Current Signal Transduction Therapy - Volume 16, Issue 3, 2021

It was 11 March 2020 when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the name COVID-19 for coronavirus disease and also described it as a pandemic. Till that day 118,000 cases were confirmed of pneumonia with breathing problem throughout the world. At the start of New Year when COVID-19 came into knowledge a few days later, the gene sequencing of the virus was revealed. Today the number of confirmed cases is scary, i.e. 9,472,473 in the whole world and 484,236 deaths have been recorded by WHO till 26 June 2020. WHO's global risk assessment is very high [1]. The report is enlightening the lessons learned by India from the highly affected countries.

Till now, across from a few basic data, nothing is well clear regarding its exact origin, incubation period, seriousness and what makes it transmissible is not recommended for COVID19 anywhere in the world. It was on 28 January, 2020 that the World Health Organisation released a paper relating to medical data and recommendations from the management of previous HCoV epidemics. The present paper outlines steps for the identification and assessment of patients with extreme acute respiratory disease; monitoring and infection prevention strategies; tracking and early intervention therapy; treatment of respiratory arrest and ARDS; clinical diagnosis; recommendations for septic shock management; therapies; and concerns for pregnant women.

The world is connected by the internet. It is very useful because we use Google to find out any new topic, to search for new places, to quest updated research, and to get knowledge for learning. People around the world can communicate with each other through the Google video conference talk. Internet is frequently used in smartphones, laptops, desktops, and tablets. Excessive affinity towards internet-based online data collection, downloading pictures, videos, cyber relationships, and social media may produce addiction disorders followed by different symptoms such as behavior change, mind disturbance, depression, anxiety, loss of appetite hyperactivity, sleeping disorder, headache, visual fatigue, trafficking of memory, attention-deficit, loss of efficiency in work and social detachment which may be caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters. This is very difficult to control because of abnormal signal transduction in the brain. The present study is an attempt to discuss internet addiction disorder (IAD), internet gaming disorder (IGD), and give awareness to society to get rid of this addiction.

This article provides a comprehensive review of the recent trends and applications of BCIs. This review also provides future directions towards the acceleration and maturation of BCI technology. Based on a methodical search strategy, major technical databases were searched in quest of research papers of average and outstanding interest. A total of 188 research works were included within this review due to their suitability and state-of-the-art achievements. This review identifies various eminent applications of BCIs in medical and non-medical domains. The findings of this review reveal the need for further exploration of BCI devices outside the laboratory-based settings for their development and seamless integration. In addition, applications of BCIs, including neuromarketing, neurorehabilitation, and neuroergonomics, require additional investigations for further validation and fruition of BCI technology. Based on this review, it is concluded that BCIs are in their embryonic stage and seek further research and investigation for their maturation.

Background: The circular RNAs (circRNAs) are defined as single-stranded RNA molecules with a length of 100 bp up to 4 kb, resulting from head-to-tail junctions at splice sites of spliced transcripts. Moreover, they are stable and abundant conserved RNA molecules, which often have tissue-specific expression and developmental stages. Dysregulation of circRNAs has been identified in many types of malignancies that mainly affect the progression of human cancers. Methods: This review was prepared via searching of the databases of Science Direct, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Google Scholar, Pub-Med (NLM), Scopus, Web of Science, and hand searching using relative keywords. The selected papers were fully reviewed and the required information for the review was extracted and summarized. Results: In recent decades, the prevalence of thyroid cancer, especially papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), has increased among all cancers, thereby attracting worldwide attention. The global rate of death from thyroid cancer is approximately 0.2 -0.6 per 100,000 people. Some of the known axes involved in PTC include circ-0025033/miR-1304/miR-1231, circPVT1/miR-126, circBACH2/miR- 139-5p/LMO4, circ-ITCH/miR-22-3p/CBL/β-catenin, circZFR/miR1261/C8orf4, circRAPGEF5/ miR-198/FGFR1, circNUP214/miR-145/ZEB2. In this article, we review briefly the most important signaling axes involved in thyroid cancer. The expression level of microRNA (miRNAs) is regulated by circRNAs. Conclusion: Thus, circRNAs play an important role in the oncogenic and malignant behavior of cancer. The fact that circRNAs have been found in abundance in saliva, exosomes and standard blood samples makes circRNAs a diagnostic marker for diseases, especially cancer.

An infectious disease emerged from Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and then spread to many countries worldwide. Initially, it was named Coronavirus disease 2019, and then it was called COVID-19. COVID-19 is an ongoing pandemic with 60.2 million confirmed cases and a leading health concern for the public worldwide. Mainly middle and old-aged people are being hospitalized and are dying across the affected countries. More than 1.42 million people have been deceased, and more than 41.5 million people have been recovered. Almost all the countries are fighting against the transmission of the virus by restricting travel and other daily life activities. Coronavirus outbreak causes many psychological disorders, such as fear of infection and death. On the other hand, COVID-19 has resulted in some positive consequences on the environment due to restricted human activities. Environmental conditions, including air quality, global warming, water quality, change of biodiversity and ecosystem, and many more parameters, show a significant improvement in the meteorological graph. The overall environmental pollution has been reduced, and the earth is healing itself.

Background: The paper aims to review existing solutions for smart building to increase hospitality levels in locations like hospitals. The answers could support features such as online appointments, smart navigation, and queue management in the building through mobile phone and navigation to the desired location by highlighting the point of interest and facilities and checking the spaces' occupancy. Methods: Such a solution addresses all mentioned issues regarding the smart building by integrating and utilizing various data sources collected by the internet of things (IoT) sensors. This solution mainly deals with location determining, also known as positioning, using Bluetooth Low Energy radio. The goal is to implement a low-power, low-cost indoor positioning system that utilizes existing hardware. Results: Positions determining is considered a significant section of these kinds of solutions. Previous attempts with indoor positioning systems intensify statistical fingerprinting methods, mainly using IEEE 802.11 (WLAN) as the platform. Conclusions: Some efforts have been made with purely signal strength-based positioning, but indoor environments have been shown to work inauspiciously for these kinds of methods.

All over the world, there is a new target of public health emergency looming the world along with an appearance and distribution of the novel coronavirus disease (2019-nCoV) also known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This Virus was initially generated in bats and then transferred to a human being over an unknown animal playing the role of a mediator in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. This virus is transmitted by breathing or coming in contact with an infected person’s droplets. The Incubation period is between 2 to 14 days for COVID-19, that is the time between exposure of the virus (person becoming infected) and symptom appearance in that person, averaging 5-6 days. However, it can go up to 14 days. Throughout this period, which can be also known as a “pre-symptomatic” period, some of the infected patients or persons can be contagious. That is why; transferal from a pre-symptomatic case can happen before the onset of the symptoms.. There are a few number of case studies and reports, pre-symptomatic transferal has been documented via contact with someone who is diagnosed with virus and increased investigation of that particular clusters of total confirmed cases. The main problem is that the symptoms are just like the regular flu that are cough, fever, sore throat, fatigue and breathlessness. This virus is moderate or mild in most of the people, but in elder ones, it may proceed to pneumonia, multi-organ dysfunction and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Coronavirus has significant consequences on the Health system, mainly on cardiovascular diseases and on the environment.

Background and Objective: The advent of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) has created a high throughput platform to identify disease traits and phenotypic characteristics using RNASeq Sequencing analysis in humans. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a lethal disease, accounts for 85 percent of most lung cancers with a very small window of survival rate. The decision of tumour image biomarker impression can be improved by gene profile. Hence there is a need to characterise the variants in the disease manifestation. Methods: To understand the SNPs in the major genes responsible for NSCLC, RNASeq data of patients aged above 50 years were downloaded from the SRA database. The quality matrix analysis is mapped to Genome reference consortium human build 38 (GRCh38) to call the variants and identify SNPs with the tuxedo protocol. Results: The SNPs and the patterns of variants were analysed to see the comparison between healthy individuals and NSCLC patients, and in between patients of different age. Oncogenes commonly associated with the NSCLC like KRAS, EGFR, ALK, BRAF and HER2 were mainly analysed to see the SNPs and their characterisations with respect to the functional change done. Conclusion: The SNPs with the greater quality scores belonging to the above-said genes were identified, which gives us a baseline to understand the NSCLC at the Genomic level. Further fold change of these genes to the frequency of variants can be mapped to understand the NSCLC at a greater depth.

Introduction: In this paper, a robust sliding mode controller is developed to control an orthosis used for rehabilitation of lower limb. Materials and Methods: The orthosis is defined as a mechanical device intended to physically assist a human subject for the realization of his movements. It should be adapted to the human morphology, interacting in harmony with its movements, and providing the necessary efforts along with the limbs to which it is attached. Results: The application of the sliding mode control to the Shank-orthosis system shows satisfactory dynamic response and tracking performances. Conclusion: In fact, position tracking and speed tracking errors are very small. The sliding mode controller effectively absorbs disturbance and parametric variations, hence the efficiency and robustness of our applied control.

Background: As the outbreak of COVID-19 has accelerated, an urgent need for finding strategies to combat the virus is growing. Thus, gaining more knowledge on the pathogenicity mechanism of SARS-CoV-2, i.e. the causing agent of COVID-19, and its interaction with the immune system is of utmost importance. Although this novel virus is not well known yet, its structural and genetic similarity with SARS-CoV as well as the comparable pattern of age-mortality relations suggest that some previous findings on SARS could be applicable for COVID-19. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the most important signaling pathways activated by coronaviruses to better understand the viral pathogenesis and host immune responses. Method: Here, a systems biological study was conducted on a SARS database. It was followed by a literature review on the cognate subject. Results: It was proved that interferons may possess a crucial role in the defense against coronavirus diseases. The literature supported the validity of the employed approach and the notion that interferon induction could play a key role in the body defense against coronavirus infections. Conclusion: Altogether, administration of interferons or interferon-inducing agents in a prophylactic manner or at the early stages of the disease, could mimic the effective antiviral responses against SARS-CoV-2 and reduce the disease severity. At later stages of the disease, however, the balance of the immune reactions would be disrupted and the responses would shift toward immunopathogenic over-reactions, which could be exacerbated by the interferon usage. Moderating the activity of the immune system by anti-inflammatory agents, might be the optimum approach in such conditions.

Background: PARK9 familial Parkinson’s disease (PD) is caused by a loss-of-function mutation in the ATP13A2 gene in which the mutation impairs the autophagic-lysosomal degradation pathway and induces intraneuronal accumulation of alpha-synuclein. RNA interference has been a useful tool in generating in vitro knockdown model to study the physiological role of the gene. However, the availability of a validated ATP13A2-deficient in vitro model is limited. Objective: This study aimed to develop the ATP13A2-deficient PD model by delivering ATP13A2 siRNA into neuroblastoma cells using carbonate apatite nanoparticles (CA NPs). Method: CA NPs were fabricated using different concentrations of calcium chloride and characterised in the presence or absence of ATP13A2 siRNA. Time-dependent stabilities of CA NPs and CA NPs-associated siRNA (CA-siRNA) complex were evaluated by pH, turbidity, size, and zeta potential measurements. The dissolution abilities at acidic conditions of both complexes were investigated. Following that, green fluorescence protein (GFP) and four different siRNAs targeting ATP13A2 (siRNA_5, 6, 7, and 8) were transfected to cells with the fabricated CA NPs. Western blot was performed to determine the knockdown effect of the four siRNAs. Results: It was found that 4 mM calcium chloride was ideal for CA NP formation, while an incubation time of 48 hours was required to maintain the stability of nanoparticles. Successful transfection was confirmed by detection of fluorescence signal from the GFP plasmid and the subsequent silencing of this signal by transfecting GFP siRNA. Western blot analysis revealed that ATP13A2 protein expression was significantly reduced to 20% upon transfection with 20 nM of siRNA_5. Conclusion: ATP13A2-deficient PD model was successfully developed.