Design and characterization of electrochemical dopamine–aptamer as convenient and integrated sensing platform

Here, an ultrasensitive label-free electrochemical aptasensor was developed for dopamine (DA) detection. Construction of the aptasensor was carried out by electrodeposition of gold–platinum nanoparticles (Au–PtNPs) on glassy carbon (GC) electrode modified with acid-oxidized carbon nanotubes (CNTs–COOH). A designed complementary amine-capped capture probe (ssDNA1) was immobilized at the surface of PtNPs/CNTs–COOH/GC electrode through the covalent amide bonds formed by the carboxyl groups on the nanotubes and the amino groups on the oligonucleotides. DA-specific aptamer was attached onto the electrode surface through hybridization with the ssDNA1. Methylene blue (MB) was used as an electrochemical indicator that was intercalated into the aptamer through the specific interaction with its guanine bases. In the presence of DA, the interaction between aptamer and DA displaced the MB from the electrode surface, rendering a lowered electrochemical signal attributed to a decreased amount of adsorbed MB. This phenomenon can be applied for DA detection. The peak current of probe (MB) linearly decreased over a DA concentration range of 1–30 nM with a detection limit of 0.22 nM.     

Adipocyte lineage differentiation potential of MSCs isolated from reaming material

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) obtained from various sources have been used for different therapeutic applications including tissue regeneration. Reamer/irrigator/aspirator (RIA) has been increasingly used in recent years for the derivation of MSCs. Here in this investigation we have comparatively analyzed MSCs obtained from iliac crest bone marrow (ICBM) and RIA for their morphology, cluster determinant (CD) markers, and adipogenic differentiation capacity. MSCs were isolated, cultured, and purified from both sources and then flow cytometric studies were performed to study their characteristics. The differentiation potential of RIA and ICBM was examined by an Oil Red O staining protocol. Moreover, the tissue-specific markers related to adipogenesis were analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The cells were cultured in the relevant induction medium and then adipogenic lineage differentiation was tested and confirmed for all MSC preparations. Additionally, analysis by flow cytometer was indicative of RIA derived MSCs (RIA-MSCs) having a more homogenous population than ICBM derived MSCs. The RIA-MSCs differentiation toward adipogenic lineage was more efficient compared with ICBM-MSCs. Direct comparative analysis of RIA to ICBM-MSCs indicated that the RIA-MSCs had a higher potential toward adipocyte lineage differentiation compared with ICBM-MSCs.     

Diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target applications of miR-326 in cancers: A systematic review

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous mediators of RNA interference and have key roles in the modulation of gene expression under healthy, inflamed, stimulated, carcinogenic, or other cells, and tissues of a pathological state. Many studies have proved the association between miRNAs and cancer. The role of miR-326 as a tumor suppressor miRNA in much human cancer confirmed. We will explain the history and the role of miRNAs changes, especially miR-326 in cancers and other pathological conditions. Attuned with these facts, this review highlights recent preclinical and clinical research performed on miRNAs as novel promising diagnostic biomarkers of patients at early stages, prediction of prognosis, and monitoring of the patients in response to treatment. All related publications retrieved from the PubMed database, with keywords such as epigenetic, miRNA, microRNA, miR-326, cancer, diagnostic biomarker, and therapeutic target similar terms from 1899 to 2018 with limitations in the English language. Recently, researchers have focused on the impacts of miRNAs and their association in inflammatory, autoinflammatory, and cancerous conditions. Recent studies have suggested a major pathogenic role in cancers and autoinflammatory diseases. Investigations have explained the role of miRNAs in cancers, autoimmunity, and autoinflammatory diseases, and so on. The miRNA-326 expression has an important role in cancer conditions and other diseases.     

A simple and highly efficient method for transduction of human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells capable of differentiating into a wide range of cell types and provide a potential to transfer therapeutic protein in vivo, making them valuable candidates for gene therapy and cell therapy. However, using MSCs in in vivo is limited due to the low rate of transfection and transduction efficacy. Therefore, developing methods to efficiently transfer genes into MSCs would provide a number of opportunities for using them in the clinic. Here, we introduce a simple and robust method for efficient transduction of human adipose-derived MSCs by modification under the culture condition of human embryonic kidney cells 293 (HEK293T) and MSCs. Moreover, as a transduction enhancer, polybrene was replaced with Lipofectamine, a cationic lipid. Therefore, we showed that transduction of primary cells can be increased efficiently by modifying the culture condition.     

VEGF gene polymorphism interactions with dietary trace elements intake in determining the risk of metabolic syndrome

There is a complex association among genetic, metabolic, and environmental factors in determining the risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS). The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the association between the dietary intake of iron, copper, zinc, manganese, selenium, and iodine (assessed by 24 recall) with vascular endothelial growth factor variants (rs6921438, rs4416670, rs6993770, and rs10738760), on the risk of MetS. Two-hundred and forty-eight individuals with MetS and 100 individuals without MetS were recruited. The dietary intake and the daily average of energy and nutrient intake were obtained by a questionnaire and quantified using Diet Plan 6 software. DNA was extracted from EDTA anticoagulated whole blood. The SNPs were assessed using using a Sequenom iPLEX Gold assay. Data analysis was undertaken using the Student t test, χ2 test and logistic regression using SPSS 11.5 software. There was a significant association between low dietary iron intake and rs6993770 (β = .10, P < .05), and a low dietary zinc and a high manganese intake with rs6921438 in relation to the presence of MetS (β = −.17, P < .05, β = −.30, P < .05, respectively). Our data showed the association of rs6993770 with iron intake and rs6921438 with zinc and manganese intake, indicating further investigation in a larger population to evaluate their values.     

Curcumin increased the expression of c-FLIP in HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) patients

Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1)-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) disease is a chronic neuroinflammatory disease, which is associated with HTLV-1 infection. There is no effective and satisfactory treatment of HAM/TSP. It has been shown that curcumin exhibits modulatory effects on apoptosis and cytotoxicity-related molecules in HAM/TSP patients. In the present study, we examined the effect of curcumin on the gene expression of caspase-8, caspase-10, and anti-apoptotic protein c-FLIP, in HAM/TSP patients. Furthermore, we compared the expression of these molecules between HAM/TSP and asymptomatic carriers. Real-time PCR was performed to examine the mRNA expression of caspase-8, caspase-10, and c-FLIP in studied groups. The mRNA expression of caspase-8 and caspase-10 was similar before and after curcumin treatment in HAM/TSP patients (P > 0.05). The mRNA expression of c-FLIPL and c-FLIPs was higher after curcumin treatment compared with before treatment and significant differences were observed between the two groups (P = 0.004 and P = 0.044, respectively). The mRNA expression levels of caspase-8, caspase-10, c-FLIPL, and c-FLIPs were not statistically significant between HAM/TSP patients and asymptomatic carriers (P < 0.05). In conclusion, our results showed that curcumin increased the expression of c-FLIP in HAM/TSP patients which might suggest that, this molecule is involved in the apoptosis of HTLV-1-infected cells. Further studies with large sample size could be useful to clarify the role of this supplement in HAM/TSP patients.     

The Role of a Novel TRMT1 Gene Mutation and Rare GRM1 Gene Defect in Intellectual Disability in Two Azeri Families

Cognitive impairment or intellectual disability (ID) is a widespread neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by low IQ (below 70). ID is genetically heterogeneous and is estimated to affect 1–3% of the world’s population. In affected children from consanguineous families, autosomal recessive inheritance is common, and identifying the underlying genetic cause is an important issue in clinical genetics. In the framework of a larger project, aimed at identifying candidate genes for autosomal recessive intellectual disorder (ARID), we recently carried out single nucleotide polymorphism-based genome-wide linkage analysis in several families from Ardabil province in Iran. The identification of homozygosity-by-descent loci in these families, in combination with whole exome sequencing, led us to identify possible causative homozygous changes in two families. In the first family, a missense variant was found in GRM1 gene, while in the second family, a frameshift alteration was identified in TRMT1, both of which were found to co-segregate with the disease. GRM1, a known causal gene for autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia (SCAR13, MIM#614831), encodes the metabotropic glutamate receptor1 (mGluR1). This gene plays an important role in synaptic plasticity and cerebellar development. Conversely, the TRMT1 gene encodes a tRNA methyltransferase that dimethylates a single guanine residue at position 26 of most tRNAs using S-adenosyl methionine as the methyl group donor. We recently presented TRMT1 as a candidate gene for ARID in a consanguineous Iranian family (Najmabadi et al., 2011). We believe that this second Iranian family with a biallelic loss-of-function mutation in TRMT1 gene supports the idea that this gene likely has function in development of the disorder.     

A Deep-Structured Conditional Random Field Model for Object Silhouette Tracking

In this work, we introduce a deep-structured conditional random field (DS-CRF) model for the purpose of state-based object silhouette tracking. The proposed DS-CRF model consists of a series of state layers, where each state layer spatially characterizes the object silhouette at a particular point in time. The interactions between adjacent state layers are established by inter-layer connectivity dynamically determined based on inter-frame optical flow. By incorporate both spatial and temporal context in a dynamic fashion within such a deep-structured probabilistic graphical model, the proposed DS-CRF model allows us to develop a framework that can accurately and efficiently track object silhouettes that can change greatly over time, as well as under different situations such as occlusion and multiple targets within the scene. Experiment results using video surveillance datasets containing different scenarios such as occlusion and multiple targets showed that the proposed DS-CRF approach provides strong object silhouette tracking performance when compared to baseline methods such as mean-shift tracking, as well as state-of-the-art methods such as context tracking and boosted particle filtering.