Celiac disease (CD) is one of the most common causes of malabsorption. It is an immune-mediated disease manifested by diarrhea, steatorrhea, flatulence, and weight loss, caused by ingestion of gluten containing diets. The disease has typical small intestinal biopsy features of villous atrophy, crypt hyperplasia, and intense inflammation of the mucosal layer. The disease is rarely associated wit...

The Hedgehog (Hh) signal is transduced across the membrane by the heptahelical protein Smoothened (Smo), a developmental regulator, oncoprotein and drug target in oncology. We present the 2.3 Å crystal structure of the extracellular cysteine rich domain (CRD) of vertebrate Smo and show that it binds to oxysterols, endogenous lipids that activate Hh signaling. The oxysterol-binding groove in the...

As one task of the BioCreative V competition, the chemical-disease relations (CDR) include two subtasks: DNER and CID. We participated in this track and designed two separate systems for each subtask. The CRD-WEL system consists of two subsystems: CRD-DNER and WEL-CID. For DNER, the CRD-DNER system is proposed, which is a combined system for disease named entity recognition based on shallow and...

BACKGROUND End-stage chronic respiratory diseases (CRD) have systemic consequences, such as weight loss and susceptibility to infection. However the mechanisms of such dysfunctions are as yet poorly explained. We hypothesized that the genes putatively involved in these mechanisms would emerge from a systematic analysis of blood mRNA profiles from pre-transplant patients with cystic fibrosis (CF...

Oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn's disease (CrD). High levels of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) induce the activation of the redox-sensitive nuclear transcription factor kappa-B (NF-κB), which in turn triggers the inflammatory mediators. Butyrate decreases pro-inflammatory cytokine expression by the lamina propria m...

Protein kinase D (PKD) is a serine/threonine kinase that binds phorbol esters in a phospholipid-dependent manner via a tandemly repeated cysteine-rich, zinc finger-like motif (the cysteine-rich domain, CRD). Here, we examined whether the individual cysteine-rich motifs of the CRD of PKD (referred to as cysl and cys2) are functionally equivalent in mediating phorbol ester binding both in vivo an...

Many patients presenting for urological surgery have chronic renal disease (CRD). They have unique pathophysiology relating to both CRD and its underlying cause and therefore present a challenge to surgeons and anaesthetists. Considerable advances in renal replacement therapy (RRT) and renal transplantation mean that a greater number of these patients are presenting for anaesthesia to assist va...

To observe the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on nucleus ventralis posterior lateralis (VPL) thalami activated by visceral noxious stimulation and to explore the impact of EA on the mechanism of acupoint sensitization under a pathological state of the viscera, EA was applied at bilateral "Zusanli-Shangjuxu" acupoints. The discharge of VPL neurons was response to EA increased after colorectal...

Chronic Renal Disease (CRD) is a major health burden, which has recieved increased attention in recent times and has thus become one major focus of intensive research. All is agreed that the complex interplay of major pathophysiological factors that are characteristic of CRD and end stage renal failure (ESRF) is of multifactorial aetiology. However, commonly used animal models for CRD are bedev...

Brainstem and spinal mechanisms mediating visceral nociception are investigated here using electrophysiology and immunohistochemistry techniques in a model of acute visceral pain. Colorectal distension (CRD) produced graded visceromotor responses (VMR) in normal rats, and these were facilitated by intracolonic mustard oil (MO) that generated acute visceral hyperalgesia. The neuropathic pain dru...