A locust witness of a trans-oceanic Oligocene migration between Arabia and Iran (Orthoptera: Acrididae)

Fossil insects are very rarely found in sediments of deep marine origin. Nevertheless they can be of great interest to trace past events such as trans-oceanic migrations. Here we document the first fossil insects from Iran, viz. several alate ants dead during mating swarms and a migratory locust, found in the pelagic Oligocene sediments of the Zagros Mountains. This locust represents the first putative indication of insect migrations between the Arabian-African and Asiatic continents through the Parathetys, probably in relation with the development of open grassland biotas in these areas.     

EEG power spectral density in locked-in and completely locked-in state patients: a longitudinal study

Persons with their eye closed and without any means of communication is said to be in a completely locked-in state (CLIS) while when they could still open their eyes actively or passively and have some means of communication are said to be in locked-in state (LIS). Two patients in CLIS without any means of communication, and one patient in the transition from LIS to CLIS with means of communication, who have Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis were followed at a regular interval for more than 1 year. During each visit, resting-state EEG was recorded before the brain–computer interface (BCI) based communication sessions. The resting-state EEG of the patients was analyzed to elucidate the evolution of their EEG spectrum over time with the disease’s progression to provide future BCI-research with the relevant information to classify changes in EEG evolution. Comparison of power spectral density (PSD) of these patients revealed a significant difference in the PSD’s of patients in CLIS without any means of communication and the patient in the transition from LIS to CLIS with means of communication. The EEG of patients without any means of communication is devoid of alpha, beta, and higher frequencies than the patient in transition who still had means of communication. The results show that the change in the EEG frequency spectrum may serve as an indicator of the communication ability of such patients.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s11571-020-09639-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Telomerase reverse transcriptase downregulation by RNA interference modulates endoplasmic reticulum stress and mitochondrial energy production

Molecular Biology Reports - Telomerase is a cancer promoting ribonucleoprotein complex and is a potential therapeutic target for cancer. In this study, the effects of telomerase downregulation on...     

Silibinin treatment results in reducing OPA1&MFN1 genes expression in a rat model hepatic ischemia–reperfusion

The mitochondrial damage has a pivotal role in triggering apoptosis and cell death. This study assessed the effect of silibinin on optical atrophy-1 (OPA1) and mitofusin-1 (MFN1) gene expression in liver tissue during hepatic warm ischemia–reperfusion (IR). Four groups of rats, eight rats each were designed: Vehicle: the rats received normal saline and encountered to laparotomy, Sili: silibinin (60 mg/kg) was administered to animals, IR: the rats received the normal saline and insulted by liver IR procedure, and IR?+?Sili: silibinin was injected to rats. All groups were subjected to the same process of injection of the solvent or silibinin (30 min before laparotomy or ischemia and immediately after the reperfusion), intraperitoneally (IP). After 3 h of reperfusion, blood and liver tissue samples were collected for future examinations. Our results showed no significant differences between the Vehicle and Sili groups in all assessed parameters. In IR?+?Sili, the increased serum levels of AST and ALT in comparison with the control group were markedly reduced by silibinin treatment. Silibinin lowered the elevated expression of OPA1 and MFN1 mRNAs in the IR group. Histology revealed silibinin could decline tissue degeneration compared to the IR group. Electron microscopy of control and silibinin groups showed no fusion of mitochondria and tissue degradation both of which were observed in the IR group. The extent of tissue destruction and mitochondrial fusion decreased significantly with silibinin treatment. Silibinin has a protective effect on liver cells against IR induced injuries by preserving mitochondrial membrane.

     

miRNA Expression Analyses in Prostate Cancer Clinical Tissues

A critical challenge in prostate cancer (PCa) clinical management is posed by the inadequacy of currently used biomarkers for disease screening, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. In recent years, microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as promising alternate biomarkers for prostate cancer diagnosis and prognosis. However, the development of miRNAs as effective biomarkers for prostate cancer heavily relies on their accurate detection in clinical tissues. miRNA analyses in prostate cancer clinical specimens is often challenging owing to tumor heterogeneity, sampling errors, stromal contamination etc. The goal of this article is to describe a simplified workflow for miRNA analyses in archived FFPE or fresh frozen prostate cancer clinical specimens using a combination of quantitative real-time PCR (RT-PCR) and in situ hybridization (ISH). Within this workflow, we optimize the existing methodologies for miRNA extraction from FFPE and frozen prostate tissues and expression analyses by Taqman-probe based miRNA RT-PCR. In addition, we describe an optimized method for ISH analyses formiRNA detection in prostate tissues using locked nucleic acid (LNA)- based probes. Our optimized miRNA ISH protocol can be applied to prostate cancer tissue slides or prostate cancer tissue microarrays (TMA).     

Synergistic apoptotic effect of Mcl-1 inhibition and doxorubicin on B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells

Molecular Biology Reports - Myeloid cell leukemia-1 (MCL-1) is a component of the Bcl-2 anti-apoptotic family that plays a key role in cell proliferation and differentiation. Despite tremendous...     

A Novel Molecular Design for a Hybrid Phage-DNA Construct Against DKK1

Nucleic acid immunization has recently exhibited a great promise for immunotherapy of various diseases. However, it is now clear that powerful strategies are imminently needed to improve their efficiency. In this regard, whole bacteriophage particles have been described as efficient DNA vaccine delivery vehicles, capable of circumventing the limitations of naked DNA immunization. Moreover, phage particles could be engineered to display specific peptides on their surfaces. Given these inherent characteristics of phages, we have designed a novel hybrid phage-DNA immunization vector using both M13 and pAAV plasmid elements. Following the construction and in vitro confirmation of the designed vectors, they were used for comparative mice immunization, carrying the same DNA sequence. The results indicated the efficacy of the designed hybrid phage particles, to elicit higher humoral immunity, in comparison to conventional DNA-immunization vectors (pCI). In light of these findings, it could be concluded that using adeno-associated virus (AAV) expression cassette along with displaying TAT peptide on the surface of the phage particle could be deemed as an appealing strategy to enhance the DNA-immunization and vaccination efficacy.     

Study of DNA base-Li doped SiC nanotubes in aqueous solutions: a computer simulation study

Due to the importance of soluble nanotubes in biological systems, computational research on DNA base functionalized nanotubes is of interest. This study presents the quantitative results of Monte Carlo simulations of Li-doped silicon carbide nanotubes and its nucleic acid base complexes in water. Each species was first modeled by quantum mechanical calculations and then Monte Carlo simulations were applied to study their properties in aqueous solution. Solvation free energies were computed to indicate the solvation behavior of these compounds. The computations show that solvation free energies of the complexes of DNA bases with Li-doped SiC nanotubes are in the order: thymine > cytosine > adenine > guanine. The results of complexation free energies were also used to study the stability of related structures, which indicate that thymine-Li-doped SiC nanotubes produce the most stable compound among the four DNA base complexes.