During the last two decades, there has been an increasing interest in the impact of oral health on atherosclerosis and subsequent cardiovascular disease (CVD). To date, some periodontal pathogens including Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) have been reported to be relevant to CVD. Porphyromonas endodontalis (P. endodontalis), which shares approximately 87% sequence homology with P. gingivalis, is mostly found within infected root canals. However, recent studies reveal that this pathogen also resides in the dental plaque or periodontal pocket in patients with periodontitis. It has been shown that P. endodontalis invades human coronary artery endothelial cells (HCAEC) and coronary artery smooth muscle cells (CASMC). To evaluate whether P. endodontalis can participate in the progression of atherosclerosis and CVD, we examined the changes in transcriptional gene expression profiles of HCAEC responding to invasion by P. endodontalis in this study. The following results were obtained. 1. Porphyromonas endodontalis was invasive of HCAEC. 2. According to the microarray analysis, there were 625 genes upregulated more than two-folds, while there were 154 genes downregulated by half. 3. Upregulated genes were relevant to inflammatory cytokines, apoptosis, coagulation and immune response. Enhanced expression of MMP-1 was also noticeable. 4. The transcription profiles of the 10 selected genes examined by real-time PCR agreed well with those observed in the microarray analysis. Thus, these results show that P. endodontalis presents the potential to trigger and augment atherosclerosis leading to CVD.
Apoptosis ; Atherosclerosis ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Coronary Vessels ; Cytokines ; Dental Plaque ; Dental Pulp Cavity ; Endothelial Cells ; Gene Expression ; Humans ; Microarray Analysis ; Myocytes, Smooth Muscle ; Oral Health ; Periodontal Pocket ; Periodontitis ; Porphyromonas ; Porphyromonas endodontalis ; Porphyromonas gingivalis ; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Sequence Homology ; Transcriptome

Nesidioblastosis is a rare disease characterized clinically by persistent hypoglycemia with inappropriately elevated circulating insulin concentration. Adequate early diagnosis should be established and subtotal pancreatectomy performed before itreversible cerebral damage caused by glucose deficit. The authors got a chance to anesthetize 56-day-old male patient for subtotal pancreatectomy because of nesidioblastosis, Following an induction of anesthesia with intravenous thiapental sodium 5 mg/kg and succinylchohne 1 mg/kg, endotracheal intubation was performed and anesthesia was maintained with pancuronium bromide and O2-N2O-enflurane. Intravenous fluid was maintained with 1-2-3 solution 30 ml and 15% D/W 40 ml mixed with 20 ml of 20 mEq/L NaCI.
Anesthesia* ; Early Diagnosis ; Glucose ; Humans ; Hypoglycemia ; Insulin ; Intubation, Intratracheal ; Male ; Nesidioblastosis* ; Pancreatectomy* ; Pancuronium ; Rare Diseases ; Sodium

BACKGROUND: The significance of adiponectin levels in elderly individuals with prediabetes has yet to be determined. Thus, the present study was performed to evaluate the relationships between adiponectin levels and anthropometric variables, body composition parameters, insulin sensitivity, and lipid profiles in elderly prediabetic patients. METHODS: The present study included 120 subjects with prediabetes who were >65 years of age and were selected from among 1,993 subjects enrolled in the Korea Rural Genomic Cohort Study. All subjects underwent a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test and tests for measurement of insulin sensitivity. All diagnoses of prediabetes satisfied the criteria of the American Diabetes Association. RESULTS: Plasma adiponectin levels were lower in elderly prediabetic subjects than elderly subjects with normal glucose tolerance (P<0.01) as well as in elderly prediabetic patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS) than in those without MetS (P<0.02). When the subjects were categorized into two groups according to plasma adiponectin levels, the waist-to-hip ratio and 2-hour insulin levels were significantly lower in individuals with high plasma adiponectin levels than in those with low plasma adiponectin levels. Additionally, the plasma adiponectin levels of elderly prediabetic subject were inversely correlated with body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio, visceral fat, visceral fat ratio, and 2-hour insulin levels. CONCLUSION: The present findings demonstrated that the major factors correlated with adiponectin levels in elderly prediabetic subjects were BMI, WC, waist-to-hip ratio, visceral fat, visceral fat ratio, and 2-hour insulin levels.
Adiponectin* ; Aged* ; Body Composition ; Body Mass Index ; Cohort Studies ; Diagnosis ; Glucose ; Glucose Tolerance Test ; Humans ; Insulin ; Insulin Resistance ; Intra-Abdominal Fat ; Korea ; Plasma* ; Prediabetic State* ; Waist Circumference ; Waist-Hip Ratio

PURPOSE: This study aimed to describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of children with acute combined central and peripheral nervous system demyelination (CCPD); and compare with the children of isolated acute central or peripheral nervous system demyelination. METHODS: A retrospective chart review of 145 children with acute demyelinating disease between 2010 and 2015 was undertaken in children with younger than 18 years old. Among these, 96 fulfilled criteria (clinical features and positive neuroimaging or electromyography/nerve conduction studies) for either acute central (group A, n=60, 62.5%) or peripheral (group B, n=30, 31.3%) nervous system demyelination, or a CCPD (group C, n=6, 6.3%). RESULTS: Significant differences among the groups (A vs B vs C) were evident for occurrence of disease between 2013-2015 (45.0% vs 43.3% vs 83.3%; P=0.024), admission to intensive care unit (8.3% vs 26.7% vs 50.0%; P=0.027), length of hospitalization (median, 9.7 vs 12.3 vs 48.3 days; P<0.001), treatment with steroids (88.3% vs 10.0 vs 100.0%; P=0.003), immunoglobulins (13.3% vs 100.0% vs 100.0%; P=0.002) and plasmapheresis (0.0% vs 3.3% vs 50.0%; P=0.037) and severe disability at discharge (3.3% vs 16.7% vs 33.3%; P=0.012). Children of group C showed good response to simultaneous use of immunoglobulin and high-dose corticosteroids and earlier try of plasmapheresis, however, two patients had moderate degree of neurological disability. CONCLUSION: Systemic studies using neuroimaing and electromyography/nerve conduction studies in all patients with demyelinating disease will be necessary to verify the combined or isolated disease, because CCPD might have the poorer outcome than isolated disease.
Adrenal Cortex Hormones ; Child* ; Demyelinating Diseases* ; Encephalomyelitis, Acute Disseminated ; Guillain-Barre Syndrome ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Immunoglobulins ; Intensive Care Units ; Miller Fisher Syndrome ; Myelitis, Transverse ; Nervous System ; Neuroimaging ; Optic Neuritis ; Peripheral Nervous System ; Plasmapheresis ; Retrospective Studies ; Steroids

The genus Acanthamoeba can cause severe infections such as granulomatous amebic encephalitis and amebic keratitis in humans. However, little genomic information of Acanthamoeba has been reported. Here, we constructed Acanthamoeba expressed sequence tags (EST) database (Acanthamoeba EST DB) derived from our 4 kinds of Acanthamoeba cDNA library. The Acanthamoeba EST DB contains 3,897 EST generated from amebae under various conditions of long term in vitro culture, mouse brain passage, or encystation, and downloaded data of Acanthamoeba from National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and Taxonomically Broad EST Database (TBestDB). The almost reported cDNA/genomic sequences of Acanthamoeba provide stand alone BLAST system with nucleotide (BLAST NT) and amino acid (BLAST AA) sequence database. In BLAST results, each gene links for the significant information including sequence data, gene orthology annotations, relevant references, and a BlastX result. This is the first attempt for construction of Acanthamoeba database with genes expressed in diverse conditions. These data were integrated into a database (http://www.amoeba.or.kr).
Acanthamoeba/*genetics ; Animals ; *Databases, Genetic ; *Expressed Sequence Tags

Purpose: Targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) panels for solid tumors have been useful in clinical framework for accurate tumor diagnosis and identifying essential molecular aberrations. However, most cancer panels have been designed to address a wide spectrum of pan-cancer models, lacking integral prognostic markers that are highly specific to gliomas. Materials and Methods: To address such challenges, we have developed a glioma-specific NGS panel, termed “GliomaSCAN,” that is capable of capturing single nucleotide variations and insertion/deletion, copy number variation, and selected promoter mutations and structural variations that cover a subset of intron regions in 232 essential glioma-associated genes. We confirmed clinical concordance rate using pairwise comparison of the identified variants from whole exome sequencing (WES), immunohistochemical analysis, and fluorescence in situ hybridization. Results: Our panel demonstrated high sensitivity in detecting potential genomic variants that were present in the standard materials. To ensure the accuracy of our targeted sequencing panel, we compared our targeted panel to WES. The comparison results demonstrated a high correlation. Furthermore, we evaluated clinical utility of our panel in 46 glioma patients to assess the detection capacity of potential actionable mutations. Thirty-two patients harbored at least one recurrent somatic mutation in clinically actionable gene. Conclusion We have established a glioma-specific cancer panel. GliomaSCAN highly excelled in capturing somatic variations in terms of both sensitivity and specificity and provided potential clinical implication in facilitating genome-based clinical trials. Our results could provide conceptual advance towards improving the response of genomically guided molecularly targeted therapy in glioma patients.

Objective: To investigate the mechanism of antibacterial activity of luteolin (LUT) against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Methods: The mechanism of anti-MRSA activity of LUT was analyzed by the viability assay in membrane permeabilizing agent, ATPase inhibitors, and peptidoglycan (PGN) derived from Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Also, transmission electron microscopy was used to monitor survival characteristics and changes in S. aureus morphology. Results: Compared to the LUT alone, the optical density of suspensions treated with the combination of 125 μg/mL Tris and 250 μg/mL N,N'-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide were reduced to 60% and 46% of the control, respectively. PGN (15.6 μg/mL) gradually impeded the activity of LUT, and PGN (62.5 μg/mL) completely blocked the activity of LUT on S. aureus. Conclusions: Increased susceptibility to LUT with the Tris-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide combinations is evident in all tested MRSA isolates. The results indicate LUT synergy in increasing cytoplasmic membrane permeability and inhibiting ATPase. S. aureus PGN directly blocks the antibacterial activity of LUT, suggesting the direct binding of LUT with PGN. These findings may be validated for the development of antibacterial agent for low MRSA resistance.