Search results for "Computer Science Application"
showing 10 items of 3998 documents
Involvement of Microglia in Neurodegenerative Diseases: Beneficial Effects of Docosahexahenoic Acid (DHA) Supplied by Food or Combined with Nanoparti…
2021
Neurodegenerative diseases represent a major public health issue and require better therapeutic management. The treatments developed mainly target neuronal activity. However, an inflammatory component must be considered, and microglia may constitute an important therapeutic target. Given the difficulty in developing molecules that can cross the blood–brain barrier, the use of food-derived molecules may be an interesting therapeutic avenue. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (22:6 omega-3), has an inhibitory action on cell death and oxidative stress induced in the microglia. It also acts on the inflammatory activity of microglia. These data obtained in vitro or…
ROS-Dependent ER Stress and Autophagy Mediate the Anti-Tumor Effects of Tributyltin (IV) Ferulate in Colon Cancer Cells
2020
Organotin compounds represent potential cancer therapeutics due to their pro-apoptotic action. We recently synthesized the novel organotin ferulic acid derivative tributyltin (IV) ferulate (TBT-F) and demonstrated that it displays anti-tumor properties in colon cancer cells related with autophagic cell death. The purpose of the present study was to elucidate the mechanism of TBT-F action in colon cancer cells. We specifically show that TBT-F-dependent autophagy is determined by a rapid generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and correlated with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. TBT-F evoked nuclear factor erythroid-2 related factor 2 (Nrf2)-mediated antioxidant response and Nrf2 silenc…
Lipids Nutrients in Parkinson and Alzheimer’s Diseases: Cell Death and Cytoprotection
2020
Neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, have common features: protein accumulation, cell death with mitochondrial involvement and oxidative stress. Patients are treated to cure the symptoms, but the treatments do not target the causes; so, the disease is not stopped. It is interesting to look at the side of nutrition which could help prevent the first signs of the disease or slow its progression in addition to existing therapeutic strategies. Lipids, whether in the form of vegetable or animal oils or in the form of fatty acids, could be incorporated into diets with the aim of preventing neurodegenerative diseases. These different lipids can inhibit the cytotoxi…
Optogenetically Controlled Activity Pattern Determines Survival Rate of Developing Neocortical Neurons
2021
A substantial proportion of neurons undergoes programmed cell death (apoptosis) during early development. This process is attenuated by increased levels of neuronal activity and enhanced by suppression of activity. To uncover whether the mere level of activity or also the temporal structure of electrical activity affects neuronal death rates, we optogenetically controlled spontaneous activity of synaptically-isolated neurons in developing cortical cultures. Our results demonstrate that action potential firing of primary cortical neurons promotes neuronal survival throughout development. Chronic patterned optogenetic stimulation allowed to effectively modulate the firing pattern of single ne…
A Conclusive Analysis of the Finite-Time Behavior of the Discretized Pursuit Learning Automaton
2019
Author's accepted version (post-print). © 20XX IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. Available from 20/03/2021. This paper deals with the finite-time analysis (FTA) of learning automata (LA), which is a topic for which very little work has been reported in the literature. This is as opposed to the asymptotic steady-state analysis for which there are, probabl…
The Attention Schema Theory: A Foundation for Engineering Artificial Consciousness
2017
The purpose of the attention schema theory is to explain how an information-processing device, the brain, arrives at the claim that it possesses a non-physical, subjective awareness, and assigns a high degree of certainty to that extraordinary claim. The theory does not address how the brain might actually possess a non-physical essence. It is not a theory that deals in the non-physical. It is about the computations that cause a machine to make a claim and to assign a high degree of certainty to the claim. The theory is offered as a possible starting point for building artificial consciousness. Given current technology, it should be possible to build a machine that contains a rich internal …
The Role of Low Complexity Regions in Protein Interaction Modes: An Illustration in Huntingtin
2021
Low complexity regions (LCRs) are very frequent in protein sequences, generally having a lower propensity to form structured domains and tending to be much less evolutionarily conserved than globular domains. Their higher abundance in eukaryotes and in species with more cellular types agrees with a growing number of reports on their function in protein interactions regulated by post-translational modifications. LCRs facilitate the increase of regulatory and network complexity required with the emergence of organisms with more complex tissue distribution and development. Although the low conservation and structural flexibility of LCRs complicate their study, evolutionary studies of proteins …
Folding and insertion of transmembrane helices at the ER
2021
In eukaryotic cells, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the entry point for newly synthesized proteins that are subsequently distributed to organelles of the endomembrane system. Some of these proteins are completely translocated into the lumen of the ER while others integrate stretches of amino acids into the greasy 30 Å wide interior of the ER membrane bilayer. It is generally accepted that to exist in this non-aqueous environment the majority of membrane integrated amino acids are primarily non-polar/hydrophobic and adopt an α-helical conformation. These stretches are typically around 20 amino acids long and are known as transmembrane (TM) helices. In this review, we will consider how tra…
Getting Docking into Shape Using Negative Image-Based Rescoring
2019
The failure of default scoring functions to ensure virtual screening enrichment is a persistent problem for the molecular docking algorithms used in the structure-based drug discovery. To remedy this problem, elaborate rescoring and post-processing schemes have been developed with a varying degree of success, specificity, and cost. The negative imagebased rescoring (R-NiB) has been shown to improve the flexible docking performance markedly with a variety of drug targets.The yield improvement is achieved by comparing the alternative docking poses against the negative image of the target protein’s ligand-binding cavity. In other words, the shape and electrostatics of the binding pocket is dir…
Curcumin Affects HSP60 Folding Activity and Levels in Neuroblastoma Cells.
2020
The fundamental challenge in fighting cancer is the development of protective agents able to interfere with the classical pathways of malignant transformation, such as extracellular matrix remodeling, epithelial−mesenchymal transition and, alteration of protein homeostasis. In the tumors of the brain, proteotoxic stress represents one of the main triggering agents for cell transformation. Curcumin is a natural compound with anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties with promising potential for the development of therapeutic drugs for the treatment of cancer as well as neurodegenerative diseases. Among the mediators of cancer development, HSP60 is a key factor for the maintenance of…