International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Volume 18, Issue 5

Forages grown in temperate regions, such as alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) and white clover (Trefolium repens L.), typically have a high nutritional value when fed to ruminants. Their high protein content and degradation rate result, however, in poor u...

Toward the next generation of nerve guidance conduits (NGCs), novel biomaterials and functionalization concepts are required to address clinical demands in peripheral nerve regeneration (PNR). As a biological polymer with bioactive motifs, gelatinous...

The major house dust mite allergen, Der p 1, is a papain-like cysteine protease expressed as an inactive precursor, proDer p 1, carrying an N-terminal propeptide with a unique structure. The maturation of the zymogen into an enzymatically-active form...

Prostate and breast cancer are the second most and most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and women worldwide, respectively. The American Cancer Society estimates that during 2016 in the USA around 430,000 individuals were diagnosed with one of these...

We have previously found that cigarette smoke disrupts metabolic function, in part, by increasing muscle ceramide accrual. To further our understanding of this, we sought to determine the role of the cytokine high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1), which...

Cancer-associated stroma (CAS) plays a key role in cancer initiation and progression. Spontaneously occurring canine mammary carcinomas are viewed as excellent models of human breast carcinomas. Considering the importance of CAS for human cancer, it...

Carcinosarcomas (CS) in gynecology are very infrequent and represent only 2–5% of uterine cancers. Despite surgical cytoreduction and subsequent chemotherapy being the primary treatment for uterine CS, the overall five-year survival rate is 30 ± 9% a...

Newcastle disease (ND) is one of the most important diseases of poultry worldwide. In the last decades, molecular research has gained a lot of new information about its causative agent, newcastle disease virus (NDV). In poultry industry, certain stra...

Here, dual-sensitive fluorescent branched alginate-polyethyleneimine copolymer (bAPSC) nanogels were synthesized from thiolated alginate and stearoyl-derivatized branched polyethyleneimine. The formation of bAPSC conjugates was confirmed through prot...

The impairment of autophagic and proteasomal cleansing together with changes in pigmentation has been documented in retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell degeneration. However, the function and co-operation of these mechanisms in melanosome-containin...

Globally, more than 20% of women of reproductive age are currently estimated to be obese. Children born to obese mothers are at higher risk of developing obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and asthma in adulthood. Increasing clinical...

Although Panax ginseng is a famous traditional Chinese medicine and has been widely used to treat a variety of metabolic diseases including hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and hepatosteatosis, the effective mediators and molecular mechanisms remain la...

Isorhynchophylline (Rhy) is an active pharmacological component of Uncaria rhynchophylla that has been reported previously to exert significant antihypertensive and neuroprotective effects. However, very little is known about its potential anti-cance...

With cancer often classified as a disease that has an important epigenetic component, natural compounds that have the ability to regulate the epigenome become ideal candidates for study. Humans have a complex diet, which illustrates the need to eluci...

It is well known that ketamine abuse can induce liver damage in adult addicts, but the effects of ketamine abuse in pregnant mothers on their offspring have received less attention. In this study, we investigated the effects of 5-day ketamine injecti...

In the absence of visible mucosal damage, it is hypothesized that the esophageal mucosal barrier is functionally impaired in patients with non-erosive reflux disease (NERD). The aim of the present study was to perform an exploratory analysis of the m...

Previous studies have demonstrated that the marine compound austrasulfone, isolated from the soft coral Cladiella australis, exerts a neuroprotective effect. The intermediate product in the synthesis of austrasulfone, dihydroaustrasulfone alcohol, at...

The role of the tumor suppressor mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 4 (SMAD4) has not yet been defined in patients (pts) with advanced pancreatic cancer (aPC). This translational research study was designed to evaluate the impact of tumoral SMAD...

Clinical genetic testing (CGT) of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have positive and negative effects. Knowledge about parents’ attitudes is needed to ensure good involvement of caregivers, which is crucial for accurate diagnosis and...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among young individuals worldwide. Understanding the pathophysiology of neurotrauma is crucial for the development of more effective therapeutic strategies. After the trauma occ...

22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) is a genomic disorder reported to associate with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in 15–50% of cases; however, others suggest that individuals with 22q11.2DS present psychiatric or behavioral features associated...

Radiolabeled liposomes have been employed as diagnostic tools to monitor in vivo distribution of liposomes in real-time, which helps in optimizing the therapeutic efficacy of the liposomal drug delivery. This work utilizes the platform of [¹¹¹In]-Lip...

There is a significant need for in vitro methods to study drug-induced liver injury that are rapid, reproducible, and scalable for existing high-throughput systems. However, traditional monolayer and suspension cultures of hepatocytes are difficult t...

Xenobiotic-induced interstrand DNA–DNA cross-links (ICL) interfere with transcription and replication and can be converted to toxic DNA double strand breaks. In this work, we investigated cellular responses to 1,4-bis-(guan-7-yl)-2,3-butanediol (bis-...

Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) are a group of autoimmune muscle diseases with significant morbidity and mortality. This review details and updates the pathogenesis and emerging importance of myositis-specific antibodies in the development...

Bordetella holmesii can cause invasive infections but can also be isolated from the respiratory tract of patients with whooping-cough like symptoms. For the first time, we describe the lipid A structure of B. holmesii reference strain ATCC 51541 (ali...

Ocotea species present economic importance and biological activities attributed to their essential oils (EOs) and extracts. For this reason, various strategies have been developed for their conservation. The chemical compositions of the essential oil...

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a major cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) worldwide. Glycemic and blood pressure (BP) control are important but not sufficient to attenuate the incidence and progression of DN. Sodium–glucose cotransporter (SGLT) 2...

Recently, the interplay between autophagy and apoptosis has become an important factor in chemotherapy for cancer treatment. Inhibition of autophagy may be an effective strategy to improve the treatment of chemo-resistant cancer by consistent exposur...

Peritoneal ascites are a distinguishable feature of patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). The presence of different lymphocyte subsets has been reported in EOC-associated ascites, which also can or not contain malignant cells. The g...

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are a group of neurodegenerative disorders that affect humans and other mammals. The etiologic agents common to these diseases are misfolded conformations of the prion protein (PrP). The molecular mech...

Acne vulgaris affects most people at some point in their lives. Due to unclear etiology, likely with multiple factors, targeted and low-risk treatments have yet to be developed. In this review, we explore the multiple causes of acne and how plant-bas...

Lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) are a group of about 50 genetic metabolic disorders, mainly affecting children, sharing the inability to degrade specific endolysosomal substrates. This results in failure of cellular functions in many organs, inclu...

Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is no longer a single, omnipotent ovulation triggering option. Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist, initially presented as a substitute for hCG, has led to a new era of administering GnRH agonist followed...

Bivalent genes are frequently associated with developmental and lineage specification processes. Resolving their bivalency enables fast changes in their expression, which potentially can trigger cell fate decisions. Here, we provide a theoretical mod...

Isoquercitrin, (IQ, quercetin-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside) is known for strong chemoprotectant activities. Acylation of flavonoid glucosides with carboxylic acids containing an aromatic ring brings entirely new properties to these compounds. Here, we des...

The present study aimed to analyze novel mechanisms underlying Nrf2-mediated anti-apoptosis in periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSCs) in the periodontitis oxidative microenvironment. We created an oxidative stress model with H₂O₂-treated PDLSCs. We...

Bacterial biofilm is a major factor in delayed wound healing and high levels of biofilm production have been repeatedly described in multidrug resistant organisms (MDROs). Nevertheless, a quantitative correlation between biofilm production and the pr...

The management of patients with chronic respiratory diseases affected by difficult to treat infections has become a challenge in clinical practice. Conditions such as cystic fibrosis (CF) and non-CF bronchiectasis require extensive treatment strategi...

A fatal case associated with enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) infection affecting a 10-year-old boy was reported in Hong Kong in 2014. To examine if a new strain has emerged in Hong Kong, we sequenced the partial genome of the EV-D68 strain identified from t...

The reliability of reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) results in gene expression studies depends on the approaches used to account for non-biological variations. In order to find a proper normalization strategy for the study of genes re...

Fragile-X syndrome is the most common form of inherited mental retardation accompanied by other phenotypes, including macroorchidism. The disorder originates with mutations in the Fmr1 gene coding for the FMRP protein, which, with its paralogs FXR1 a...

Historically, plant-based products have been the basis of medicine since before the advent of modern Western medicine. Wound dressings made of honey, curcumin and other phytochemical-rich compounds have been traditionally used. Recently, the mechanis...

There is growing evidence that chronic hyperglycemia leads to the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) which exerts its effect via interaction with the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE). AGE-RAGE activation results in...

This study was conducted to investigate the autophagic response of Sertoli cells (SCs) to acute ethanol toxicity using in vivo and in vitro models. Adult Wistar rats were intraperitoneally injected with either 5 g/kg ethanol or phosphate-buffered sal...

The E3 ubiquitin ligase Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome (APC/C) regulates important processes in cells, such as the cell cycle, by targeting a set of substrates for degradation. In the last decade, APC/C has been related to several major functio...

To thoroughly review the uses of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) related to the process of reproduction and also assess new, non-traditional theories. Review of the international literature and research studies. hCG and its receptor, LH/CGR, are e...

Osteopontin (OPN) is a secreted phosphoglycoprotein, and is a transcriptional target of aberrant Wnt signaling. OPN is upregulated in human colon cancers, and is suggested to enhance cancer progression. In this study, the effect of deficiency of OPN...

Uveitis, defined as inflammation of the uveal tract, may cause blindness in both young and middle-aged people. Approximately 10–15% of blindness in the West is caused by uveitis. Therefore, a comprehensive investigation to determine the disease patho...

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability in children. Oxidative stress plays a significant role in brain damage and melatonin exhibits both direct and indirect antioxidant effects. The primary aim of the pre...