Sharif Digital Repository

Recent studies showed that a large amount of graphene oxide accumulated in kidney and liver when it injected intravenously. Evaluation of lethal and apoptosis gene expression in these tissues, which are under stress is very important. In this paper the in vivo dose-dependent effects of graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide nanoplatelets on kidney and liver of mice were studied. Balb/C mice were treated by 20 mg/kg body weight of nanoplatelets. Molecular biology analysis showed that graphene nanoplatelets injected intravenously lead to overexpression of BAX gene in both kidney and liver tissues (P ≥ 0.01). In addition these nanoparticles significantly increase BCL2 gene expression in both... 

Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription (STAT) pathway is functionally located downstream of Janus kinases proteins and can integrate signals from diverse pathways, thus regulating several aspects of immune responses. Although contribution of STAT proteins in the pathogenesis of several inflammatory conditions has been confirmed, their role in the development of periodontitis has been less appraised. Thus, we assessed levels of STAT transcripts in the periodontal tissues and circulation of affected individuals compared with the corresponding controls. Expression of STAT1 was remarkably lower in tissues samples of patients compared with control tissues (Ratio of mean expression (RME)... 

One of the main challenges in elimination of oil contamination from polluted environments is improvement of biodegradation by highly efficient microorganisms. Bacillus subtilis MJ01 has been evaluated as a new resource for producing biosurfactant compounds. This bacterium, which produces surfactin, is able to enhance bio-accessibility to oil hydrocarbons in contaminated soils. The genome of B. subtilis MJ01 was sequenced and assembled by PacBio RS sequencing technology. One big contig with a length of 4,108,293 bp without any gap was assembled. Genome annotation and prediction of gene showed that MJ01 genome is very similar to B. subtilis spizizenii TU-B-10 (95% similarity). The comparison... 

Background: Breast cancer is currently the most common neoplasm diagnosed in women globally. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that human papillomavirus (HPV) infection may play a key role in invasiveness of breast cancer. The aim of this study was to determine the presence of HPV in patients with breast cancer and its possible association with cancer progression. Methods: Breast specimens were collected from 72 patients with breast cancer and 31 healthy controls. The presence of HPV was investigated by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and genotyping was performed for positive cases. We also evaluated the viral factors such as E6, E2, and E7 in HPV positive cases. Enzyme-linked... 

Growth arrest-specific gene 6 (GAS6) is a growth factor-like cytokine whose function is related with vitamin K. This protein interacts with receptor tyrosine kinase proteins such as Tyro3, Axl, and TAM Receptor family, therefore affecting the tumorigenic processes via different mechanisms. GAS6-antisense 1 (GAS6-AS1) is a long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) that is transcribed from a genomic regions nearby GAS6. This lncRNA is also implicated in the pathobiology of cancer. We intended to judge the role of GAS6 and GAS6-AS1 in the pathogenesis of breast cancer through appraisal of their expression levels in breast cancer tissues and their paired neighboring non-cancerous samples. Expression of... 

miR-29b2 and miR-29c play a suppressive role in breast cancer progression. C1orf132 (also named MIR29B2CHG) is the host gene for generating both microRNAs. However, the region also expresses longer transcripts with unknown functions. We employed bioinformatics and experimental approaches to decipher C1orf132 expression and function in breast cancer tissues. We also used the CRISPR/Cas9 technique to excise a predicted C1orf132 distal promoter and followed the behavior of the edited cells by real-time PCR, flow cytometry, migration assay, and RNA-seq techniques. We observed that C1orf132 long transcript is significantly downregulated in triple-negative breast cancer. We also identified a... 

Purpose: Endometriosis is a gynecological disease that causes the uterine lining to appear in other organs outside the uterus. As DNA methylation has an important role in this disorder, its profiling can reveal new information to improve the diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis patients. Methods: We conducted a genome-wide methylation profiling of ectopic and eutopic endometrial tissues from women with and without endometriosis using Infinium Human Methylation 450K BeadChip arrays. DNA methylation samples were collected from nine ectopic and nine eutopic endometrial tissues of endometriosis and six endometrial tissues of healthy controls. Results: Correlation heatmaps and the principal... 

Simulating signal transduction in cellular signaling networks provides predictions of network dynamics by quantifying the changes in concentration and activity-level of the individual proteins. Since numerical values of kinetic parameters might be difficult to obtain, it is imperative to develop non-parametric approaches that combine the connectivity of a network with the response of individual proteins to signals which travel through the network. The activity levels of signaling proteins computed through existing non-parametric modeling tools do not show significant correlations with the observed values in experimental results. In this work we developed a non-parametric computational... 

Employing of the composite electrospun scaffold containing herbal extract in conjugation with co-culturing of cells can open up new window to the design of efficient biomaterials for skin tissue regeneration. Here, we introduce the synergistic effect of composite electrospun nanofibrous scaffold of nylon66 loaded with Beta vulgaris (B. vulgaris) (extract of beet roots, a plants whose widely used in Iranian folk medicine as wound healing medicine) and co-culture of mesenchymal stem-cells (MSCs)-human keratinocyte (H-keratino) differentiation towards epithelial lineage. In vitro biocompatibility was examined through MTT assay and epithelial differentiation checked by real-time PCR and... 

Background: Unique properties of graphene and its derivatives make them attractive in the field of nanomedicine. However, the mass application of graphene might lead to side effects, which has not been properly addressed in previous studies, especially with regard to its effect on the cell cycle. Methods: The effect of two concentrations (100 and 200 μg/mL) of nano-and microsized graphene oxide (nGO and mGO) on apoptosis, cell cycle, and ROS generation was studied. The effect of both sizes on viability and genotoxicity of the embryonic fibroblast cell cycle was evaluated. MTT and flow cytometry were applied to evaluate the effects of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets on viability of cells.... 

Protein inhibitors of activated STAT (PIAS) are involved in the regulation of the JAK/STAT signaling pathway and have interactions with NF-κB, p73 and p53. These proteins regulate immune responses; therefore dysregulation in their expression leads to several immune-mediated disorders. In the present study, we examined expression of PIAS1-4 in peripheral blood of patients with acute/chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (AIDP/CIDP) compared with healthy subjects. We demonstrated down-regulation of all PIAS genes in both AIDP and CIDP cases compared with controls. Similarly, comparisons in gender-based groups revealed down-regulation of these gene0s in patients of each... 

Cancer immunotherapy has been emerged as a promising strategy for treatment of a broad spectrum of malignancies ranging from hematological to solid tumors. One of the principal approaches of cancer immunotherapy is transfer of natural or engineered tumor-specific T-cells into patients, a so called "adoptive cell transfer", or ACT, process. Construction of allogeneic T-cells is dependent on the employment of a gene-editing tool to modify donor-extracted T-cells and prepare them to specifically act against tumor cells with enhanced function and durability and least side-effects. In this context, CRISPR technology can be used to produce universal T-cells, equipped with recombinant T cell... 

The current study was designed to assess the association between temporal variations in urban PM2.5 chemical composition, sources, and the oxidative stress and inflammatory response in an alveolar macrophage (AM) model. A year-long sampling campaign collected PM2.5 samples at the Sharif University in Tehran, Iran. PM-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was measured both with an acellular dithiothreitol consumption assay (DTT-ROS; ranged from 2.1 to 9.3 nmoles min−1 m−3) and an in vitro macrophage-mediated ROS production assay (AM-ROS; ranged from 125 to 1213 μg Zymosan equivalents m−3). The production of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α; ranged from ~60 to 518 pg TNF-α m−3)...