Kotaro Iijima, Shinsaku Togo, Hideo Shimizu and Mitsue Saito

Unique true predicted neoantigens (TPNAs) correlates with anti-tumor immune control in HCC patients

A novel prediction algorithm is needed for the identification of effective tumor associated mutated neoantigens. Only those with no homology to self wild type antigens are true predicted neoantigens (TPNAs) an...

Authors: Annacarmen Petrizzo, Maria Tagliamonte, Angela Mauriello, Valerio Costa, Marianna Aprile, Roberta Esposito, Andrea Caporale, Antonio Luciano, Claudio Arra, Maria Lina Tornesello, Franco M. Buonaguro and Luigi Buonaguro

Joint associations of serum uric acid and ALT with NAFLD in elderly men and women: a Chinese cross-sectional study

Epidemiological evidence suggests sex difference in serum uric acid (SUA) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) might be a potential explanation for the gender difference in prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty live...

Authors: Huanhuan Yang, Deming Li, Xiaochao Song, Fang Liu, Xinjing Wang, Qinghua Ma, Xi Zhang and Xinli Li

Upregulation of miR-196b-5p attenuates BCG uptake via targeting SOCS3 and activating STAT3 in macrophages from patients with long-term cigarette smoking-related active pulmonary tuberculosis

Cigarette smoking (CS) triggers an intense and harmful inflammatory response in lungs mediated by alveolar and blood macrophages, monocytes, and neutrophils and is closely associated with prevalence of tubercu...

Authors: Yaoqin Yuan, Dongzi Lin, Long Feng, Mingyuan Huang, Huimin Yan, Yumei Li, Yinwen Chen, Bihua Lin, Yan Ma, Ziyu Ye, Yuezhi Mei, Xiaolin Yu, Keyuan Zhou, Qunzhou Zhang, Tao Chen and Jincheng Zeng

Correction to: Harnessing Qatar Biobank to understand type 2 diabetes and obesity in adult Qataris from the First Qatar Biobank Project

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors reported that one of the authors’ names was processed incorrectly. In this Correction the incorrect and correct author name are shown. The origina...

Authors: Ehsan Ullah, Raghvendra Mall, Reda Rawi, Naima Moustaid-Moussa, Adeel A. Butt and Halima Bensmail

p53 modeling as a route to mesothelioma patients stratification and novel therapeutic identification

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an orphan disease that is difficult to treat using traditional chemotherapy, an approach which has been effective in other types of cancer. Most chemotherapeutics cause ...

Authors: Kun Tian, Emyr Bakker, Michelle Hussain, Alice Guazzelli, Hasen Alhebshi, Parisa Meysami, Constantinos Demonacos, Jean-Marc Schwartz, Luciano Mutti and Marija Krstic-Demonacos

Boswellia frereana suppresses HGF-mediated breast cancer cell invasion and migration through inhibition of c-Met signalling

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) plays a pivotal role in breast cancer cell motility, invasion and angiogenesis. These pro-metastatic events are triggered through HGF coupling and activation of the c-Met recepto...

Authors: Christian Parr and Ahmed Y. Ali

Plasma interleukin-37 is increased and inhibits the production of inflammatory cytokines in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients

Interleukin (IL)-37 has emerged as a novel anti-inflammatory cytokine that play an immunosuppressive role in regulating inflammatory response. This study aimed to measure IL-37 levels in the plasma and periphe...

Authors: Miao Feng, Min Kang, Feng He, Zonghui Xiao, Zhewei Liu, Hailan Yao and Jianxin Wu

A lipidated bi-epitope vaccine comprising of MHC-I and MHC-II binder peptides elicits protective CD4 T cell and CD8 T cell immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

The clinical trials conducted at Chingleput India suggest that BCG fails to protect against tuberculosis (TB) in TB-endemic population. Recent studies advocate that non-tuberculous mycobacteria and latent Mycobac...

Authors: Pradeep K. Rai, Sathi Babu Chodisetti, Sudeep K. Maurya, Sajid Nadeem, Weiguang Zeng, Ashok K. Janmeja, David C. Jackson and Javed N. Agrewala

The development of a Biobank of cancer tissue samples from World Trade Center responders

World Trade Center (WTC) responders were exposed to mixture of dust, smoke, chemicals and carcinogens. Studies of cancer incidence in this population have reported elevated risks of cancer compared to the gene...

Authors: Wil Lieberman-Cribbin, Stephanie Tuminello, Christina Gillezeau, Maaike van Gerwen, Rachel Brody, Michael Donovan and Emanuela Taioli

Establishment of urinary exosome-like vesicles isolation protocol for FHHNC patients and evaluation of different exosomal RNA extraction methods

Molecular and cellular pathophysiological events occurring in the majority of rare kidney diseases remain to be elucidated. Familial hypomagnesemia with hypercalciuria and nephrocalcinosis (FHHNC) is a rare au...

Authors: M. Vall-Palomar, J. Arévalo, G. Ariceta and A. Meseguer

Tailoring cells for clinical needs: Meeting report from the Advanced Therapy in Healthcare symposium (October 28–29 2017, Doha, Qatar)

New technologies and therapies designed to facilitate development of personalized treatments are rapidly emerging in the field of biomedicine. Strikingly, the goal of personalized medicine refined the concept ...

Authors: Sara Deola, Bella S. Guerrouahen, Heba Sidahmed, Anjud Al-Mohannadi, Muhammad Elnaggar, Ramaz Elsadig, Essam M. Abdelalim, Goran Petrovski, Massimo Gadina, Adrian Thrasher, Winfried S. Wels, Stephen P. Hunger, Ena Wang, Francesco M. Marincola, Cristina Maccalli and Chiara Cugno

Correction to: Cytokines induced killer cells produced in good manufacturing practices conditions: identification of the most advantageous and safest expansion method in terms of viability, cellular growth and identity

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors reported that all of the authors’ names were processed incorrectly so that their given and family names were interchanged. In this Correction the ...

Authors: Sara Castiglia, Aloe Adamini, Deborah Rustichelli, Laura Castello, Katia Mareschi, Giuseppe Pinnetta, Marco Leone, Alessandra Mandese, Ivana Ferrero, Giulia Mesiano and Franca Fagioli

Molecular network-based identification of competing endogenous RNAs and mRNA signatures that predict survival in prostate cancer

The aim of the study is described the regulatory mechanisms and prognostic values of differentially expressed RNAs in prostate cancer and construct an mRNA signature that predicts survival.

Authors: Ning Xu, Yu-Peng Wu, Hu-Bin Yin, Xue-Yi Xue and Xin Gou

Screening and identification of potential novel biomarker for diagnosis of complicated Plasmodium vivax malaria

In the recent years Plasmodium vivax has been reported to cause severe infections associated with mortality. Clinical evaluation has limited accuracy for the early identification of the patients progressing towar...

Authors: Hargobinder Kaur, Rakesh Sehgal, Archit Kumar, Alka Sehgal, Devendra Bansal and Ali A. Sultan

The systemic immune-inflammation index is an independent predictor of survival for metastatic colorectal cancer and its association with the lymphocytic response to the tumor

Systemic inflammation and immune dysfunction has been proved to be significantly associated with cancer progression and metastasis in many cancer types, including colorectal cancer. We examined the prognostic ...

Authors: Qian-Kun Xie, Ping Chen, Wan-Ming Hu, Peng Sun, Wen-Zhuo He, Chang Jiang, Peng-Fei Kong, Shou-Sheng Liu, Hai-Tian Chen, Yuan-Zhong Yang, Dan Wang, Lin Yang and Liang-Ping Xia

Surgical peritoneal stress creates a pro-metastatic niche promoting resistance to apoptosis via IL-8

The mainstay of treatment of advanced ovarian cancer (AOC) involves chemotherapy, and debulking surgery. However, despite optimal surgical procedure and adjuvant chemotherapy, 60% of patients with AOC will rel...

Authors: Jennifer Pasquier, Fabien Vidal, Jessica Hoarau-Véchot, Claire Bonneau, Emile Daraï, Cyril Touboul and Arash Rafii

The triennial International Pigment Cell Conference (IPCC)

The International Federation of Pigment Cell Societies (IFPCS) held its XXIII triennial International Pigment Cell Conference (IPCC) in Denver, Colorado in August 2017. The goal of the summit was to provide a ...

Authors: Neil F. Box, Lionel Larue, Prashiela Manga, Lluis Montoliu, Richard A. Spritz and Fabian V. Filipp

Chronic viral infections in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS)

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex and controversial clinical condition without having established causative factors. Increasing numbers of cases during past decade have c...

Authors: Santa Rasa, Zaiga Nora-Krukle, Nina Henning, Eva Eliassen, Evelina Shikova, Thomas Harrer, Carmen Scheibenbogen, Modra Murovska and Bhupesh K. Prusty

MiR-425 expression profiling in acute myeloid leukemia might guide the treatment choice between allogeneic transplantation and chemotherapy

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a highly heterogeneous disease. MicroRNAs function as important biomarkers in the clinical prognosis of AML.

Authors: Chen Yang, Tingting Shao, Huihui Zhang, Ninghan Zhang, Xiaoying Shi, Xuejiao Liu, Yao Yao, Linyan Xu, Shengyun Zhu, Jiang Cao, Hai Cheng, Zhiling Yan, Zhenyu Li, Mingshan Niu and Kailin Xu

Subtype-specific associations between breast cancer risk polymorphisms and the survival of early-stage breast cancer

Limited evidence suggests that inherited predisposing risk variants might affect the disease outcome. In this study, we analyzed the effect of genome-wide association studies—identified breast cancer-risk sing...

Authors: Fangmeng Fu, Wenhui Guo, Yuxiang Lin, Bangwei Zeng, Wei Qiu, Meng Huang and Chuan Wang

Cell adhesion-related gene somatic mutations are enriched in aggressive papillary thyroid microcarcinomas

Approximately half of the documented increases in differentiated thyroid carcinoma is due to identification of papillary thyroid microcarcinomas (PTMCs). Knowing whether PTMC is aggressive is required for prop...

Authors: Jianlu Song, Shouxin Wu, Xiaotian Xia, Yu Wang, Youben Fan and Zhili Yang

Identification of serum β-catenin as a biomarker in patients with HBV-related liver diseases

Substantial evidence indicates that β-catenin is a pivotal regulator that contributes to the initiation and development of various types of diseases. Recently, β-catenin can be detected in human serum and also...

Authors: Liang Duan, Qianfan Yang, Jun Yang, Qin Hu, Bo Wang, Pu Li and Weixian Chen

Identification of invasion-metastasis-associated microRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma based on bioinformatic analysis and experimental validation

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most lethal cancer, mainly attributing to its high tendency to metastasis. Vascular invasion provides a direct path for solid tumor metastasis. Mounting evidence ha...

Authors: Weiyang Lou, Jing Chen, Bisha Ding, Danni Chen, Huilin Zheng, Donghai Jiang, Liang Xu, Chang Bao, Guoqiang Cao and Weimin Fan

Systematic analysis of lncRNA–miRNA–mRNA competing endogenous RNA network identifies four-lncRNA signature as a prognostic biomarker for breast cancer

Increasing evidence has underscored the role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) acting as competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) in the development and progression of tumors. Nevertheless, lncRNA biomarkers in lncR...

Authors: Chun-Ni Fan, Lei Ma and Ning Liu

Roles of airway smooth muscle dysfunction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The airway smooth muscle (ASM) plays an indispensable role in airway structure and function. Dysfunction in ASM plays a central role in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cont...

Authors: Furong Yan, Hongzhi Gao, Hong Zhao, Madhav Bhatia and Yiming Zeng

China Intracranial Aneurysm Project (CIAP): protocol for a registry study on a multidimensional prediction model for rupture risk of unruptured intracranial aneurysms

Ruptured aneurysms, the commonest cause of nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage, can be catastrophic; the mortality and morbidity of affected patients being very high. Some risk factors, such as smoking, hyper...

Authors: Junfan Chen, Jian Liu, Yisen Zhang, Zhongbin Tian, Kun Wang, Ying Zhang, Shiqing Mu, Ming Lv, Peng Jiang, ChuanZhi Duan, Hongqi Zhang, Yan Qu, Min He and Xinjian Yang

A loss-of-function mutation p.T52S in RIPPLY3 is a potential predisposing genetic risk factor for Chinese Han conotruncal heart defect patients without the 22q11.2 deletion/duplication

Conotruncal heart defect (CTD) is a complex congenital heart disease with a complex and poorly understood etiology. The transcriptional corepressor RIPPLY3 plays a pivotal role in heart development as a negati...

Authors: Nanchao Hong, Erge Zhang, Qingjie Wang, Xiaoqing Zhang, Fen Li, Qihua Fu, Rang Xu, Yu Yu, Sun Chen, Yuejuan Xu and Kun Sun

Predictive values of the selected inflammatory index in elderly patients with papillary thyroid cancer

The American Joint Committee on Cancer has recently revised the tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging system on thyroid cancer, which illustrated that the cut-off age for predicting mortality has elevated from 4...

Authors: Weiheng Wen, Peili Wu, Jitong Li, He Wang, Jia Sun and Hong Chen