Integrative role of small non-coding RNAs in viral immune response: a systematic review

Various viruses cause viral infection, and these viruses have different microscopic sizes, genetic material, and morphological forms. Due to a viral infection, the host body induces defense mechanisms that activate the innate and adaptive immune system. sncRNAs are involved in various biological processes and play an essential role in antiviral response in viruses including ZIKV, HCV, DENV, SARS-CoV, and West Nile virus, and regulate the complex interactions between the viruses and host cells. This review discusses the role of miRNAs, siRNAs, piRNAs, and tiRNAs in antiviral response. Cellular miRNAs bind with virus mRNA and perform their antiviral response in multiple viruses. However, the chemical modifications of miRNA necessary to avoid nuclease attack, which is then involved with intracellular processing, have proven challenging for therapeutic replacement of miRNAs. siRNAs have significant antiviral responses by targeting any gene of interest along the correct nucleotide of targeting mRNA. Due to this ability, siRNAs have valuable characteristics in antiviral response for therapeutic purposes. Additionally, the researchers noted the involvement of piRNAs and tiRNAs in the antiviral response, yet their findings were deemed insignificant.

Exploring the Regulatory Roles of miR-21, miR-15, and miR-let-7 in ABC Transporter-Mediated Chemoresistance: Implications for Breast Cancer Etiology and Treatment

Breast cancer, a prevalent and aggressive malignancy among females worldwide, poses a significant challenge due to resistance to chemotherapy and tyrosine kinase inhibitors. In breast cancer, ABC transporters play a pivotal role by contributing to chemoresistance and drug efflux, a phenomenon observed also in various cancers. This study aims to elucidate the role of oncomiRs miR-15, miR-21, and miR-let-7 in breast cancer etiology and their impact on chemotherapy-resistant oncogenes ABCA1, ABCB1, and ABCC1. Blood samples from female breast cancer patients were analyzed to assess the expression levels of miRNAs and oncogenes by qPCR. Significantly, miR-21 exhibited a positive correlation with ABCA1 in newly diagnosed patients, while miR-15 and miR-let-7 displayed a positive correlation with ABCA1 in the metastasis group. Additionally, miR-let-7 demonstrated a negative correlation with ABCC1 in newly diagnosed patients. This study's findings provide valuable insights into the cancer etiology of these miRNAs and their interactions with ABCA1, ABCB1, and ABCC1. Targeting these interactions holds promise for mitigating drug efflux and chemoresistance in breast cancer, potentially enhancing current treatments and improving patient outcomes.

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling pathway and inflammatory bowel disease: Current status and future prospects

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic life-limiting disease of gastrointestinal tract characterized by widespread enteric inflammation. IBD is a multifactorial disease, and different environmental, microbial, and immune-related factors give rise to the development of disease. Among several factors, the preponderance of pro-inflammatory T helper 17 cells over the anti-inflammatory regulatory T cells augments inflammation in the intestinal mucosa. Prevailing evidence accentuates that PI3K signaling pathway plays a central role in the pathophysiology of the condition by regulating the inflammatory process in the gut mucosa. By recognizing the implications of PI3K in the pathogenesis of IBD, agents that could modulate this pathway have recently been at the focus of research, yielding encouraging results mainly in the experimental IBD models. In this review, we have summarized the recent advances, which may hold the keys to identify novel therapeutic strategies for IBD.

Immunoinformatics design of multi-epitope peptide-based vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae strain using cell division protein

Haemophilus influenzae is a pathogen that causes invasive bacterial infections in humans. The highest prevalence lies in both young children and adults. Generally, there are no vaccines available that target all the strains of Haemophilus influenzae. Hence, the purpose of this research is to employ bioinformatics and immunoinformatics approaches to design a Multi-Epitope Vaccine candidate employing the pathogenic cell division protein FtsN that specifically combat all the Haemophilus influenzae strains. The current research focuses on developing subunit vaccine in contrast to vaccines generated from the entire pathogen. This will be accomplished by combining multiple bioinformatics and immunoinformatics approaches. As a result, prospective T cells (helper T lymphocyte and cytotoxic T lymphocytes) and B cells epitopes were investigated. The human leukocyte antigen allele having strong associations with the antigenic and overlapping epitopes were chosen, with 70% of the total coverage of the world population. To construct a linked vaccine design, multiple linkers were used. To increase the immunogenic profile, an adjuvant was linked using EAAAK linker. The final vaccine construct with 149 amino acids was obtained after adjuvants and linkers were added. The developed Multi-Epitope Vaccine has a high antigenicity as well as viable physiochemical features. The 3D conformation was modeled and undergoes refinement and validation using bioinformatics methods. Furthermore, protein-protein molecular docking analysis was performed to predict the effective binding poses of Multi-Epitope Vaccine with the Toll-like receptor 4 protein. Besides, vaccine underwent the codon translational optimization and computational cloning to verify the reliability and proper Multi-Epitope Vaccine expression. In addition, it is necessary to conduct experiments and research in the laboratory to demonstrate that the vaccine that has been developed is immunogenic and protective.

Non-coding RNAs, another side of immune regulation during triple-negative breast cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is considered about 12-24 % of all breast cancer cases. Patients experience poor overall survival, high recurrence rate, and distant metastasis compared to other breast cancer subtypes. Numerous studies have highlighted the crucial roles of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in carcinogenesis and proliferation, migration, and metastasis of tumor cells in TNBC. Recent research has demonstrated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) play a role in the regulation of the immune system by affecting the tumor microenvironment, the epithelial-mesenchymal transition, the regulation of dendritic cells and myeloid-derived stem cells, and T and B cell activation and differentiation. Immune-related miRNAs and lncRNAs, which have been established as predictive markers for various cancers, are strongly linked to immune cell infiltration and could be a viable therapeutic target for TNBC. In the current review, we discuss the recent updates of ncRNAs, including miRNAs and lncRNAs in TNBC, including their biogenesis, target genes, and biological function of their targets, which are mostly involved in the immune response.

HEMATOLOGICAL AND SEROLOGICAL PARAMETERS FOR DETECTION OF COVID-19

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) appeared as outbreak in 2019 in Wuhan, China. It has been classified as pandemic disease and more severe than predicted; with infections already recorded in a variety of countries. This study aims to confirm the COVID-19 infection through the following tests: hematological, C-reactive protein (CRP). Samples were collected from the infected patients and sent to the National Flu Center (Central Public Health Laboratory) for COVID-19 (positive or negative) diagnosis by the RT-PCR technique. In this study, sixty five of COVID-19 patients and twenty five of healthy control samples male and female were collected in Iraq. There are significant differences in the parameters of the hematological markers for patients in comparing with the control group and no significant differences were observed in Hb when RBC and GRAN percent rise in patients relative to the control group with P=0.0395 and P=0.0354 respectively comparing with the control group. White blood cells (WBC), Lymphocyte (LYM%), Platelets (PIT), monocyte (Mid%), hematocrit (HCT), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean platelet volume (MPV), plateletcrit (PCT) was drop dramatically in patients compared to control group. Fifty-one of patients for whom the test was given exhibited a positive (CRP) result. Likewise, the results showed that few patients were negative to CRP test. The Hematological parameters levels (HCT, MCV, MCH, Pelt, WBC, LYM, Mid, MPV, PCT) decreased, but Hb, RBC, GRAN% increased. C-reactive protein test showed a positive result in 85% of patients which can be considered an indicator for predicting severity infection with COVID-19.

Association of two single nucleotide polymorphisms rs10407022 and rs3741664 with the risk of primary ovarian insufficiency in a sample of Iraqi women

Primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) can be a devastating disease impacting women below the age of forty. This involves a major decrease in the amount and quality of oocytes, or ovarian reserve in a woman. The distribution of single-nucleotide polymorphisms, rs10407022 and rs3741664, in Iraqi people and its association with primary ovarian insufficiency is the main objective of this study. The mean of FSH and LH levels of patients with POI was higher than control, while the mean of AMH levels of patients was lower compared to control. For rs10407022, the GT and TT genotypes were positively associated with the risk of POI. For the rs3741664, the AG genotype was negatively associated with the risk of POI. The results lead to the main conclusion that rs10407022 and rs3741664 polymorphisms may significantly affected the serum levels of AMH and FSH and thus affect POI etiology.

Pharmacodynamic modeling of adverse effects of anti-cancer drug treatment

Purpose

Adverse effects related to anti-cancer drug treatment influence patient’s quality of life, have an impact on the realized dosing regimen, and can hamper response to treatment. Quantitative models that relate drug exposure to the dynamics of adverse effects have been developed and proven to be very instrumental to optimize dosing schedules. The aims of this review were (i) to provide a perspective of how adverse effects of anti-cancer drugs are modeled and (ii) to report several model structures of adverse effect models that describe relationships between drug concentrations and toxicities.

Methods

Various quantitative pharmacodynamic models that model adverse effects of anti-cancer drug treatment were reviewed.

Results

Quantitative models describing relationships between drug exposure and myelosuppression, cardiotoxicity, and graded adverse effects like fatigue, hand-foot syndrome (HFS), rash, and diarrhea have been presented for different anti-cancer agents, including their clinical applicability.

Conclusions

Mathematical modeling of adverse effects proved to be a helpful tool to improve clinical management and support decision-making (especially in establishment of the optimal dosing regimen) in drug development. The reported models can be used as templates for modeling a variety of anti-cancer-induced adverse effects to further optimize therapy.

A piezoelectric immunosensor for the detection of cortisol

A piezoelectric crystal immunosensor has been developed for the detection and determination of cortisol. Cortisol antibody was layered onto the gold electrodes of a 10 MHz piezoelectric crystal which was pre-coated with either protein A or gluteraldehyde. Crystals pre-coated with protein A showed the best results with respect to stability and sensitivity. The sensor was successfully used for the determination of cortisol in standard solutions from 36-3628 micrograms/L (part per billion). The advantages of the proposed sensor include simplicity, short analysis time, cost effectiveness and selectivity. The results demonstrate the feasibility of cortisol assay in clinical testing and in drug monitoring.

Recent developments in piezoelectric immunosensors. A review

The development of piezoelectric (PZ) devices as immunosensors is reviewed. The recent advances in sensor design have stimulated great interest in PZ technology and facilitated diverse applications in a variety of matrices. Methods of antibody immobilization on crystals and several applications are reported including microgravimetric immunoassays, microbial toxins and other contaminants.

Colorimetric determination of free and total cholesterol by flow injection analysis with a fiber optic detector

A flow injection method for the determination of total and free cholesterol is presented. Cholesterol esterase and cholesterol oxidase are immobilized on aminoalkyl glass beads. The beads are packed into a tubular glass reactor. The cholesterol esters traversing through the esterase reactor are cleaved to cholesterol and fatty acids. The oxidase reactor converts cholesterol to cholest-4-en-3-one and hydrogen peroxide is generated. The sample stream is merged with reagent streams consisting of a peroxidase solution and a solution of 2,2'-azino-bis-(3-ethyl-benzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt, and a hydrogen peroxide-dependent color reaction takes place in a short coiled reactor. The signal is monitored by means of fiber optic instrumentation. Cholesterol concentration can be related to the absorption of the oxidized dye form at a wavelength of 425 nm. The working range is 0.5-0.8 mmol l-1, and the sample throughputs are 60 and 30 h-1 for free and total cholesterol, respectively.

Amperometric determination of phosphate by use of a nucleoside phosphorylase-xanthine oxidase enzyme sensor based on a Clark-type hydrogen peroxide or oxygen electrode

A bienzymatic sensor for the determination of phosphate was constructed by coimmobilization of xanthine oxidase (EC 1.2.3.22) and nucleoside phosphorylase (EC 2.4.2.1) on a polycarbonate membrane mounted on the tips of amperometric hydrogen peroxide and oxygen electrodes. The sensor response was linear to phosphate concentrations in the range 10-250 microM.

Piezoelectric crystal biosensors

The recent development of piezoelectric devices as biosensors is reviewed. Biological materials, like enzymes, lipids, antibodies and antigens, have been used as specific coatings and were utilized for the determination of different substrates. Methods of protein coating and several applications are reported including microgravimetric immunoassays, microbial assays, DNA hybridization, enzyme detections and gas phase biosensors. Although the piezoelectric immunochemical sensor is convenient to use and very promising, a thorough understanding of the different phenomena associated with crystals frequency measurement in biological reactions is still lacking and deserves further investigation.