The liver-expressed microRNA-122 (miR-122) is essential for hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA accumulation in cultured liver cells, but its potential as a target for antiviral intervention has not been assessed. We found that treatment of chronically infected chimpanzees with a locked nucleic acid (LNA)-modified oligonucleotide (SPC3649) complementary to miR-122 leads to long-lasting suppression of H...

Aggregated alpha-synuclein inclusions are found where cell death occurs in several diseases, including Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and multiple-system atrophy. However, the relationship between inclusion formation and an individual cell's fate has been difficult to study with conventional techniques. We developed a system that allows for in vivo imaging of the same neurons o...

Recent studies show decreased functional connectivity in the default mode network (DMN) in PTSD; however, few have directly examined combat trauma specifically. There is limited understanding of how combat itself may affect the DMN. Some literature suggests that trauma exposure, rather than PTSD, can disrupt the DMN. To further elucidate the effect of trauma and PTSD on the DMN, we investigated...

The capability of sonoelastography to detect lesions based on elasticity contrast can be applied to monitor the creation of thermally ablated lesion. Currently, segmentation of lesions depicted in sonoelastographic images is performed manually which can be a time consuming process and prone to significant intraand inter-observer variability. This work presents a semi-automated segmentation algo...

abstract a sub-sample of lentil (lens culinaris medik. cv. kimia) seeds was kept as bulk (s1) and another sample was separated to large (s2) and small (s3) seeds. a sub-sample of each size was kept as control or high vigor seed lot (a1) and the two other sub-samples were artificially aged for 2 and 4 days (a2 and a3, respectively). field performance and some physiological traits of plants from ...

seed storage proteins are synthesized as sources of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur for the next generation of plants. reactive oxygen species serve as second messengers for signal transduction; however, molecular targets of oxidant signaling have not been defined. here, many researchers showes that ligand–receptor mediated signaling promotes reactive oxygen species– dependent protein carbonylation...

the thyroid structural changes in pregnant ewes and their fetuses were investigated. out of 100 pairs of thyroid glands collected from ewes and their fetuses at the local municipal abattoir in ahvaz city of khuzestan province, multiple lesions were seen in 59% and 21% of the thyroid glands of ewes and fetuses, respectively. histologically, ninety nine lesions in the ewes and twenty two lesions ...

oral cancer is considered a great threat to public health. tongue cancer accounts for nearly 30% of all oral cancers and usually seen in 50 to 60 year old men. oropharyngeal cancers account for 3% of all cancers in iran; as reported in 2003. the present study was designed to assess the epidemiologic and clinicopathologic characteristics of tongue cancer patients in two tehran's referral univers...

paragangliomas are neoplasms of neural crest origin. in the head and neck, they uncommonly involve the larynx. the distinction between paragangliomas and other neuroendocrine tumors can be difficult. precise diagnosis is important in order to optimize patient treatment. diagnosis relies mostly on histopathologic examination followed by immunohistochemistry. here we report a 77-year-old woman wi...

muscle biopsy has been used for a long time for diagnosis of muscular, nerurogenic and systemic disorders with muscle involvement, because only very few of these disorders show sufficient specific clinical features for definite diagnosis. since the presence of difficulties in the screening of numerous genes, muscle biopsy could be a time and cost effective procedure for solving the diagnostic p...