Clinical implication of crescentic lesions in immunoglobulin A nephropathy

Lee, Mi Jung,Kim, Seung Jun,Oh, Hyung Jung,Ko, Kwang Il,Koo, Hyang Mo,Kim, Chan Ho,Doh, Fa Mee,Yoo, Tae-Hyun,Kang, Shin-Wook,Choi, Kyu Hun,Lim, Beom Jin,Jeong, Hyeon Joo,Han, Seung Hyeok Oxford University Press 2014 Nephrology, dialysis, transplantation Vol.29 No.2

<P><B>Background</B></P><P>To date, there has been much controversy about the role of crescentic lesion as a significant prognostic factor in immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN). This study evaluated whether crescentic lesions predict adverse renal outcomes in IgAN patients.</P><P><B>Methods</B></P><P>A total of 430 patients with biopsy-proven IgAN between January 2000 and December 2009 were included. Histological variables of the Oxford classification (Oxford-MEST) and the presence of crescents were assessed. The primary endpoint was a 50% decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate.</P><P><B>Results</B></P><P>Of the 430 patients, 81 (18.8%) had a crescentic lesion. During a mean follow-up of 61 months, the primary outcome occurred in 19 (23.5%) patients with crescents compared with 40 (11.5%) patients without crescents (P = 0.01). A Kaplan–Meier plot showed that the 10-year renal survival rate was significantly lower in patients with crescents than patients without crescents (P = 0.01). However, in a multivariable Cox analysis which included clinical factors and the Oxford-MEST, crescents were not significantly associated with an increased risk of developing the primary outcome [hazard ratio: 0.71, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.36–1.41, P = 0.33]. Furthermore, adding crescents to the Oxford-MEST did not improve the discriminative ability for the prediction of renal outcomes [<I>c</I>-statistic: 0.86 (0.81–0.91) vs. 0.86 (0.80–0.91), P = 0.21].</P><P><B>Conclusion</B></P><P>Crescentic lesion was not an independent prognostic factor, suggesting that crescents have limited value in predicting renal outcomes of IgAN.</P>

First cosmological results using Type Ia supernovae from the Dark Energy Survey: measurement of the Hubble constant

Macaulay, E,Nichol, R C,Bacon, D,Brout, D,Davis, T M,Zhang, B,Bassett, B A,Scolnic, D,Mö,ller, A,D’Andrea, C B,Hinton, S R,Kessler, R,Kim, A G,Lasker, J,Lidman, C,Sako, M,Smith, M,Sullivan, M,Abbo Oxford University Press 2019 MONTHLY NOTICES- ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY Vol.486 No.2

<B>ABSTRACT</B><P>We present an improved measurement of the Hubble constant (H0) using the ‘inverse distance ladder’ method, which adds the information from 207 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) at redshift 0.018 &lt; z &lt; 0.85 to existing distance measurements of 122 low-redshift (z &lt; 0.07) SNe Ia (Low-z) and measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs). Whereas traditional measurements of H0 with SNe Ia use a distance ladder of parallax and Cepheid variable stars, the inverse distance ladder relies on absolute distance measurements from the BAOs to calibrate the intrinsic magnitude of the SNe Ia. We find H0 = 67.8 ± 1.3 km s−1 Mpc−1 (statistical and systematic uncertainties, 68 per cent confidence). Our measurement makes minimal assumptions about the underlying cosmological model, and our analysis was blinded to reduce confirmation bias. We examine possible systematic uncertainties and all are below the statistical uncertainties. Our H0 value is consistent with estimates derived from the Cosmic Microwave Background assuming a ΛCDM universe.</P>

The Oxford classification as a predictor of prognosis in patients with IgA nephropathy.

Kang, Seok Hui,Choi, Sun Ryoung,Park, Hoon Suk,Lee, Ja Young,Sun, In O,Hwang, Hyeon Seok,Chung, Byung Ha,Park, Cheol Whee,Yang, Chul Woo,Kim, Yong Soo,Choi, Yeong Jin,Choi, Bum Soon Springer International ; Oxford University Press 2012 Nephrology, dialysis, transplantation Vol.27 No.1

<P>In 2009, the Oxford classification was developed as a pathological classification system for immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) to predict the risk of disease progression. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the clinical and pathologic relevance of the Oxford classification in Korean patients with a pathologic diagnosis of IgAN.</P>

Kalman-Filter Based Estimation of Electric Load Composition with Non-ideal Transformer Modeling

Lee, S.,Baek, S.-M.,Park, J.-W.,Moon, Y.-H. Oxford University Press 2007 IEICE transactions on fundamentals of electronics, Vol.90 No.12

<i>CaLecRK-S.5</i> , a pepper L-type lectin receptor kinase gene, confers broad-spectrum resistance by activating priming

Woo, Joo Yong,Jeong, Kwang Ju,Kim, Young Jin,Paek, Kyung-Hee Oxford University Press 2016 Journal of experimental botany Vol.67 No.19

<▼1><P><B>Highlight</B></P><P><I>CaLecRK-S.5</I>, a positive regulator of priming, plays a critical role in plant immunity to broad-spectrum pathogens.</P></▼1><▼2><P>In Arabidopsis, several L-type lectin receptor kinases (LecRKs) have been identified as putative immune receptors. However, to date, there have been few analyses of LecRKs in crop plants. Virus-induced gene silencing of <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I> verified the role of <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I> in broad-spectrum resistance. Compared with control plants, <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I>-silenced plants showed reduced hypersensitive response, reactive oxygen species burst, secondary metabolite production, mitogen-activated protein kinase activation, and defense-related gene expression in response to <I>Tobacco mosaic virus</I> pathotype P<SUB>0</SUB> (TMV-P<SUB>0</SUB>) infection. Suppression of <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I> expression significantly enhanced the susceptibility to <I>Pepper mild mottle virus</I> pathotype P<SUB>1,2,3</SUB>, <I>Xanthomonas campestris</I> pv. <I>vesicatoria</I>, <I>Phytophthora capsici</I>, as well as TMV-P<SUB>0</SUB>. Additionally, β-aminobutyric acid treatment and a systemic acquired resistance assay revealed that <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I> is involved in priming of plant immunity. Pre-treatment with β-aminobutyric acid before viral infection restored the reduced disease resistance phenotypes shown in <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I>-silenced plants. Systemic acquired resistance was also abolished in <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I>-silenced plants. Finally, RNA sequencing analysis indicated that <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I> positively regulates plant immunity at the transcriptional level. Altogether, these results suggest that <I>CaLecRK-S.5</I>-mediated broad-spectrum resistance is associated with the regulation of priming.</P></▼2>

Analysis of virulence and growth of a purine auxotrophic mutant of<i>Xanthomonas oryzae</i>pathovar<i>oryzae</i>

Park, Young-Jin,Song, Eun-Sung,Kim, Yeong-Tae,Noh, Tae-Hwan,Kang, Hee-Wan,Lee, Byoung-Moo Oxford University Press 2007 FEMS microbiology letters Vol.276 No.1

<P>Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) causes bacterial blight of rice. A random insertional mutant library of Xoo KACC10331 was constructed using a Tn5-derived transposon, and the virulence of the mutants against the susceptible rice cultivar IR24 was assayed. After the virulence assay, the M793 (purD::Tn5) mutant that had reduced virulence against the rice plants was isolated. Thermal asymmetric interlaced-PCR and sequence analysis revealed that the transposon was inserted into the purD gene (encodes a phosphoribosylamine-glycine ligase) of the M793 mutant. The reverse transcriptase-PCR assay revealed that the mutation of the purD gene did not affect the expression of other purine biosynthesis genes. However, the M793 mutant required exogenous purines and thiamine for growth in minimal media. These results indicate that the purD gene plays a crucial role in the growth and virulence of Xoo.</P>

Transcript and protein level analyses of the interactions among PhoB, PhoR, PhoU and CreC in response to phosphate starvation in<i>Escherichia coli</i>

Baek, Jong Hwan,Kang, Yeon Jae,Lee, Sang Yup Oxford University Press 2007 FEMS microbiology letters Vol.277 No.2

<P>The responses to phosphate starvation by PhoR-PhoB two-component regulatory system are also affected by other regulatory systems in Escherichia coli. The interactions among PhoB, PhoR, PhoU and CreC were investigated at transcript and protein levels using real-time PCR and fluorescence resonance energy transfer analyses. CreC showed an interaction with PhoB, before an interaction between PhoB and PhoR, suggesting that this acts as a constant sensor for the early response to phosphate starvation. PhoU was found to interact with neither PhoB nor PhoR, while this acted as a phosphate starvation-inducible protein. These results showed the detailed time- and phosphate concentration-dependent interactions among PhoB, PhoR, PhoU and CreC in response to phosphate starvation in E. coli.</P>

Exploring membrane-associated NAC transcription factors in <i>Arabidopsis</i> : implications for membrane biology in genome regulation

Kim, Sun-Young,Kim, Sang-Gyu,Kim, Youn-Sung,Seo, Pil Joon,Bae, Mikyoung,Yoon, Hye-Kyung,Park, Chung-Mo Oxford University Press 2007 Nucleic acids research Vol.35 No.1

<P>Controlled proteolytic cleavage of membrane-associated transcription factors (MTFs) is an intriguing activation strategy that ensures rapid transcriptional responses to incoming stimuli. Several MTFs are known to regulate diverse cellular functions in prokaryotes, yeast, and animals. In <I>Arabidopsis</I>, a few NAC MTFs mediate either cytokinin signaling during cell division or endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress responses. Through genome-wide analysis, it was found that at least 13 members of the NAC family in <I>Arabidopsis</I> contain strong α-helical transmembrane motifs (TMs) in their C-terminal regions and are predicted to be membrane-associated. Interestingly, most of the putative NAC MTF genes are up-regulated by stress conditions, suggesting that they may be involved in stress responses. Notably, transgenic studies revealed that membrane release is essential for the function of NAC MTFs. Transgenic plants overexpressing partial-size NAC constructs devoid of the TMs, but not those overexpressing full-size constructs, showed distinct phenotypic changes, including dwarfed growth and delayed flowering. The rice genome also contains more than six NAC MTFs. Furthermore, the presence of numerous MTFs is predicted in the whole transcription factors in plants. We thus propose that proteolytic activation of MTFs is a genome-wide mechanism regulating plant genomes.</P>

CONSORF: a consensus prediction system for prokaryotic coding sequences.

Kang, Sungsoo,Yang, Sung-Jin,Kim, Sangsoo,Bhak, Jong Oxford University Press 2007 Bioinformatics Vol.23 No.22

<P>CONSORF is a fully automatic high-accuracy identification system that provides consensus prokaryotic CDS information. It first predicts the CDSs supported by consensus alignments. The alignments are derived from multiple genome-to-proteome comparisons with other prokaryotes using the FASTX program. Then, it fills the empty genomic regions with the CDSs supported by consensus ab initio predictions. From those consensus results, CONSORF provides prediction reliability scores, predicted frame-shifts, alternative start sites and best pair-wise match information against other prokaryotes. These results are easily accessed from a website.</P>

Fast Normalization-Transformed Subsequence Matching in Time-Series Databases

Moon, Y.-S.,Kim, J. Oxford University Press 2007 IEICE transactions on information and systems Vol.90 No.12