The accumulation of base substitutions (mutations) not subject to natural selection is the neutral mutation rate. Because this rate reflects the in vivo processes involved in maintaining the integrity of genetic information, the factors that affect the neutral mutation rate are of considerable interest. Mammals exhibit two dramatically different neutral mutation rates: the CpG mutation rate, wh...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the combination of CpG oligodeoxynucleotide (CpG ODN) and miltefosine for the treatment of experimental visceral leishmaniasis (VL). METHODS The experiments were carried out using BALB/c mice and hamsters, infected with Leishmania donovani. CpG ODN was administered at various doses by the intraperitoneal (ip) route. The dose of CpG ODN (1 nM/single dose) showing best an...

PURPOSE To determine how CpG, an immunostimulatory sequence, affects experimental allergic conjunctivitis and to determine the mechanisms of its action. METHODS Experimental allergic conjunctivitis was induced in mice to investigate the suppressive mechanism of CpG treatment. Cytokine profiling, fluorescence-activated cell sorting analyses, and adoptive transfer were used to analyze suppressi...

Immunostimulatory CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) can enhance the therapeutic effect of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) by enhancing antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC). Distinct classes of CpG ODNs have been found recently to stimulate different effector cell populations. We used murine cancer models to explore the role of various effector cell populations in the antitumor activ...

Lately, there have been considerable efforts to computerize Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) so that they can be executed via Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) at the point of care. We present a Semantic Web framework to both model and execute the knowledge within a CPG to develop knowledge-centric CDSS. Our approach entails knowledge modeling through a synergy between multiple ontolog...

Vertebrate genomes are highly methylated at cytosine residues in CpG sequences. CpG methylation plays an important role in epigenetic gene silencing and genome stability. Compared with other epigenetic modifications, CpG methylation is thought to be relatively stable; however, it is sometimes affected by environmental changes, leading to epigenetic instability and disease. CpG methylation is re...

In this paper, a central pattern generator (CPG) model based on asynchronous coupling of cellular automaton (CA) phase oscillators for hexapod robot is presented. The presented CPG composed the CA whose discrete state transitions are triggered by multiple clocks. Then, evaluation functions to quantify synchronization states target gait patterns in introduced. Analyzing synchronizations using fu...

Immunostimulatory cytidyl guanosyl (CpG) motifs are of great interest as cancer vaccine adjuvants. They act as potent inducers of Th1 responses, including the activation of cytotoxic CD8 T lymphocytes (CTL). Whereas animal models have provided clear evidence that CpG enhances antitumor immunity, clinical trials in humans have thus far been less successful. Applying cryosurgery as an instant in ...