Biology, Volume 9, Issue 4

(1) Background: Direct-acting antiviral therapy for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is associated with high sustained virologic response (SVR) and overcomes negative predictive factors, including steatosis, in patients without human immunod...

α-Crystallin is the major protein of the eye lens and a member of the family of small heat-shock proteins. Its concentration in the human eye lens is extremely high (about 450 mg/mL). Three-dimensional structure of native α-crystallin is...

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movement disorder without any objective biomarker available to date. Increasing evidence highlights the critical role of neuroinflammation, including T cell responses, and spreading...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a multifactorial disease, in which systemic inflammation plays a key role. This 6-month randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled study evaluates the possible effect of natural preparation Inflaminat...

Objective: This study aimed to explore the influence of social support on the survival outcomes of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We examined whether the combined proxy influenced whether patients were more likely to receive radiothera...

The overexpression of GATA-3, T-bet and TGF-ß may theoretically induce IL-4/A, IFN-γ and IL-17A expression, respectively. Whether this also applies to fish is not yet known. The plasmid vectors encoding reporter gene (RFP)-tagged T-bet, G...

Extracorporeal circulation (ECC) methods are being increasingly used for mechanical support of respiratory and cardio-circulatory failure. Especially, cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) during cardiovascular surgery, sustenance of the patient’s life...

Pancreatic cancer is a dismal disorder that is histologically characterized by a dense fibrotic stroma around the tumor cells. As the extracellular matrix comprises the bulk of the stroma, matrix degrading proteases may play an important role in panc...

Cancer recurrence has remained a significant challenge, despite advances in therapeutic approaches. In part, this is due to our incomplete understanding of the biology of cancer stem cells and the underlying molecular mechanisms. The phenomenon of di...

Dendrobium has been widely used not only as ornamental plants but also as food and medicines. The identification and evaluation of the genetic diversity of Dendrobium species support the conservation of genetic resources of endemic Dendrobium species...

The spermatozoon is a highly specialized cell, whose main function is the transport of the intact male genetic material into the oocyte. During its formation and transit throughout male and female reproductive tracts, sperm cells are internally and e...

The anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), a Sertoli cell-secreted glycoprotein that is present in seminal plasma (SP), is considered as a marker of spermatogenesis in humans. This study aimed to evaluate the presence of this hormone in boar SP, together...

Background: non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) recently headlined hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) worldwide. This study aims to unveil the role of some unaddressed critical players that might aid in understanding, predicting, and targeting NASH and...

Anti-angiogenic agents, such as the multi-tyrosine kinase inhibitor sunitinib, are key first line therapies for metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), but their mechanism of action is not fully understood. Here, we take steps towards val...

Terebelliformia—“spaghetti worms” and their allies—are speciose and ubiquitous marine annelids but our understanding of how their morphological and ecological diversity evolved is hampered by an uncertain delineation of lineag...

There is a growing awareness that pregnancy can set the foundations for an array of diverse medical conditions in the offspring, including obesity. A wide assortment of factors, including genetic, epigenetic, lifestyle, and diet can influence foetal...

Neuroblastoma (NB) development and progression are accompanied by changes in N-glycans attached to proteins. Here, we investigated the role of N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase-II (GnTII, MGAT2) protein substrates in neuroblastoma (NB) cells. MGAT2 was...

Over the past decade, there have been accumulating reports from farmers and field extension personnel on the increasing incidence and spread of onion (Allium cepa) bulb basal rot in northern Israel. The disease is caused mainly by Fusarium species. R...

Strategies aiming to promote weight loss usually include anything that results in an increase in energy expenditure (exercise) or a decrease in energy intake (diet). However, the probability of losing weight is low and the probability of sustained we...

Previous work has shown that although estrogen (E2) disrupts cellular iron metabolism and induces oxidative stress in breast and ovarian cancer cells, it fails to induce apoptosis. However, E2 treatment was reported to enhance the apoptotic effects o...

Background: Many pseudogenes possess biological activities and play important roles in the pathogenesis of various types of cancer including bladder cancer (BlCa), which still lacks suitable molecular biomarkers. Recently, pseudogenes were found to b...

Background: Several lines of evidence have demonstrated the tumor-promoting function of inflammation. Since many chemokines are important in coordinating immune cells during inflammation, monitoring intratumoral chemokines provides a way to study the...

Osteoarthritis (OA) has long been viewed as a degenerative disease of cartilage, but accumulating evidence indicates that inflammation has a critical role in its pathogenesis. In particular, chondrocyte-mediated inflammatory responses triggered by th...

Phylogenomics, the use of large datasets to examine phylogeny, has revolutionized the study of evolutionary relationships. However, genome-scale data have not been able to resolve all relationships in the tree of life; this could reflect, at least in...

The first references to neurotrophic factors date back to the middle of the 20th century when the nerve growth factor (NGF) was first discovered. Later studies delivered a large amount of data on neurotrophic factors. However, many questions regardin...

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy-specific disorder characterized by the presence of hypertension with the onset of either proteinuria, maternal organ or uteroplacental dysfunction. Preeclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal and fetal mortality...