The orosomucoid-like (ORMDL) protein family is involved in the regulation of de novo sphingolipid synthesis, calcium homeostasis, and unfolded protein response. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that increase ORMDL3 expression have been associated with various immune/inflammatory diseases, although the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying this association are poorly understood. ORMDL p...

BACKGROUND Peanut allergenicity has been reported to be influenced by heat treatment, yet the commonly available extracts for skin prick testing (SPT) are derived from raw extracts. OBJECTIVE To assess the effect of heat treatment on the SPT reactivity and specific IgE binding to peanut. METHODS Three commercial extracts and 3 laboratory-prepared extracts, including raw, roasted, and boiled...

Background: Some patients with Intractable Vasospastic Angina (i-VSA) have angina attacks, irrespective of vasodilator treatment. Despite the significance of the prediction of i-VSA in the clinical setting, the means to accomplish it remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between i-VSA clinical parameters, including angiographic findings from the Spasm Provocation Test (SPT...

Second primary tumor (SPT) and/or recurrence negatively impact the prognosis of patients with curatively treated early-stage head and neck cancer. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in cancer development. We explored whether the variations of miRNA-related pathway were associated with the risk of SPT/recurrence in patients with early-stage head and neck cancer. This study includes 150 earl...

Recently, Andrews introduced the function s(n) = spt(n) which counts the number of smallest parts among the integer partitions of n. We show that its generating function satisfies an identity analogous to Ramanujan's mock theta identities. As a consequence, we are able to completely determine the parity of s(n). Using another type of identity, one based on Hecke operators, we obtain a complete ...

Congruences are found modulo powers of 5, 7 and 13 for Andrews’ smallest parts partition function spt(n). These congruences are reminiscent of Ramanujan’s partition congruences modulo powers of 5, 7 and 11. Recently, Ono proved explicit Ramanujan-type congruences for spt(n) modulo ` for all primes ` ≥ 5 which were conjectured earlier by the author. We extend Ono’s method to handle the powers of...

OBJECTIVE Disagreement between results of skin prick test (SPT) and nasal provocation tests (NPT) causes difficulty in differential diagnosis of allergic rhinitis (AR) and nonallergic rhinitis (NAR). We hypothesized this discrepancy could be due to the nonspecific hyper-reactivity (NHR) and localized allergy of the nasal cavity. STUDY DESIGN Prospective pilot. SETTING Academic tertiary rhin...

Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) in combination with the super-resolution imaging method STED (STED-FCS), and single-particle tracking (SPT) are able to directly probe the lateral dynamics of lipids and proteins in the plasma membrane of live cells at spatial scales much below the diffraction limit of conventional microscopy. However, a major disparity in interpretation of data from ...

SLs (sphingolipids) are composed of fatty acids and a polar head group derived from L-serine. SLs are essential components of all eukaryotic and many prokaryotic membranes but S1P (sphingosine 1-phosphate) is also a potent signalling molecule. Recent efforts have sought to inventory the large and chemically complex family of SLs (LIPID MAPS Consortium). Detailed understanding of SL metabolism m...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of allergic diseases has increased not only in high income but also in low-to-middle income countries. However, risk factors for their development are still not well established, particularly in the latter. OBJECTIVE To assess prevalence and identify risk factors for sensitization to two major inhalant allergens among children from semi-urban and rural areas in Indon...