The neuroprotective roles of Dietary Micronutrients on Parkinson's disease: a review.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent elderly neurodegenerative disease. The nature of PD is strongly bounded with certain cellular processes, including oxidative stress, neuro-inflammation, apoptosis, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Therefore, many clinical and pre-clinical studies have reported protective effects of certain dietary micronutrients for PD. Hence, this review tried to introduce a series of important dietary micronutrients, which to our best of knowledge, were among those compounds known as beneficial for PD with a high consensus. The compounds possess neuroprotective properties (e.g. anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation, anti-apoptosis, boosting mitochondrial performance, regulating autophagy process). Thus, the compounds probably may act on several cellular targets to prevent the development of PD or to attenuate the progress of the disease. Investigating these compounds probably can lead to the development of novel supplementary therapeutic approaches, as well as refinement of dietary regimen of PD patients.

Exosome application in tumorigenesis: diagnosis and treatment of melanoma.

Melanoma is the most aggressive of skin cancer derived from genetic mutations in the melanocytes. Current therapeutic approaches include surgical resection, chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy, immunotherapy, biochemotherapy, and targeted therapy. However, the efficiency of these strategies may be decreased due to the development of diverse resistance mechanisms. Here, it has been proven that therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) can improve the efficiency of melanoma therapies and also, cancer vaccines are another approach for the treatment of melanoma that has already improved clinical outcomes in these patients. The use of antibodies and gene vaccines provides a new perspective in melanoma treatment. Since the tumor microenvironment is another important factor for cancer progression and metastasis, in recent times, a mechanism has been identified to provide an opportunity for melanoma cells to communicate with remote cells. This mechanism is involved by a novel molecular structure, named extracellular vesicles (EVs). Depending on the functional status of origin cells, exosomes contain various cargos and different compositions. In this review, we presented recent progress of exosome applications in the treatment of melanoma. Different aspects of exosome therapy and ongoing efforts in this field will be discussed too.

Comparison of central corneal thickness measurement using ultrasonic pachymetry, rotating Scheimpflug camera, and scanning-slit topography.

PURPOSE: To evaluate and compare central corneal thickness measurements using rotating Scheimpflug camera, scanning-slit topography, and ultrasound pachymetry in virgin, healthy corneas. DESIGN: Prospective, observational, cross-sectional study. METHODS: Central corneal thickness in 157 healthy eyes of 157 patients without ocular abnormalities other than refractive errors was measured, in a sequential order, once with rotating Scheimpflug camera and scanning-slit topography and 3 times with ultrasound pachymetry as the last part of examination. All measurements were performed by a single experienced examiner. The results from scanning-slit topography are given with and without correction for "acoustic correction factor" of 0.92. RESULTS: The average measurements of central corneal thickness by rotating Scheimpflug imaging, scanning-slit pachymetry, and ultrasound were 537.15 ± 32.98 µm, 542.06 ± 39.04 µm, and 544.07 ± 34.75 µm, respectively. The mean differences between modalities were 6.92 µm between rotating Scheimpflug and ultrasound (P < .0001), 2.01 µm between corrected scanning-slit and ultrasound (P = .204), and 4.91 µm between corrected scanning-slit and rotating Scheimpflug imaging (P = .001). According to Bland-Altman analysis, highest agreement was between ultrasonic and rotating Scheimpflug pachymetry. CONCLUSIONS: In the assessment of normal corneas, rotating Scheimpflug topography measures central corneal thickness values with higher agreement to ultrasound pachymetry.