MiR-4492, a New Potential MicroRNA for Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment: A Mini Review.

There is no doubt that the incidence of cancer sufferers is rising in the world, and it is estimated that in the next several decades, the number of people suffering from malignancies or the cancer rate will double. Diagnostic and therapeutic targeting of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), especially microRNAs (miRNAs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), represent an excellent approach for cancer diagnosis and treatment, as well as many other diseases. One of the latest miRNAs is miR-4492, upregulating some genes in tumor tissues including ROMO1, HLA-G, NKIRAS2, FOXK1, and UBE2C. It represents an attractant example of a miRNA acting at multiple levels to affect the same malignancy hallmark. Based on the studies, miR-4492 plays a key role in several cancers such as, breast cancer, bladder cancer, osteosarcoma, glioblastoma multiforme, hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal cancer, and ovarian cancer. Putting it all together, identifying the precise mechanisms of miR-4492 in the pathogenesis of cancer, could pave the way to find better diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for cancer sufferers. For this reason, it might be a novel potential diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target for neoplasms.

Mechanistic Insight into Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD): Anatomy, Epidemiology, Genetics, Pathogenesis, Prevention, Implications, and Treatment Strategies to Pace AMD Management.

One of the most complicated eye disorders is age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which is the leading cause of irremediable blindness all over the world in the elderly. AMD is classified as early stage to late stage (advanced AMD), in which this stage is divided into the exudative or neovascular form (wet AMD) and the nonexudative or atrophic form (dry AMD). Clinically, AMD primarily influences the central area of retina known as the macula. Importantly, the wet form is generally associated with more severe vision loss. AMD has a systemic component, where many factors, like aging, genetic, environment, autoimmune and non-autoimmune disorders are associated with this disease. Additionally, healthy lifestyles, regular exercise, maintaining a normal lipid profile and weight are crucial to decreasing the risk of AMD. Furthermore, therapeutic strategies for limiting AMD should encompass a variety of factors to avoid and improve drug interventions, and also need to take into account personalized genetic information. In conclusion, with the development of technology and research progress, visual impairment and legal blindness from AMD have been substantially reduced in incidence. This review article is focused on identifying and developing the knowledge about the association between genetics, and etiology with AMD. We hope that this review will encourage researchers and lecturers, open new discussions, and contribute to a better understanding of AMD that improves patients' visual acuity, and upgrades the quality of life of AMD patients.

The Effect of Zinc Supplementation on the Improvement of Premenstrual Symptoms in Female University Students: a Randomized Clinical Trial Study.

Zinc is an essential microelement that plays many important functions in the body. It is crucial for the regulation of cell growth, hormone release, immunological response, and reproduction. Thus, this trial aimed to evaluate the effects of zinc supplementation in comparison with placebo on the improvement of premenstrual symptoms in female university students. This triple-masked, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel trial was conducted among 69 female students aged 18-35 with premenstrual syndrome that living in dormitories of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, in west of Iran. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups of equal number; one group received 220 mg of elemental zinc (n = 33) and the other group received placebo (n = 36) on a regular daily for 24 weeks. The premenstrual syndrome was assessed by Premenstrual Symptoms Screening Tool-Adolescent (PSST-A) questionnaire for all participants. Chi-square and t-student tests were used to compare the percentage or mean of parameters between two groups. All statistical analysis conducted by SPSS version 16. The mean age in the intervention group was 25.64 [Formula: see text] 0.53 years, and in the control group was 24.38 [Formula: see text] 0.51 years (P = 0.087). After 24 weeks of intervention, PMS physical and psychological symptoms such as anger, anxiety, depressed mood, overeating, breast tenderness, headaches, muscle pain, bloating, and weight gain significantly decreased in zinc group compared to placebo group (P < 0.001). We observed a significant increase in relationship with friends, classmates, and coworkers (p = 0.003) after 24 weeks of intervention with zinc compared to placebo. In conclusion, zinc, as a simple and inexpensive treatment, was associated with improvement of PMS symptoms. Given that this is among the first studies to evaluate the effect of zinc supplementation on PMS, additional studies are warranted to confirm these findings.

Preoperative Neutrophil: Lymphocyte Ratio, Platelet: Lymphocyte Ratio, and C-Reactive Protein Levels Predictive Value in Determining the Severity of Breast Mass.

Background & Objective: Female breast cancer is one of the most prevalent malignancies among women. The critical step in management of breast cancer is an accurate diagnosis. Hence, peripheral blood-based tests would be one of the most favorable and less invasive methods to study. Recent studies have investigated the inflammatory parameters such as neutrophil: lymphocyte ratio (NLR), the platelet: lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and the C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. The elevation in mentioned parameters was proposed as a key factor in cancer progression. The main goal of this study was to investigate the association of NLR, PLR, and CRP levels in patients with breast lesions. Methods: The NLR, PLR, and CRP levels were calculated from 200 female patients presenting with either benign or malignant lesions. Results: The cut-off values of NLR, PLR, and CRP were 1.24, 96, and 10.36 mg/L, respectively. A significant difference in NLR (P<0.001), PLR (P<0.001), and CRP levels (P<0.001) were observed between the two major studied cohorts. Conclusion: Elevated NLR, PLR, and CRP levels could predict the presence of malignancy. In addition to the low cost and properties of the mentioned methods, utilization of this data could facilitate and improve clinical decision-making for treatment.

Epigenteic Alteration of DOK7 Gene CpG Island in Blood Leukocyte of Patients with Gastric Cancer and Intestinal Methaplasia.

Background: Intestinal metaplasia (IM) is a benign lesion with no serious concern for patients' health. On the other hand, gastric cancer (GC) is a malignant lesion that has to be differentially diagnosed from benign intestinal metaplasia. Epigenetic modifications have been suggested to play an important role in cancer initiation and development, and they have been investigated as a reliable biomarker tool even for early cancer diagnosis. Whole blood leucocytes (WBC) are potentially the most accessible tissue for cancer early diagnosis, especially for GC, which is hard to diagnose in the early stage. Objective: This study aims to investigate the methylation status of DOK7 gene CpG island in blood leukocytes of patients with IM and GC compared to normal control groups. Material and Method: DNA was extracted from the whole blood of 30 IM patients, 30 GC patients, and 34 normal controls samples, and MSRE-PCR was utilized to evaluate the loci methylation status. Results: Significant hypermethylation of DOK7 gene CpG has been observed in GC 88.1 % (p < 0.001) and IM 66.0 % (p = 0.03) in comparison to the normal control group 56.8%. A cutoff upper than 84.5 % of hypermethylation is considered as a presence of gastric cancer malignant lesions. Conclusions: This is the first reported on hypermethylation in DOK7 CPG in blood leukocytes of patients with GC and IM and establishing a laboratory blood based test that may be useful as a novel biomarker test in the early diagnosis and screaning of GC and IM.

Consequences of aberrated DNA methylation in Colon Adenocarcinoma: a bioinformatic-based multi-approach.

INTRODUCTION: The biology of colorectal cancer (CRC) is remained to be elucidated. Numerous genetic and epigenetic modifications are in concert to create and progress CRC. DNA methylation as a principal epigenetic factor has gained increased attention and could be utilized for biological studies. This study aims to find novel methylated and downregulated genes with a focus on HAND2 in CRC and decipher the biological consequences. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Data on DNA methylation from GEO and SMART databases and the expression GEPIA2 database were downloaded. Afterward, a set of hypermethylated and downregulated genes in CRC was chosen by overlapping genes. Consequently, HAND2 was selected as a key gene for further investigation and confirmed with cell lines methylation and expression data. The functions of HAND2 were further analyzed using gene ontology analyses and the protein-protein interaction network. RESULTS: The methylation (p < 0.01) and expression (p < 0.01) of HAND2 are significantly varied in CRC compared to normal control. The correlation analysis (Pearson's correlation coefficient = -0.44, p = 6.6e-14) conveys that HAND2 significantly downregulated and has a reverse correlation with the methylation status of CpG islands. The biological process analysis of HAND2 target genes conveyed that disruption in HAND2 expression could dysregulate ERK1 and ERK2 signaling pathways. CONCLUSION: Together, the findings showed that DNA hypermethylation of HAND2 was critical evidence in CRC. Further validation and prospective studies are needed to utilize HAND2 methylation as a promising biomarker.

Refractive Index of Hemoglobin Analysis: A Comparison of Alternating Conditional Expectations and Computational Intelligence Models.

Hemoglobin is one of the most important blood elements, and its optical properties will determine all other optical properties of human blood. Since the refractive index (RI) of hemoglobin plays a vital role as a non-invasive indicator of some illnesses, accurate calculation of it would be of great importance. Moreover, measurement of the RI of hemoglobin in the laboratory is time-consuming and expensive; thus, developing a smart approach to estimate this parameter is necessary. In this research, four viable strategies were used to make a quantitative correlation between the RI of hemoglobin and its influencing parameters including the concentration, wavelength, and temperature. First, alternating conditional expectations (ACE), a statistical approach, was employed to generate a correlation to predict the RI of hemoglobin. Then, three different optimized intelligent techniques-optimized neural network (ONN), optimized fuzzy inference system (OFIS), and optimized support vector regression (OSVR)-were used to model the RI. A bat-inspired (BA) algorithm was embedded in the formulation of intelligent models to obtain the optimal values of weights and biases of an artificial neural network, membership functions of the fuzzy inference system, and free parameters of support vector regression. The coefficient of determination, root-mean-square error, average absolute relative error, and symmetric mean absolute percentage error for each of the ACE, ONN, OFIS, and OSVR were found as the measure of each model's accuracy. Results showed that ACE and optimized models (ONN, OFIS, and OSVR) have promising results in the estimation of hemoglobin's RI. Collectively, ACE outperformed ONN, OFIS, and OSVR, while sensitivity analysis indicated that the concentration, wavelength, and, lastly, temperature would have the highest impact on the RI.

A Case Report of Acute Necrotizing Pancreatitis after COVID-19 Infection.

Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), which is associated with many systemic inflammatory reactions and high morbidity and mortality rates, became a serious public health problem and led to a rapid epidemic. Fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath are the most common symptoms of COVID-19. In addition to respiratory symptoms, gastrointestinal manifestations of COVID-19 are increasingly known to progress more rapidly than other symptoms and can occur in cases of mild infection or even after remission of the viral infection. Acute pancreatitis (AP) caused by COVID-19 is one of the rare gastrointestinal symptoms which is an acute inflammatory disease of the pancreas that is associated with high complications. Here, we report acute COVID-19-induced pancreatitis in a 38-year-old man who died.

Association of serum vitamin D levels with ectopic pregnancy.

Background and Aim: A few studies have addressed the possible role of vitamin D in decrement of ectopic pregnancy. Therefore, because of the widespread of vitamin D deficiency, especially among Iranian women, in this study, the association of serum vitamin D levels and ectopic pregnancy in pregnant women during the first trimester of pregnancy was investigated. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional study that has a control group. The cases group consisted of 51 pregnant women with ectopic pregnancies, and the control group consisted of 51 pregnant women with normal pregnancies. From all pregnant women participating in the study, 5 cc of blood samples were taken to determine the concentration of vitamin D serum. Serum vitamin D level was measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. The collected data were statistically analyzed using SPSS Statistical Software Package Version 16.0. P value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant level. Results: The differences between the two groups based on the demographic characteristics, including mean age, body mass index, and number of deliveries, were not statistically significant. The level of vitamin D in blood (ng/ml) was significantly higher in the control group (34.31 ± 7.32) compared to the participants with ectopic pregnancy (20.95 ± 20.68) (<0.001). Based on the results of the present study, women with inadequate serum levels (less than 30 ng/ml) are 6.40 times more likely to have an ectopic pregnancy than normal pregnant women (OR = 6.40; 95% CI; 3.260-15.834). Conclusion: Based on the results of this study and considering the association of serum vitamin D levels and ectopic pregnancy, it seems necessary to measure the level of serum vitamin D in women before their pregnancy.

Overexpression of reactive oxygen species modulator 1 is associated with advanced grades of bladder cancer.

Reactive Oxygen Species Modulator 1 (ROMO1) plays a pivotal role in the regulation of mitochondrial structure integrity, and the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Increased ROMO1 expression was reported in various cancer cell lines; however, the possible association between ROMO1 expression and bladder cancer was not well studied. The present study aimed to investigate the rate of ROMO1 expression and the correlation of oxidative stress with the development of bladder cancer. In this study, a total of 35 cancerous and healthy adjacent tissues were examined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to analyze the gene expression of ROMO1. Also, we evaluated the serum level of ROMO1 and Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC), as well as Total Oxidant Status (TOS) in patients with bladder cancer along with age- and sex-matched healthy individuals. The ROMO1 gene was significantly higher in cancerous tissues than that of adjacent healthy tissues. Also, the serum levels of ROMO1, TAC, TOS, and Oxidative Stress Index (OSI) were increased in patients with bladder cancer compared with healthy subjects. It can be concluded that the overexpression of the ROMO1 gene is associated with advanced grades of bladder cancer as well as an increase in oxidative stress conditions. Our findings also suggest that the serum level of ROMO1 might be a promising tumor marker for bladder cancer.