• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.2563-2566
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• 2013

Background: Interleukin-33 (IL-33) has recently been implicated in tumor immunity. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical role of serum IL-33 in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Sera collected from 250 healthy volunteers (HV), 256 patients with benign lung diseases (BLD) and 262 NSCLC cases were subjected to IL-33 ELISA and relationships between serum IL-33 and clinical characteristics were evaluated. Results: Circulating IL-33 levels were higher in the NSCLC group in comparison with the HV and BLD groups (p<0.001). Using a cut-off level 68 pg/ml (95% specificity in the HV group), IL-33 showed a good diagnostic performance for NSCLC. Multivariate survival analysis indicated that serum IL-33 was an independent prognostic factor in the entire NSCLC group [hazards ratio (HR) = 0.64 for low versus high IL-33 levels, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.50-0.82; p<0.001] and in 165 selected patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease receiving chemoradiotherapy or chemotherapy (HR 0.70, 95% CI 0.52-0.94; p=0.013). Conclusions: IL-33 is a promising potential diagnostic and prognostic marker in NSCLC, independent of the therapeutic intervention.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.43-51
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze G3BP1 and VEZT expression profiles in patients with gastric cancer, and examine the possible relationship between the expressions of each gene and clinicopathological factors. Materials and Methods: Expression of these genes in formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues, collected from 40 patients with gastric cancer and 40 healthy controls, was analyzed. Differences in gene expression among patient and normal samples were identified using the GraphPad Prism 5 software. For the analysis of real-time polymerase chain reaction products, GelQuantNET software was used. Results: Our findings demonstrated that both VEZT and G3BP1 mRNA expression levels were downregulated in gastric cancer samples compared with those in the normal controls. No significant relationship was found between the expression of these genes and gender (P-value, 0.4835 vs. 0.6350), but there were significant changes associated with age (P-value, 0.0004 vs. 0.0001) and stage of disease (P-value, 0.0019 vs. 0.0001). In addition, there was a direct relationship between VEZT gene expression and metastasis (P-value, 0.0462), in contrast to G3BP1 that did not demonstrate any significant correlation (P-value, 0.1833). Conclusions: The results suggest that expression profiling of VEZT and G3BP1 can be used for diagnosis of gastric cancer, and specifically, VEZT gene could be considered as a biomarker for the detection of gastric cancer progression.

• BMB Reports
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.311-317
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• 2014

microRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small, non-coding RNAs that play critical posttranscriptional regulatory roles typically through targeting of the 3'-untranslated region of messenger RNA (mRNA). Mature miRNAs are known to be involved in global cellular processes, such as differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, and organogenesis, due to their capacity to target multiple mRNAs. Thus, imbalances in the expression and/or activity of miRNAs are involved in the pathogenesis of numerous diseases, including pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). PAH is a progressive disease characterized by vascular remodeling due to excessive proliferation of pulmonary artery endothelial cells (PAECs) and pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs). Recently, studies have evaluated the roles of miRNAs involved in the pathogenesis of PAH in these pulmonary vascular cells. This review provides an overview of recent discoveries on the role of miRNAs in the pathogenesis of PAH and discusses the potential for miRNAs as therapeutic targets and biomarkers of PAH.

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.5.1-5.5
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• 2011

Introduction: Many signal transduction pathways mediate cell's behavior by regulating expression level of involved genes. Abnormal behavior indicates loss of regulatory potential of pathways, and this can be attributed to loss of expression regulation of downstream genes. Therefore, function of pathways should be assessed by activity of a pathway itself and relative activity between a pathway and downstream genes, simultaneously. Results and Discussion: In this study, we suggested a new method to assess pathway's function by introducing concept of 'responsiveness'. The responsiveness was defined as a relative activity between a pathway itself and its downstream genes. The expression level of a downstream gene as a function of an upstream pathway activation characterizes disease status. In this aspect, by using the responsiveness we predicted potential progress in cancer development. We applied our method to predict primary and metastatic status of melanoma cancer. The result shows that the responsiveness-based approach achieves better performance than using gene or pathway information alone. The mean of ROC scores in the responsiveness-based approach was 0.90 for GSE7553 data set, increased more than 40% compared to a gene-based method. Moreover, identifying the abnormal regulatory patterns between pathway and its downstream genes provided more biologically interpretable information compared to gene or pathway based approaches.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.71-78
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• 2015

The incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) in critically ill pediatric patients has been reported as increasing to 25 %, depending on population characteristics. The etiology of AKI has changed over the last 10-20 years from primary renal disease to the renal conditions associated with systemic illness. The AKI in pediatric population is associated with increased mortality and morbidity, and prevention is needed to reduce the consequence of AKI. It is known that the most important risk factors for AKI in critically ill pediatric patients are clinical conditions to be associated with decreased renal blood flow, direct renal injury, and illness severity. Renal hypoperfusion leads to neurohormonal activation including renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, sympathetic nervous system, antidiuretic hormone, and prostaglandins. Prolonged renal hypoperfusion can result in acute tubular necrosis. The direct renal injury can be predisposed under the condition of renal hypoperfusion, and appropriate treatment of volume depletion is important to prevent AKI. The preventable causes of AKI include contrast-induced nephropathy, hemodynamic instability, inappropriate mediation use, and multiple nephrotoxic insults. Given the evidence of preventable factors for AKI, several actions such as the use of protocol for prevention of contrast-induced nephropathy, appropriate treatment of volume depletion, vigorous treatment of sepsis, avoidance of combinations of nephrotoxic medications, and monitoring of levels of drugs should be recommended.

• 한국어정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2016.10a
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• pp.317-320
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• 2016

기계학습 기반의 자연어처리 모듈에서 중요한 단계 중 하나는 모듈의 입력으로 단어를 표현하는 것이다. 벡터의 사이즈가 크고, 단어 간의 유사성의 개념이 존재하지 않는 One-hot 형태와 대조적으로 유사성을 표현하기 위해서 단어를 벡터로 표현하는 단어 표현 (word representation/embedding) 생성 작업은 자연어 처리 작업의 기계학습 모델의 성능을 개선하고, 몇몇 자연어 처리 분야의 모델에서 성능 향상을 보여 주어 많은 관심을 받고 있다. 본 논문에서는 Word2Vec, CCA, 그리고 GloVe를 사용하여 106,552개의 PubMed의 바이오메디컬 논문의 요약으로 구축된 말뭉치 카테고리의 각 단어 표현 모델의 카테고리 분류 능력을 확인한다. 세부적으로 나눈 카테고리에는 질병의 이름, 질병 증상, 그리고 난소암 마커가 있다. 분류 능력을 확인하기 위해 t-SNE를 이용하여 2차원으로 단어 표현 결과를 맵핑하여 가시화 한다. 2차원으로 맵핑된 결과 값을 코사인 유사도를 사용하여 질병과 바이오 마커간의 유사도를 구한다. 이 유사도 결과 값 상위 20쌍의 결과를 가지고 실제 연구가 되고 있는지 구글 스콜라를 통해 관련 논문을 검색하여 확인하고, 검색 결과를 점수화 한다. 실험 결과 상위 20쌍 중에서 85%의 쌍이 실제적으로 질병과 바이오 마커 간의 관계를 파악하는 방향으로 진행 되고 있으나, 나머지 15%의 쌍에 대해서는 실질적인 연구가 잘 되고 있지 않은 것으로 파악되었다.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.56 no.7
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• pp.271-274
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• 2013

Brain insults, including neurotrauma, infection, and perinatal injuries such as hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, generate inflammation in the brain. These inflammatory cascades induce a wide spectrum of cytokines, which can cause neuron degeneration, have neurotoxic effects on brain tissue, and lead to the development of seizures, even if they are subclinical and occur at birth. Cytokines are secreted by the glial cells of the central nervous system and they function as immune system mediators. Cytokines can be proinflammatory or anti-inflammatory. Interleukin (IL)-$1{\beta}$ and IL-8 are proinflammatory cytokines that activate additional cytokine cascades and increase seizure susceptibility and organ damage, whereas IL-1 receptor antagonist and IL-10 act as anti-inflammatory cytokines that have protective and anticonvulsant effects. Therefore, the immune system and its associated inflammatory reactions appear to play an important role in brain damage. Whether cytokine release is relevant for the processes of epileptogenesis and antiepileptogenesis, and whether epileptogenesis could be prevented by immunomodulatory treatment should be addressed in future clinical studies. Furthermore, early detection of brain damage and early intervention are essential for the prevention of disease progression and further neurological complications. Therefore, cytokines might be useful as biomarkers for earlier detection of brain damage in high-risk infants.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.34 no.1 s.132
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• pp.100-108
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• 2003

The regulation of plasma lipid level, particularly LDL cholesterol, represents the focus of current therapy for atherosclerosis. And $Lp-PLA_2$ is able to hydrolyse oxidized phosphatidylcholine within LDL into lyso-PC and oxidized fatty acids. $Lp-PLA_2$ is a potential biomarker of coronary heart disease and plays an important proinflammatory role in the progression of atherosclerosis. We investigated the inhibitory effects of methanol extracts of 224 natural plants on $Lp-PLA_2$ activity. Seven kinds of methanol extracts of tested plants showed above 50% inhibitory effect with the concentration of $100\;{\mu}g/ml$. The concentrated aqueous suspensions of each methanol extract were partitioned with n-hexane, $CHCl_3$, and EtOAc. Among them, EtOAc extracts of Astilbe chinensis var. davidii (root) and Pourthiaea villosa var. brunnea (leaf) significantly inhibited $Lp-PLA_2$ activity at the same concentration.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.381-384
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• 2014

Background: Evidence indicates that Dickkopf-1 (DKK-1) levels may be a biomarker for cancer risk. The aim of this study was to assess DKK-1 and its correlation with clinic-pathological features in patients with bladder cancer. Materials and Methods: DKK-1 levels were determined in serum samples from 90 patients with bladder cancer before transurethral tumor resection. The concentrations of DKK-1 were determined by using enzyme linked immune-sorbent assay (ELISA). Results: Elevated preoperative DKK-1 levels were associated with tumor stage (p<0.001), grade (p<0.001) and histological grade (p<0.001). Conclusions: The results of our study demonstrated that the level of serum DKK-1 is correlated with both disease progression and increase in the tumor grade. Preoperative serum DKK-1 elevation may thus represent a novel marker for the determination of bladder cancer and the detection of patients with a likely poor clinical outcome.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.652-662
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• 2018

Diarrhea is a global disease with a high morbidity and mortality rate in children. In this study, 25 fecal samples were collected from children under 5 years old. Seven samples had been taken from healthy children without diarrhea and marked as the healthy control group; eight samples had been sampled from children with diarrhea caused by dyspepsia and defined as the non-infectious group; and ten samples had been taken from children with diarrhea induced by intestinal infections and identified as the infectious group. We detected the microbial communities of samples by using high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. The proportion of aerobic and facultative anaerobic microbes in samples of the infectious group was much higher than in the non-infectious group. In addition, the relative abundance of Enterococcus in the healthy control group was significantly higher than in the non-infectious group and infectious group. This can be used as a potential diagnostic biomarker for diarrhea.