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KANNO is a new human blood group that was recently discovered. The KANNO antigen shares the PRNP gene with the prion protein and the prion protein E219K polymorphism determines the presence or absence of the KANNO antigen and the development of anti-KANNO alloantibodies. These alloantibodies specifically react with prion proteins, which serve as substrates for conversion into pathological isoforms in some prion diseases and may serve as effective targets for resisting prion infection. These findings establish a potential link between the KANNO blood group and human prion disease via the prion protein E219K polymorphism. We reviewed the interesting correlation between the human PRNP gene's E219K polymorphism and the prion proteins it expresses, as well as human red blood cell antigens. Based on the immune serological principles of human blood cells, the prion protein E219K polymorphism may serve as a foundation for earlier molecular diagnosis and future drug development for prion diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/purpose: Previous epidemiological studies have associated interstitial lung disease (ILD) with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), yet the causality of this relationship remains uncertain. This study aimed to investigate the genetic causal link between ILD and RA. Methods: Genome-wide association study (GWAS) statistics for ILD and RA were collected from public datasets. Relevant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected by executing quality control steps from the GWAS summary results. A two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was performed to assess the causal relationship between the two conditions. The MR analysis primarily used the inverse variance weighting (IVW), weighted median (WM), and MR-Egger regression methods. Sensitivity analyses, including MR-Egger, leave-one-out, and MR Pleiotropy RESidual Sum and Outlier (MR-PRESSO), were conducted to evaluate the heterogeneity and pleiotropy. Replication analyses using Asian datasets were also conducted to enhance the robustness of our findings. Results: In the European population, RA was found to increase the risk of ILD by 9.6% (OR: 1.096, 95% CI: 1.023-1.174, p = 0.009). Conversely, ILD was associated with a 12.8% increased risk of RA (OR: 1.128, 95% CI: 1.013-1.256, p = 0.029). Replication analyses from Asian GWAS further supported these findings, particularly the increased risk of ILD attributable to RA (OR: 1.33, 95% CI: 1.18-1.49, p-value <0.001). Conclusion: Our findings underscore the clinical importance of screening for ILD in RA patients and suggest that effective management of RA could significantly benefit ILD patients. The potential applicability of novel RA treatments to ILD warrants further exploration. Additionally, racial disparities in the manifestation of these diseases should not be overlooked, as they may offer new perspectives for targeted therapies in diverse populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spin-dependent charge transport behavior involving the recently discovered tunnel-type magnetodielectric (TMD) and magnetoresistance (TMR) effects was studied in Co-(Al-fluoride) granular nanocomposites. By setting a changeable partition height (t = 1–4 cm) on a substrate holder in a conventional co-sputtering (CS) deposition system, we developed a co-separate sputtering (CSS) method to fabricate Co-(Al-F) granular nanocomposites. XPS analysis shows that the Al content remains balanced between the Al metal and Al-F compounds by controlling t. This phenomenon can be attributed to the magnetron plasma interference from the two target sources. Fittings between TMR and normalized magnetization suggest that the CSS films with clear granular structures may have high spin polarization. Compared with the CS samples (t = 0 cm), the CSS films with t = 4 cm show enhanced charge transport properties with a maximum TMD ratio (0.5%) and TMR ratio (7.2%) under a magnetic field of H = 10 kOe. This study demonstrates that the Al-F tunnel barrier between Co granules plays an essential role in controlling the charge transport behavior and will be of significance for applications in field sensors and impedance-tunable devices with large magnetic-field response. Published by AIP Publishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: With no existing gold standard for comparison, challenges arise for establishing the validity of a new standardized Mandarin language assessment normed in mainland China. Method: A new assessment, Diagnostic Receptive and Expressive Assessment of Mandarin (DREAM), was normed with a stratified sample of 969 children ages 2;6 (years; months) to 7;11 in multiple urban and nonurban regions in northern and southern China. In this study of 230 children, the sensitivity and specificity of DREAM were examined against an a priori judgment of disorders. External validity was assessed using 2 indices of language production for different age groups. Results: External validity was assessed against spontaneous language indices (correlation range: r = .6-.7; allps < .01) and narrative indices (overall: r = .45, p < .01). Sensitivity (.73) and specificity (.82) of DREAM are moderate to good using a priori judgment as the standard. The values improved to .95 and .82 when spontaneous language and narratives were added to a priori judgment to define typicality. Divergent validity was moderate with nonlinguistic indices. Conclusion: DREAM holds promise as a diagnostic test of Mandarin language impairment for children aged 2;6 to7;11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL)-induced endothelial cell apoptosis is considered to be important in atherogenesis. MicroRNA (miR)-590 has been reported to inhibit oxLDL-induced endothelial cell apoptosis. However, the mechanism underlying the inhibition of oxLDL-induced endothelial cell apoptosis by miR-590 remains to be elucidated. In the present study, the expression levels of miR-590 were quantified using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis. Cell apoptosis was investigated using Hoechst staining and flow cytometry, and cell viability was measured using an MTS method. The protein expression levels of p53, B cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), Bcl-2-associated X protein (Bax), caspase-3, lectin-like low-density lipoprotein receptor 1 (LOX-1), p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and nuclear factor (NF)-?B were quantified using western blot analyses. The results of the present study showed that oxLDL treatment inhibited the expression levels of miR-590 in a time-dependent and concentration-dependent manner. The overexpression of miR-590 inhibited oxLDL-induced endothelial cell apoptosis, expression of p53 and Bax, reduction of Bcl-2 and activation of caspase-3. miR-590 also inhibited the oxLDL-induced upregulation of the expression of LOX-1, overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS), phosphoryation of p38MAPK and translocation of NF-κB. These findings demonstrated the anti-apoptotic effects of miR-590 in oxLDL-treated endothelial cells, with the mechanisms underlying the effects of miR-590 involved, in part, in the LOX-1-ROS-p38MAPK-NF-κB signaling cascade and the p53-Bcl-2/Bax-caspase-3 signaling pathway. The present study may provide novel insights into the protective properties of miR-590 in preventing atherosclerosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic voltage scaling (DVS), which adjusts the clock frequency and supply voltage based on the workload of systems, has been adopted in many computing systems to reduce the energy consumption of the processor. In this paper, we address the problem of minimizing overall energy consumption of a sporadic task in real-time system with a shared set of serially reusable, single unit resources, considering a generalized power model. We first present a static scheduling algorithm, called SSTSASR, which minimizes the system energy consumption of a given set of sporadic tasks and takes the off-chip workload into consideration, assuming that each task releases with the worstcase workload. In addition, we present dynamic slack reclamation techniques, called DSTSASR, which reclaims the slack time from the early completion task to reduce the energy consumption and takes the speed transition overhead into consideration. The simulation results show that the proposed DSTSASR algorithm could achieve a significant amount of energy savings compared with other DVS algorithms. It can reduce the energy consumption by 7.37-31.99% over the DVSSR and by 0.1-5.90% over the SSTSASR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The let-7 family is the second microRNA found in C. elegans. Recent researches have found it is highly expressed in the cardiovascular system. Studies have revealed the aberrant expression of let-7 members in cardiovascular diseases, such as heart hypertrophy, cardiac fibrosis, dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), myocardial infarction (MI), arrhythmia, angiogenesis, atherosclerosis, and hypertension. Let-7 also participates in cardiovascular differentiation of embryonic stem cells. TLR4, LOX-1, Bcl-xl and AGO1 are by now the identified target genes of let-7. The circulating let-7b is suspected to be the biomarker of acute MI and let-7i, the biomarker of DCM. Further studies are necessary for identifying the gene targets and signaling pathways of let-7 in cardiovascular diseases. Let-7 might be a potential therapeutic target for cardiovascular diseases. This review focuses on the research progresses regarding the roles of let-7 in cardiovascular development and diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intranasal low intensity GaInP/AlGaInP diode 650nm laser therapy (ILGLT) might improve blood lipid and hemorheologic behavior of patients in view of its previous research, but it should be further supported by a randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled clinical study. In this paper, 90 patients with coronary heart disease or cerebral infarction were randomly divided into two groups, 60 in the treatment group and 30 in the control group, and were blindly treated with ILGLT at 8.38 and 0mW/cm² for 30min each time once a day ten days each session for two sessions between which there were three days for rest, respectively. Fasting blood lipid such as total cholesterol and low/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and hemorheologic behavior such as blood viscosity, plasma viscosity, redox viscosity and red blood cell aggregation were assessed before the first treatment and after the two sessions and were found to be significantly improved by ILGLT. It was concluded that ILGLT may improve blood lipid and hemorheologic behavior of patients with coronary heart disease or cerebral infarction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Systematic research on fish immunogenetics is indispensable in understanding the origin and evolution of immune systems. This has long been a challenging task because of the limited number of deep sequencing technologies and genome backgrounds of non-model fish available. The newly developed Solexa/ Illumina RNA-seq and Digital gene expression (DGE) are high-throughput sequencing approaches and are powerful tools for genomic studies at the transcriptome level. This study reports the transcriptome profiling analysis of bacteria-challenged Lateolabrax japonicus using RNA-seq and DGE in an attempt to gain insights into the immunogenetics of marine fish. Results: RNA-seq analysis generated 169,950 non-redundant consensus sequences, among which 48,987 functional transcripts with complete or various length encoding regions were identified. More than 52% of these transcripts are possibly involved in approximately 219 known metabolic or signalling pathways, while 2,673 transcripts were associated with immune-relevant genes. In addition, approximately 8% of the transcripts appeared to be fishspecific genes that have never been described before. DGE analysis revealed that the host transcriptome profile of Vibrio harveyi-challenged L. japonicus is considerably altered, as indicated by the significant up- or down-regulation of 1,224 strong infection-responsive transcripts. Results indicated an overall conservation of the components and transcriptome alterations underlying innate and adaptive immunity in fish and other vertebrate models. Analysis suggested the acquisition of numerous fish-specific immune system components during early vertebrate evolution. Conclusion: This study provided a global survey of host defence gene activities against bacterial challenge in a non-model marine fish. Results can contribute to the in-depth study of candidate genes in marine fish immunity, and help improve current understanding of host-pathogen interactions and evolutionary history of immunogenetics from fish to mammals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]