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  1. Padmanabhan H, Mariapun S, Lee SY, Hassan NT, Lee DS, Meiser B, et al.
    J Genet Couns, 2023 Feb;32(1):43-56.
    PMID: 35913122 DOI: 10.1002/jgc4.1619
    Cascade testing for families with BRCA pathogenic variants is important to identify relatives who are carriers. These relatives can benefit from appropriate risk management and preventative strategies arising from an inherited increased risk of breast, ovarian, prostate, melanoma, and pancreatic cancers. Cascade testing has the potential to enable cost-effective cancer control even in low- and middle-income settings, but few studies have hitherto evaluated the psychosocial impact of cascade testing in an Asian population, where the cultural and religious beliefs around inheritance and destiny have previously been shown to influence perception and attitudes toward screening. In this study, we evaluated the short- and long-term psychosocial impact of genetic testing among unaffected relatives of probands identified through the Malaysian Breast Cancer Genetics Study and the Malaysian Ovarian Cancer Study, using validated questionnaires (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and Cancer Worry Scale) administered at baseline, and 1-month and 2-year post-disclosure of results. Of the 305 unaffected relatives from 98 independent families who were offered cascade testing, 256 (84%) completed predictive testing and family history of cancers was the only factor significantly associated with uptake of predictive testing. We found that the levels of anxiety, depression, and cancer worry among unaffected relatives decreased significantly after result disclosure and remained low 2-year post-result disclosure. Younger relatives and relatives of Malay descent had higher cancer worry at both baseline and after result disclosure compared to those of Chinese and Indian descent, whereas relatives of Indian descent and those with family history of cancers had higher anxiety and depression levels post-result disclosure. Taken together, the results from this Asian cohort highlight the differences in psychosocial needs in different communities and inform the development of culture-specific genetic counseling strategies.
    Matched MeSH terms: BRCA1 Protein/genetics
  2. Ealam Selvan M, Lim KS, Teo CH, Lim YY
    J Vis Exp, 2022 Oct 21.
    PMID: 36342167 DOI: 10.3791/64565
    Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of non-coding RNAs that are formed via back-splicing. These circRNAs are predominantly studied for their roles as regulators of various biological processes. Notably, emerging evidence demonstrates that host circRNAs can be differentially expressed (DE) upon infection with pathogens (e.g., influenza and coronaviruses), suggesting a role for circRNAs in regulating host innate immune responses. However, investigations on the role of circRNAs during pathogenic infections are limited by the knowledge and skills required to carry out the necessary bioinformatic analysis to identify DE circRNAs from RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data. Bioinformatics prediction and identification of circRNAs is crucial before any verification, and functional studies using costly and time-consuming wet-lab techniques. To solve this issue, a step-by-step protocol of in silico prediction and characterization of circRNAs using RNA-seq data is provided in this manuscript. The protocol can be divided into four steps: 1) Prediction and quantification of DE circRNAs via the CIRIquant pipeline; 2) Annotation via circBase and characterization of DE circRNAs; 3) CircRNA-miRNA interaction prediction through Circr pipeline; 4) functional enrichment analysis of circRNA parental genes using Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). This pipeline will be useful in driving future in vitro and in vivo research to further unravel the role of circRNAs in host-pathogen interactions.
    Matched MeSH terms: Host-Pathogen Interactions/genetics
  3. Hany A, Thong MK, Lin HP
    Singapore Med J, 1996 Jun;37(3):325-7.
    PMID: 8942243
    We report the occurrence of X-linked lymphoproliferative disease (XLP) in two brothers in a Malaysian family. In this disorder, a primary Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is followed by an abnormal proliferation of transformed B-cells that cannot be controlled by suppressor T-cells, leading to the development of deranged immune function. This results in fatal infectious mononucleosis, acquired hypogammaglobulinaemia, virus-infected haemophagocytic syndrome and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The diagnosis should be considered when there is a family history of any male having a fulminant course of infectious mononucleosis, an otherwise benign disease. Early diagnosis is important as bone marrow transplantation is the only curative option in this disorder.
    Matched MeSH terms: Lymphoproliferative Disorders/genetics*
  4. Kannan TP, Azman BZ, Ahmad Tarmizi AB, Suhaida MA, Siti Mariam I, Ravindran A, et al.
    Singapore Med J, 2008 May;49(5):400-4.
    PMID: 18465051
    Turner syndrome affects about one in 2,000 live-born females, and the wide range of somatic features indicates that a number of different X-located genes are responsible for the complete phenotype. This retrospective study highlights the Turner syndrome cases confirmed through cytogenetic analysis at the Human Genome Centre of Universiti Sains Malaysia, from 2001 to 2006.
    Matched MeSH terms: Turner Syndrome/genetics
  5. Pal S, Siti MI, Ankathil R, Zilfalil BA
    Singapore Med J, 2007 May;48(5):e146-50.
    PMID: 17453088
    Patients with isochromosome 18q, a rare cytogenetic abnormality, also reported as Edwards syndrome, is the second most common autosomal trisomy. However, the phenotypic features and survival of these patients are not uniform and depend upon the portion of chromosomes getting duplicated or deleted. The survival of these children may be longer, hence a good cytogenetic diagnosis is a must. Morphological characteristics of isochromosome 18q are not yet fully delineated because of the rarity of the cases and as most cases are aborted medically or terminate spontaneously. We report two cases of isochromosome 18q, one male aged two years old and the other a male aged eight months old, and review the literature on this rare syndrome.
    Matched MeSH terms: Abnormalities, Multiple/genetics
  6. Koh CL, Tay SH
    Singapore Med J, 1984 Oct;25(5):300-3.
    PMID: 6523137
    A clinical isolate of Proteus sp., resistant to ampicillin, carbenicillin, cephaloridine, chloramphenicol, cotrimoxazole, gentamicin,
    kanamycin and tetracycline, was examined for the presence of conjugative R plasmids. Results from conjugation, agarose gel
    electrophoresis and transformation experiments showed that it harboured a large self-transmissible R plasmid which coded for all
    the resistance traits.
    Matched MeSH terms: Proteus/genetics*
  7. Ch'ng WC, Stanbridge EJ, Yusoff K, Shafee N
    J Interferon Cytokine Res, 2013 Jul;33(7):346-54.
    PMID: 23506478 DOI: 10.1089/jir.2012.0095
    Viral-mediated oncolysis is a promising cancer therapeutic approach offering an increased efficacy with less toxicity than the current therapies. The complexity of solid tumor microenvironments includes regions of hypoxia. In these regions, the transcription factor, hypoxia inducible factor (HIF), is active and regulates expression of many genes that contribute to aggressive malignancy, radio-, and chemo-resistance. To investigate the oncolytic efficacy of a highly virulent (velogenic) Newcastle disease virus (NDV) in the presence or absence of HIF-2α, renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cell lines with defective or reconstituted wild-type (wt) von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) activity were used. We show that these RCC cells responded to NDV by producing only interferon (IFN)-β, but not IFN-α, and are associated with increased STAT1 phosphorylation. Restoration of wt VHL expression enhanced NDV-induced IFN-β production, leading to prolonged STAT1 phosphorylation and increased cell death. Hypoxia augmented NDV oncolytic activity regardless of the cells' HIF-2α levels. These results highlight the potential of oncolytic NDV as a potent therapeutic agent in the killing of hypoxic cancer cells.
    Matched MeSH terms: Phosphorylation/genetics; Signal Transduction/genetics; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic/genetics; Apoptosis/genetics; Transgenes/genetics; Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factors/genetics; Von Hippel-Lindau Tumor Suppressor Protein/genetics
  8. Saeed M, Ilyas N, Bibi F, Shabir S, Jayachandran K, Sayyed RZ, et al.
    Chemosphere, 2023 May;324:138311.
    PMID: 36878368 DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.138311
    A novel kinetic model has been developed to explain the degradation of total petroleum hydrocarbons. Microbiome engineered biochar amendment may result in a synergistic impact on degradation of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs). Therefore, the present study analyzed the potential of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria A designated as Aeromonas hydrophila YL17 and B as Shewanella putrefaciens Pdp11 morphological characterized as rod shaped, anaerobic and gram-negative immobilized on biochar, and the degradation efficiency was measured by gravimetric analysis and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Whole genome sequencing of both strains revealed the existence of genes responsible for hydrocarbon degradation. In 60 days remediation setup, the treatment consisting of immobilization of both strains on biochar proved more efficient with less half-life and better biodegradation potentials compared to biochar without strains for decreasing the content of TPHs and n-alkanes (C12-C18). Enzymatic content and microbiological respiration showed that biochar acted as a soil fertilizer and carbon reservoir and enhanced microbial activities. The removal efficiency of hydrocarbons was found to be a maximum of 67% in soil samples treated with biochar immobilized with both strains (A + B), followed by biochar immobilized with strain B 34%, biochar immobilized with strain A 29% and with biochar 24%, respectively. A 39%, 36%, and 41% increase was observed in fluorescein diacetate (FDA) hydrolysis, polyphenol oxidase and dehydrogenase activities in immobilized biochar with both strains as compared to control and individual treatment of biochar and strains. An increase of 35% was observed in the respiration rate with the immobilization of both strains on biochar. While a maximum colony forming unit (CFU/g) was found 9.25 with immobilization of both strains on biochar at 40 days of remediation. The degradation efficiency was due to synergistic effect of both biochar and bacteria based amendment on the soil enzymatic activity and microbial respiration.
    Matched MeSH terms: Bacteria/genetics
  9. Yao M, Guo X, Shao X, Wei Y, Zhang X, Wang H, et al.
    Food Chem Toxicol, 2023 May;175:113725.
    PMID: 36925041 DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2023.113725
    Lead (Pb) can pollute the environment and food through air, water and other means, resulting in human exposure to lead pollution, and there is no threshold level of lead toxicity, even small doses of lead will have a range of harmful effects in humans. This study demonstrates for the first time that dietary addition of soluble dietary fiber (SDF) from Prunus persica dregs reduces lead bioaccumulation in mice, and eliminates lead through feces. Compared with lead-exposed mice, SDF supplementation effectively prevented lead-induced changes in colon tissue, and increased expression of tight junction proteins (ZO-1 and occludin). We analyzed the effects of SDF on gut microbiota and metabolites by a combination of 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing and untargeted metabolomics. The results showed that SDF altered lead-induced perturbations in the layout and structure of the gut microbiota, including increased Desulfovibrio and Alistipes abundance and decreased Bacteroidetes abundance. Meanwhile, we also provide evidence that SDF supplementation alters the levels of amino acids, bile acids, and lipids in the gut, and that these metabolites are closely associated with microbiota with good lead binding capacity. Therefore, we speculate that SDF has the potential to provide a protective effect against intestinal damage by promoting lead excretion.
    Matched MeSH terms: RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics
  10. Huang C, Yu W, Xu Z, Qiu Y, Chen M, Qiu B, et al.
    Int J Biol Sci, 2014;10(2):200-11.
    PMID: 24550688 DOI: 10.7150/ijbs.7301
    Three distinct bamboo bat species (Tylonycteris) are known to inhabit tropical and subtropical areas of Asia, i.e., T. pachypus, T. robustula, and T. pygmaeus. This study performed karyotypic examinations of 4 specimens from southern Chinese T. p. fulvidus populations and one specimen from Thai T. p. fulvidus population, which detected distinct karyotypes (2n=30) compared with previous karyotypic descriptions of T. p. pachypus (2n=46) and T. robustula (2n=32) from Malaysia. This finding suggested a cryptic Tylonycteris species within T. pachypus complex in China and Thailand. Morphometric studies indicated the difficulty in distinguishing the cryptic species and T. p. pachypus from Indonesia apart from the external measurements, which might be the reason for their historical misidentification. Based on 623 bp mtDNA COI segments, a phylogeographic examination including T. pachypus individuals from China and nearby regions, i.e., Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, was conducted to examine the population genetic structure. Genealogical and phylogeographical results indicated that at least two diverged lineages existed in these regions (average 3.4 % of Kimura 2-parameter distances) and their population structure did not match the geographic pattern. These results suggested that at least two historical colonizations have occurred by the cryptic species. Furthermore, through integration of traditional and geometric morphological results, morphological differences on zygomatic arches, toothrows and bullae were detected between two lineages in China. Given the similarity of vegetation and climate of Guangdong and Guangxi regions, we suggested that such differences might be derived from their historical adaptation or distinct evolutionary history rather than the differences of habitats they occurred currently.
    Matched MeSH terms: Chiroptera/genetics*
  11. Høie MH, Kiehl EN, Petersen B, Nielsen M, Winther O, Nielsen H, et al.
    Nucleic Acids Res, 2022 Jul 05;50(W1):W510-W515.
    PMID: 35648435 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkac439
    Recent advances in machine learning and natural language processing have made it possible to profoundly advance our ability to accurately predict protein structures and their functions. While such improvements are significantly impacting the fields of biology and biotechnology at large, such methods have the downside of high demands in terms of computing power and runtime, hampering their applicability to large datasets. Here, we present NetSurfP-3.0, a tool for predicting solvent accessibility, secondary structure, structural disorder and backbone dihedral angles for each residue of an amino acid sequence. This NetSurfP update exploits recent advances in pre-trained protein language models to drastically improve the runtime of its predecessor by two orders of magnitude, while displaying similar prediction performance. We assessed the accuracy of NetSurfP-3.0 on several independent test datasets and found it to consistently produce state-of-the-art predictions for each of its output features, with a runtime that is up to to 600 times faster than the most commonly available methods performing the same tasks. The tool is freely available as a web server with a user-friendly interface to navigate the results, as well as a standalone downloadable package.
    Matched MeSH terms: Proteins/genetics
  12. Shukor MY, Rahman MF, Suhaili Z, Shamaan NA, Syed MA
    Folia Microbiol (Praha), 2010 Mar;55(2):137-43.
    PMID: 20490756 DOI: 10.1007/s12223-010-0021-x
    A local molybdenum-reducing bacterium was isolated and tentatively identified as Acinetobacter calcoaceticus strain Dr.Y12 based on carbon utilization profiles using Biolog GN plates and 16S rDNA comparative analysis. Molybdate reduction was optimized under conditions of low dissolved oxygen (37 degrees C and pH 6.5). Of the electron donors tested, glucose, fructose, maltose and sucrose supported molybdate reduction after 1 d of incubation, glucose and fructose supporting the highest Mo-blue production. Optimum Mo-blue production was reached at 20 mmol/L molybdate and 5 mmol/L phosphate; increasing the phosphate concentrations inhibited the production. An increase in an overall absorption profiles, especially at peak maximum at 865 nm and the shoulder at 700 nm, was observed in direct correlation with the increased in Mo-blue amounts. Metal ions, such as chromium, cadmium, copper, mercury and lead (2 mmol/L final concentration) caused approximately 88, 53, 80, 100, and 20 % inhibition, respectively. Respiratory inhibitors, such as antimycin A, rotenone, sodium azide and cyanide showed in this bacterium no inhibition of the Mo-blue production, suggesting that the electron transport system is not a site of molybdate reduction.
    Matched MeSH terms: Acinetobacter calcoaceticus/genetics
  13. Munian K, Ramli FF, Othman N, Mahyudin NAA, Sariyati NH, Abdullah-Fauzi NAF, et al.
    Mol Ecol Resour, 2024 May;24(4):e13936.
    PMID: 38419264 DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.13936
    The approach of combining cost-effective nanopore sequencing and emerging environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding could prove to be a promising tool for biodiversity documentation, especially in Malaysia. Given the substantial funding constraints in recent years, especially in relation to the country's biodiversity, many researchers have been limited to conduct restricted research without extended monitoring periods, potentially hindering comprehensive surveys and could compromise the conservation efforts. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the application of eDNA metabarcoding on freshwater fish using short reads generated through nanopore sequencing. This assessment focused on species detection in three selected rivers within the Endau Rompin Landscape in Malaysia. Additionally, the study compared levels of species detection between eDNA metabarcoding and conventional sampling methods, examined the effectiveness of primer choice, and applied both metabarcoding and shotgun sequencing to the eDNA approach. We successfully identified a total of 22 and 71 species with an identification threshold of >97% and >90%, respectively, through the MinION platform. The eDNA metabarcoding approach detected over 13% more freshwater fish species than when the conventional method was used. Notably, the distinction in freshwater fish detection between eDNA primers for 12S rRNA and cytochrome oxidase I was insignificant. The cost for eDNA metabarcoding proved to be more effective compared to conventional sampling with cost reduction at 33.4%. With favourable cost-effectiveness and increased species detection, eDNA metabarcoding could complement existing methods, enhance holistic diversity documentation for targeted habitats and facilitate effective conservation planning.
    Matched MeSH terms: Fishes/genetics
  14. Ali I, Wei DQ, Khan A, Feng Y, Waseem M, Hussain Z, et al.
    Biotechnol Appl Biochem, 2024 Apr;71(2):402-413.
    PMID: 38287712 DOI: 10.1002/bab.2548
    Malonyl-CoA serves as the main building block for the biosynthesis of many important polyketides, as well as fatty acid-derived compounds, such as biofuel. Escherichia coli, Corynebacterium gultamicum, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae have recently been engineered for the biosynthesis of such compounds. However, the developed processes and strains often have insufficient productivity. In the current study, we used enzyme-engineering approach to improve the binding of acetyl-CoA with ACC. We generated different mutations, and the impact was calculated, which reported that three mutations, that is, S343A, T347W, and S350W, significantly improve the substrate binding. Molecular docking investigation revealed an altered binding network compared to the wild type. In mutants, additional interactions stabilize the binding of the inner tail of acetyl-CoA. Using molecular simulation, the stability, compactness, hydrogen bonding, and protein motions were estimated, revealing different dynamic properties owned by the mutants only but not by the wild type. The findings were further validated by using the binding-free energy (BFE) method, which revealed these mutations as favorable substitutions. The total BFE was reported to be -52.66 ± 0.11 kcal/mol for the wild type, -55.87 ± 0.16 kcal/mol for the S343A mutant, -60.52 ± 0.25 kcal/mol for T347W mutant, and -59.64 ± 0.25 kcal/mol for the S350W mutant. This shows that the binding of the substrate is increased due to the induced mutations and strongly corroborates with the docking results. In sum, this study provides information regarding the essential hotspot residues for the substrate binding and can be used for application in industrial processes.
    Matched MeSH terms: Acetyl Coenzyme A/genetics
  15. Sideek MA, Teia A, Kopecki Z, Cowin AJ, Gibson MA
    J Mol Histol, 2016 Feb;47(1):35-45.
    PMID: 26644005 DOI: 10.1007/s10735-015-9645-0
    We have recently shown that Latent transforming growth factor-beta-1 binding protein-2 (LTBP-2) has a single high-affinity binding site for fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) and that LTBP-2 blocks FGF-2 induced cell proliferation. Both proteins showed strong co-localisation within keloid skin from a single patient. In the current study, using confocal microscopy, we have investigated the distribution of the two proteins in normal and fibrotic skin samples including normal scar tissue, hypertrophic scars and keloids from multiple patients. Consistently, little staining for either protein was detected in normal adult skin and normal scar samples but extensive co-localisation of the two proteins was observed in multiple examples of hypertrophic scars and keloids. LTBP-2 and FGF-2 were co-localised to fine fibrous elements within the extracellular matrix identified as elastic fibres by immunostaining with anti-fibrillin-1 and anti-elastin antibodies. Furthermore, qPCR analysis of RNA samples from multiple patients confirmed dramatically increased expression of LTBP-2 and FGF-2, similar TGF-beta 1, in hypertrophic scar compared to normal skin and scar tissue. Overall the results suggest that elevated LTBP-2 may bind and sequester FGF-2 on elastic fibres in fibrotic tissues and modulate FGF-2's influence on the repair and healing processes.
    Matched MeSH terms: Elastin/genetics; Keloid/genetics*; Microfilament Proteins/genetics; Fibroblast Growth Factor 2/genetics*; Cicatrix, Hypertrophic/genetics*; Transforming Growth Factor beta1/genetics; Latent TGF-beta Binding Proteins/genetics*
  16. Slik JWF, Franklin J, Arroyo-Rodríguez V, Field R, Aguilar S, Aguirre N, et al.
    Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2018 02 20;115(8):1837-1842.
    PMID: 29432167 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1714977115
    Knowledge about the biogeographic affinities of the world's tropical forests helps to better understand regional differences in forest structure, diversity, composition, and dynamics. Such understanding will enable anticipation of region-specific responses to global environmental change. Modern phylogenies, in combination with broad coverage of species inventory data, now allow for global biogeographic analyses that take species evolutionary distance into account. Here we present a classification of the world's tropical forests based on their phylogenetic similarity. We identify five principal floristic regions and their floristic relationships: (i) Indo-Pacific, (ii) Subtropical, (iii) African, (iv) American, and (v) Dry forests. Our results do not support the traditional neo- versus paleotropical forest division but instead separate the combined American and African forests from their Indo-Pacific counterparts. We also find indications for the existence of a global dry forest region, with representatives in America, Africa, Madagascar, and India. Additionally, a northern-hemisphere Subtropical forest region was identified with representatives in Asia and America, providing support for a link between Asian and American northern-hemisphere forests.
    Matched MeSH terms: Plants/genetics*
  17. Palmer S, Albergante L, Blackburn CC, Newman TJ
    Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2018 02 20;115(8):1883-1888.
    PMID: 29432166 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1714478115
    For many cancer types, incidence rises rapidly with age as an apparent power law, supporting the idea that cancer is caused by a gradual accumulation of genetic mutations. Similarly, the incidence of many infectious diseases strongly increases with age. Here, combining data from immunology and epidemiology, we show that many of these dramatic age-related increases in incidence can be modeled based on immune system decline, rather than mutation accumulation. In humans, the thymus atrophies from infancy, resulting in an exponential decline in T cell production with a half-life of ∼16 years, which we use as the basis for a minimal mathematical model of disease incidence. Our model outperforms the power law model with the same number of fitting parameters in describing cancer incidence data across a wide spectrum of different cancers, and provides excellent fits to infectious disease data. This framework provides mechanistic insight into cancer emergence, suggesting that age-related decline in T cell output is a major risk factor.
    Matched MeSH terms: Neoplasms/genetics*
  18. Cao MY, Zainudin S, Daud KM
    BMC Genomics, 2024 May 13;25(1):466.
    PMID: 38741045 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-024-10361-8
    BACKGROUND: Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) hold significant importance in biology, with precise PPI prediction as a pivotal factor in comprehending cellular processes and facilitating drug design. However, experimental determination of PPIs is laborious, time-consuming, and often constrained by technical limitations.

    METHODS: We introduce a new node representation method based on initial information fusion, called FFANE, which amalgamates PPI networks and protein sequence data to enhance the precision of PPIs' prediction. A Gaussian kernel similarity matrix is initially established by leveraging protein structural resemblances. Concurrently, protein sequence similarities are gauged using the Levenshtein distance, enabling the capture of diverse protein attributes. Subsequently, to construct an initial information matrix, these two feature matrices are merged by employing weighted fusion to achieve an organic amalgamation of structural and sequence details. To gain a more profound understanding of the amalgamated features, a Stacked Autoencoder (SAE) is employed for encoding learning, thereby yielding more representative feature representations. Ultimately, classification models are trained to predict PPIs by using the well-learned fusion feature.

    RESULTS: When employing 5-fold cross-validation experiments on SVM, our proposed method achieved average accuracies of 94.28%, 97.69%, and 84.05% in terms of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Homo sapiens, and Helicobacter pylori datasets, respectively.

    CONCLUSION: Experimental findings across various authentic datasets validate the efficacy and superiority of this fusion feature representation approach, underscoring its potential value in bioinformatics.

    Matched MeSH terms: Helicobacter pylori/genetics
  19. Zhang X, Liew KJ, Cao L, Wang J, Chang Z, Tan MCY, et al.
    J Med Microbiol, 2024 Jul;73(7).
    PMID: 38967406 DOI: 10.1099/jmm.0.001841
    Introduction. Cold plasma is frequently utilized for the purpose of eliminating microbial contaminants. Under optimal conditions, it can function as plasma medicine for treating various diseases, including infections caused by Candida albicans, an opportunistic pathogen that can overgrow in individuals with weakened immune system.Gap Statement. To date, there has been less molecular study on cold plasma-treated C. albicans.Research Aim. The study aims to fill the gap in understanding the molecular response of C. albicans to cold plasma treatment.Methodology. This project involved testing a cold plasma generator to determine its antimicrobial effectiveness on C. albicans' planktonic cells. Additionally, the cells' transcriptomics responses were investigated using RNA sequencing at various treatment durations (1, 3 and 5 min).Results. The results show that our cold plasma effectively eliminates C. albicans. Cold plasma treatment resulted in substantial downregulation of important pathways, such as 'nucleotide metabolism', 'DNA replication and repair', 'cell growth', 'carbohydrate metabolism' and 'amino acid metabolism'. This was an indication of cell cycle arrest of C. albicans to preserve energy consumption under unfavourable conditions. Nevertheless, C. albicans adapted its GSH antioxidant system to cope with the oxidative stress induced by reactive oxygen species, reactive nitrogen species and other free radicals. The treatment likely led to a decrease in cell pathogenicity as many virulence factors were downregulated.Conclusion. The study demonstrated the major affected pathways in cold plasma-treated C. albicans, providing valuable insights into the molecular response of C. albicans to cold plasma treatment. The findings contribute to the understanding of the antimicrobial efficiency of cold plasma and its potential applications in the field of microbiology.
    Matched MeSH terms: Plankton/genetics
  20. Li L, He Y, Yang H, Zhu J, Xu X, Dong J, et al.
    J Clin Microbiol, 2005 Aug;43(8):3835-9.
    PMID: 16081920
    The genetic and phylogenetic characteristics of human enterovirus 71 (EV71) and coxsackievirus A16 (CA16) sampled from children with hand, foot, and mouth disease in Shenzhen, People's Republic of China, over a 6-year period (1999 to 2004) were examined with reverse transcription-PCR and DNA sequencing. Out of 147 stool specimens, 60 showed positive signals when screened with EV71- and CA16-specific primers. EV71 was identified in 19 specimens, and CA16 was identified in 41 specimens; coinfection by EV71 and CA16 was not observed. Phylogenetic analysis of all EV71 strains isolated from the mainland Chinese samples established C4 as the predominant genotype. Only one other known strain (3254-TAI-98; AF286531), isolated in Taiwan in 1998, was identified as belonging to genotype C4. Phylogenetic analysis of CA16 strains allowed us to identify three new genetic lineages (A, B, and C), with lineage C recently predominating in Asian countries, such as the People's Republic of China, Malaysia, and Japan. These new observations indicate that CA16 circulating in the People's Republic of China is genetically diverse, and additional surveillance is warranted.
    Matched MeSH terms: Enterovirus/genetics
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