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  Cancer stem cells (CSC) are the tumor-associated cells existed within tumors or hematological cancers which share characteristics similar to normal stem cells. The common characteristics of a normal stem cell and a CSC are their differentiation capacity and self-renewal in tumors. The expression pattern of CSC markers differs depending on the type and location of cancers. CD molecules are probably the most common biomarkers for CSCs. CD molecules such as CD133, CD24, CD44, CD138 and similar CD molecules are well known markers for identification of CSCs. In addition, ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) transporters such as ABCG2 and ABCB5 as well as EpCAM, ALDH1 and CXCR4 have been used to identify certain CSCs. Therefore these markers may be considered specific for better identification and diagnosis of a specific tumor. Currently studies are in progress to find new cell surface markers which can distinguish specific markers from other markers for isolation and characterization of CSCs. The future of this area of research is promising in developing novel prognostic assays and therapeutic approaches based on cellular and signaling functions of these markers.

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Backgrounds: This study aimed to analyze the applicability of platelet parameters in assessing the severity of COVID-19 disease.
Materials & Methods: Patients with RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 in the pathology department of a tertiary care hospital in south India from June to December 2020 were included in this study. Clinical details and laboratory parameters of these patients were obtained. The difference between the studied variables in two groups was assessed using independent t-test. The optimum cut-off value of platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) to differentiate between the tested groups was estimated using ROC (receiver operator curve) analysis.
Findings: This study was conducted on 218 COVID-19 patients, of whom 17.9% showed thrombocytopenia at the time of admission. Among the hematological parameters, PLR, absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), platelet distribution width (PDW), D-dimer, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) were significantly different between the ICU (intensive care unit) and non-ICU groups. Increased PLR values were associated with the disease severity.
Conclusion: PLR could be used as an additional biomarker in assessing the severity of COVID-19 disease, and a cut-off value of 210.27 is optimal to differentiate severe COVID-19 disease from its mild and moderate forms with 79% specificity.

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Cellular energy allocation (CEA) test was performed in order to investigate the effects and costs of bare carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and CNTs in combination with titanium dioxide nanoparticles (CNTs/TiO₂-NPs) on Glyphodes pyloalis Walker after 24, 48 and 72 hours of exposure to 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 ppm of the treatments. Results showed the negative correlation between total lipid amounts and concentrations of treatments (i.e. CNTs and CNTs/TiO₂-NPs) as well as exposure time. Contrary to CNTs treatments, carbohydrate contents were affected by both of CNTs/TiO₂-NPs concentration and time of exposure. Results showed that the effect of bare CNTs in the enhancement of glycogen content appeared significantly faster than that of CNTs/TiO₂-NPs. Increasing time of exposure to all concentrations of CNTs, except for 100 ppm, prevented enhancement of protein content. The effect of bare CNTs on the reduction of protein contents was faster and greater than that of CNTs/TiO₂-NPs. The results indicated that G. pyloalis cannot regulate internal CNTs and CNTs/TiO₂-NPs concentrations efficiently without considerable impact on the energy reserves (Ea). The comparison of energy consumed (Ec) in treated larvae showed that CNTs/TiO₂-NPs reflected the higher energy demand of the stress response than CNTs. Generally, CEA was significantly decreased as the concentration of CNTs treatments increased. More reduction in CEA amount of all treatments by CNTs/TiO₂-NPs than that of the control is also probably considered as a cost to deal with detoxification when the concentration increased and at all the tested time points. Therefore, CEA test might be considered as an early biochemical biomarker for assessing immediate response of organisms after acute exposure to stressors and thus could be applied to risk assessment of nanomaterials.

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Background: The complicated host-parasite relationships have hindered the effective diagnosis, treatment, and control of human parasitic diseases. This review examines how genomics and proteomics are unraveling these complex interactions and transforming human parasitology.
Materials & Methods: Related studies were chosen according to the PRISMA flow diagram. An extensive literature search between January 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023 was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases, and a systematic screening process was undertaken, resulting in the identification and inclusion of 72 studies in this narrative review on the applications of genomics and proteomics in human parasitology research. Articles that were duplicates, irrelevant based on title/abstract screening, unavailable, or irrelevant based on full text review were excluded from the study.
Findings: A total of 453 records were retrieved, of which 72 articles remained after title, abstract, and full text screening. Genomics and proteomics have elucidated parasite biology, enabled precision diagnostics, and guided drug development by providing molecular insights into host-parasite interactions. However, challenges remain, including computational complexity and translation of findings to human infections.
Conclusion: The integration of genomics and proteomics has allowed an unprecedented understanding of human parasites and holds great promise for improving diagnosis, treatment, and control.

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Malathion and diazinon are widely used organophosphate pesticides in the agriculture fields, especially in the north provinces of Iran. In the current study, lethal concentrations of diazinon and malathion were determined based on big head carp calculated death rates at 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours using probit analysis. Then, in a separate experiment and according to the obtained LC₅₀, the effects of these toxins on fish hematological parameters was evaluated in which fish were disturbed in 10 treatments with 3 replicates (4 different doses of diazinon, 4 different doses of malathion and 1 control for each toxin) for 7 days. Fish were exposed to different sub-lethal concentrations of each toxin (12.5, 25, 37.5 and 75% of lethal concentration (LC50 96h). After 7 days, blood samples were collected and hematological parameters including hematocrit, hemoglobin, red blood cells count, the total number of white blood cells and white blood cell differential count (the percentage of lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils and eosinophils) were examined. The results of acute toxicity test showed that diazinon is more toxic to big head carp compared to malathion. Also, hematological studies of big head carp exposed to diazinon showed a significant reduction in red blood cells and white blood cells with increasing toxin concentration. Meanwhile, the percentage of neutrophils remarkably increased while lymphocytes significantly decreased along with increasing the concentration of diazinon.

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Aims: Sinusoidal obstruction syndrome/veno-occlusive disease is a severe complication that can develop in up to 15% of adults following hematopoietic cell transplantation, resulting in congestion and damage due to the occlusion of small veins in the liver. This study aimed to identify novel blood biomarkers associated with veno-occlusive disease through bioinformatics analysis to improve early diagnosis and treatment outcomes.
Materials & Methods: This retrospective cohort study analyzed GSE164635 using R packages, specifically employing the affy package for data normalization before applying the Limma package for differential expression analysis in 2024. To identify significant miRNAs, a log fold change filter was set at greater than +1 or less than -1, with an adjusted p-value of less than 0.05. The multiMiR package was used to predict gene targets for the identified miRNAs, with data sourced from the mirTarBase and Tarbase databases. Pathway enrichment and gene ontology analyses of the common genes were performed using Funrich 3.1.3, and Cytoscape software was used to construct networks of commonly shared genes. Target gene prediction for these miRNAs was conducted using the multiMiR package in R, with data sourced from the mirTarBase and Tarbase databases.
Findings: Two upregulated miRNAs (hsa-miR-194-5p and hsa-miR-148a-3p) and two downregulated miRNAs (hsa-miR-342-3p and hsa-miR-150-5p) were identified. For the upregulated miRNAs, the network analysis revealed interactions with key genes, such as AGO2, CDKN1A, HSP90AA1, HSPA4, EP300, IGF1R, MYC, SMAD2, DICER1, and IL10. For the downregulated miRNAs, the interaction network identified significant genes, including EEF2, IGF1R, EP300, CCN2, DNMT1, SREBF1, CANX, ZEB1, SP1, and JUN.
Conclusion: The pathophysiology of VOD is greatly influenced by microRNAs, which play a crucial role in regulating inflammation, fibrosis, endothelial function, and cellular survival.

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Objective: Heart failure is one of the most common types of cardiac diseases with high rate of morbidity and mortality, which places a large burden on society. Despite well care system, the survival rate for end-stage heart failure patients is less than 1%. Several studies have recently shown a significant association between long non-coding RNAs with different cardiac diseases.
Methods: We investigated the functional mechanism of BACE1-AS, which was previously reported to be up-regulated in heart failure patients, by assessments of gene expression analysis, cell proliferation, and apoptosis.
Results: BACE1-AS down-regulation significantly reduced expressions of cyclin inhibitors that included CDKN1A, CDKN1B, CDKN1C, CDKN2A, and CDKN2B with the exception of CDKN2C and CDKN2D. BACE1-AS over-expression increased expressions of these cell cycle genes, which implied an effect of BACE1-AS LncRNA on the cell cycle. BACE1-AS down-regulation decreased BCL-2 mRNA expression and increased BAX gene expression. BACE1-AS up-regulation increased BCL-2 and reduced BAX expressions. We did not observe any significant change in cell proliferation with BACE1-AS down-regulation, while BACE1-AS up-regulation decreased cell numbers and induced apoptosis compared with the control group (cells treated with an empty vector).
Conclusion: These results showed the important role of BACE1-AS in cell death and, accordingly, pathogenesis of heart failure. It could be considered a potential biomarker for targeting and treatment of heart failure.

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Aims: Despite recent advances in diagnosis and treatment, breast cancer still remains the second leading cause of cancer- related death in women. Recent reports have detected a new class of non-coding molecules named long non-coding RNAs that play an important role in various biological processes involved in cancer. This study aimed to evaluate the expression level of long non-coding RNA HULC in breast cancer.
Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, after collecting 40 breast tumors with invasive ductal carcinoma and 40 normal marginal tissues, RNA extraction and cDNA synthesis were done. The expression level of HULC was obtained by using the qRT-PCR method. REST 2009 software was employed to evaluate the association of its expression in tumor and normal tissues. Biomarker potential of HULC was evaluated by drawing ROC curve. Relationship between HULC expression and clinicopathological features was analyzed.
Results: Results from REST indicated significant upregulation of HULC in tumor tissues compared to normal marginal specimens (95% CI; p=0.0001). ROC curve analysis also demonstrated the biomarker potential of HULC in breast cancer (ROC^AUC=0.79; p<0.0001). Evaluation of the relationship between HULC expression and clinicopathological features revealed that there is a statistically significant positive correlation of HULC expression with advanced stages (95% CI; P=0.019).
Conclusion: Considering the upregulation of HULC expression in invasive ductal carcinoma, this lncRNA could be considered as a new potential diagnostic biomarker in breast cancer.
 
 

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A pot experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design with a factorial arrangement and 3 replications. The treatments consisted of genotype (15 sea beet genotypes and two cultivated beets of one susceptible and one tolerant to stress), and salinity (four NaCl concentrations including 0, 50, 100, 200 and 400 mM) on the 35-days-old beet seedlings for 55 days. The following parameters and traits were recorded: activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase, malone dialdehyde, di-tyrosine, di-hydroxy guanosine, proline, and total soluble sugars. The results showed a highly significant effect of salinity treatments on the traits studied. Moreover, with increasing stress intensity, the effects of salinity on these traits increased. At least five genotypes of sea beet were clearly superior than the cultivated beet for producing a lower constitutive level of MDA, DT and 8-OH-dG destruction biomarkers, but higher activities of SOD, CAT and GPX enzymes, and proline, total soluble sugars, and glycine betaine contents were recorded under salt stress conditions. These results strongly suggest that the wild salt-tolerant sea beet possess distinct advantages over the sugar beet counterparts for protection mechanism against oxidative damage by maintaining a higher inherited and induced activity of enzymatic/ non-enzymatic antioxidant activities. Therefore, it can be concluded that under salt stress, sea beet has a significant potential for the physiological/biochemical variation in salinity tolerance, which can be exploited for improving salinity tolerance in sugar beet cultivars.

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Purpose: currently TB diagnosis is limited by some major limitations in low-income and less experienced hospitals. Recently, it has been proposed that the ku gene of mycobacterial strains has the potential to be a highly specific and sensitive candidate biomarker for molecular detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). This study was aimed to evaluate the specificity and sensitivity of a real-time PCR assay for detection of ku gene in Mtb complex to determine its applicability for Mtb identification.
Materials and methods: The identification of Mtb was confirmed using GeneXpert assay. Specific primers for ku gene were designed and the cycle threshold (Ct) value from the real-time PCR was used as a proxy measure of the cut-off point. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to determine the diagnostic performance of ku gene in detecting Mtb directly from clinical specimens.
Results: ku amplification was interpreted as positive and negative based on Ct values, in which a value <38 was considered positive and a value >40 was considered negative. Our findings revealed that the ku gene was found to be distributed in all Mtb-positive samples. Of note, none of the Mtb-negative exhibited a specific signal in a maximum of 40 cycles.
Conclusions: The ku gene amplification using real-time PCR indicated high sensitivity and specificity for the detection of Mtb complex in sputum samples.

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