BACKGROUND: We previously developed a real-time quantitative RT-PCR technique to detect breast carcinoma cells in peripheral blood (PB). The aim of the current study was to improve cytokeratin 19 (CK19) quantification using plasmid dilutions of cloned PCR fragments to obtain a more reliable and reproducible quantification of CK19 transcripts.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: PB samples of 14 stage IV breast cancer patients and 23 healthy controls were examined with RT-PCR using plasmid quantification.

RESULTS: Median CK19+ copy numbers of one and 11 were detected in the control group and stage IV breast cancer patients, respectively (Mann-Whitney, P

BACKGROUND: We previously developed a real-time quantitative RT-PCR technique to detect breast carcinoma cells in peripheral blood (PB). The aim of the current study was to improve cytokeratin 19 (CK19) quantification using plasmid dilutions of cloned PCR fragments to obtain a more reliable and reproducible quantification of CK19 transcripts.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: PB samples of 14 stage IV breast cancer patients and 23 healthy controls were examined with RT-PCR using plasmid quantification.

RESULTS: Median CK19+ copy numbers of one and 11 were detected in the control group and stage IV breast cancer patients, respectively (Mann-Whitney, P

Considering the emerging importance of glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK-3β) inhibitors in treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, multi-protein structure receptor-based pharmacophore modeling was adopted to generate a 3D pharmacophore model for (GSK-3β) inhibitors. The generated 3D pharmacophore was then validated using a test set of 1235 compounds. The ZINCPharmer web tool was used to virtually screen the public ZINC database using the generated 3D pharmacophore. A set of 12,251 hits was produced and then filtered according to their lead-like properties, predicted central nervous system (CNS) activity, and Pan-assay interference compounds (PAINS) fragments to 630 compounds. Scaffold Hunter was then used to cluster the filtered compounds according to their chemical structure framework. From the different clusters, 123 compounds were selected to cover the whole chemical space of the obtained hits. The SwissADME online tool was then used to filter out the compounds with undesirable pharmacokinetic properties giving a set of 91 compounds with promising predicted pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties. To confirm their binding capability to the GSK-3β binding site, molecular docking simulations were performed for the final 91 compounds in the GSK-3β binding site. Twenty-five compounds showed acceptable binding poses that bind to the key amino acids in the binding site Asp133 and Val135 with good binding scores. The quinolin-2-one derivative ZINC67773573 was found to be a promising lead for designing new GSK-3β inhibitors for Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

Nephrotic syndrome (NS) is a leading cause of chronic kidney disease. We found recessive variants in two families with early-onset NS by exome sequencing. Overexpression of wild-type (WT) , but not cDNA constructs bearing patient variants, increased active CDC42 and promoted filopodia and podosome formation. Pharmacologic inhibition of CDC42 or its effectors, formin proteins, reduced NOS1AP-induced filopodia formation. knockdown reduced podocyte migration rate (PMR), which was rescued by overexpression of WT but not by constructs bearing patient variants. PMR in knockdown podocytes was also rescued by constitutively active or the formin Modeling a patient variant in knock-in human kidney organoids revealed malformed glomeruli with increased apoptosis. mice recapitulated the human phenotype, exhibiting proteinuria, foot process effacement, and glomerulosclerosis. These findings demonstrate that recessive variants impair CDC42/DIAPH-dependent actin remodeling, cause aberrant organoid glomerulogenesis, and lead to a glomerulopathy in humans and mice.