Biology subjects

Hejazi, M. S.

Publications and source records attributed to Hejazi, M. S..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Growth inhibitory effect of cerebrospinal fluid of multiple sclerosis patients on HFF2 cells

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease characterized by demyelination of the central nervous system (CNS). Occurrence of immunogenic cell death (ICD) in this disease and expression of ICD markers in the CSF of MS patients are documented. However, cytotoxic effect of MS patients cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) on the cells is not reported. To evaluate the cytotoxic impact of CSF from MS patients on cell viability, human foreskin fibroblast (HFF2) cells were treated with CSF samples from individuals with MS and healthy controls. The results inferred that patient-derived CSF significantly declined the survival of HFF2 cells in comparison to the CSF of healthy individuals. This observation implies a cytotoxic environment and characteristic of patients CSF, which could be due to the presence of cellular-damaging factors such as calreticulin (CRT) in the patients CSF. The cytotoxic environment of CSF might reflect ICD occurrence in CNS of the patients and also could explain the progressive essence of the disease.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Annexin A1, Calreticulin and High Mobility Group Box 1 are elevated in Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis: Does Immunogenic Cell Death Occur in Multiple Sclerosis?

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neuroinflammatory diseases characterized by demyelination of the nerve fibers. Immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a process, during which damaged and stressed cells release danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) activating immune responses. This study aimed to elucidate the induction of ICD in MS diseases. To achieve this goal, the level of DAMPs including Annexin A1, calreticulin and HMGB1 was measured in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of a secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS) patient in comparison to control group. Results showed significant upregulation (more than two- fold) of Annexin A1, calreticulin and HMGB1 in the CSF of the patient. Although further studies are suggested in this regard, this data could imply induction of ICD in MS. The proposed ICD might trigger immune response against neural cells resulting in neuroinflammation and demyelination in CNS in MS. Our observation could suggest inclusion of ICD interfering treatments in routine MS therapy.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2023

Epstein-Barr virus-encoded BART9 and BART15 miRNAs are elevated in exosomes of cerebrospinal fluid from relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is approved as the main environmental trigger of multiple sclerosis (MS). In this path, we quantified EBV-encoded BART9-3p and BART15 miRNAs in exosomes of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of untreated relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) patients in comparison with the control group. Interestingly, patients displayed significant upregulation of BART9-3p (18.4-fold) and BART15 (3.1-fold) expression in CSF exosomes. Moreover, the expression levels of miR-21-5p and miR-146a-5p were found to be significantly elevated in the CSF samples obtained from the patient group in comparison to those obtained from the HC group. The levels of Interferon gamma (IFN-{gamma}), interleukin-1{beta} (IL-1{beta}), interleukin- 6 (IL-6), interleukin-17 (IL-17), interleukin-23 (IL-23), transforming growth factor beta (TGF- {beta}), and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-) were observed to be significantly elevated in the serum and CSF exosomes of the patients. The highest increase was observed in TGF-{beta} (8.5- fold), followed by IL-23 (3.9-fold) in CSF exosomes. These findings are in agreement with the association between EBV infection and inflammatory cytokines induction. Furthermore, the ratios of TGF-{beta}:TNF- and TGF-{beta}:IFN-{gamma} attained values of 4 to 16.4 and 1.3 to 3.6, respectively, in the CSF exosomes of the patients, in comparison to those of the control group. Remarkable stimulation of EBV BART9-3p, BART15 miRNAs, and inflammatory cytokines expression in CSF exosomes confers a substantial link between EBV in MS onset and also the infection-to-MS transition.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2022

FMSClusterFinder: A new tool for detection and identification of clusters of sequential motifs with varying characteristics inside genomic sequences

This paper describes FMSClusterFinder, a new tool and algorithm for identification and detection of clusters of sequential blocks inside the DNA and RNA subject sequences. Gene expression and genomic groups performance is under the control of functional elements cooperating with each other as clusters. The functional motifs or blocks are often comparably short, degenerate and are located within varying distances from each other. Since functional motifs mostly act in relation to each other as clusters, finding such clusters of blocks is an effective approach to identify functional groups and their function and structure, which represents the need for development of new corresponding tools. The presented web application finds clusters of sequential blocks, with even altering sequences and located in varying distances from each other inside the subject sequences, simultaneously. Additionally, the blocks could be searched with user defined constant or varying characteristics such as: a) different levels of similarity, b) varying minimum number of blocks required to build up the query cluster, c) different types of sequence (degenerate or standard) and d) one or multiple alternative sequences for each block. FMSClusterFinder is available freely at http://fmsclusterfinder.fmsbiog.com.

bioinformatics↗