The epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a differentiation process associated with fibrogenesis in diabetic nephropathy (DN). Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a small, naturally occurring glycerophospholipid implicated in the pathogenesis of DN. In this study, we investigated the role of LPA/LPAR1 signaling in the EMT of tubular cells as well as the underlying mechanisms. We observed a decrease in E-cadherin and an increase in vimentin expression levels in the kidney tubules of diabetic db/db mice, and treatment with ki16425 (LPAR1/3 inhibitor) inhibited the expression of these EMT markers. Ki16425 treatment also decreased the expression levels of the fibrotic factors fibronectin and alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) in db/db mice. Similarly, we found that LPA decreased E-cadherin expression and increased vimentin expression in HK-2 cells, which was reversed by treatment with ki16425 or AM095 (LPAR1 inhibitor). In addition, the expression levels of fibronectin and α-SMA were increased by LPA, and this effect was reversed by treatment with ki16425 and AM095 or by LPAR1 knockdown. Moreover, LPA induced the expression of the transcription factor, Krüppel-like factor 5 (KLF5), which was decreased by AM095 treatment or LPAR1 knockdown. The expression levels of EMT markers and fibrotic factors induced by LPA were decreased upon KLF5 knockdown in HK-2 cells. Inhibition of the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and serine-threonine kinase (AKT) pathways decreased LPA-induced expression of KLF5 and EMT markers. In conclusion, these data suggest that LPA contributes to the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy by inducing EMT and renal tubular fibrosis via regulation of KLF5 through the LPAR1.

SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) COVID-19 감염을 일으키는 원인 바이러스는 국제바이러스분류위원회(International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, ICTV)의 코로나바이러스 연구 그룹에서 사스바이러스(SARS-CoV)와 관련되었다는 의미에서 SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2)로 명명되었다[4]. 사람에서 감염이 발견된 7종류의 코로나바이러스(229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2) 중에서 병독성이 강한 것으로 알려진 베타군에 속한 사스바이러스(SARS-CoV)와 메르스바이러스(MERS-CoV)의 사망률은 각각 10%와 35%였다. 아직, 질환

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Most recently issued paper money includes security patterns that can be only identified by ultra violet (UV) illuminations. We propose an automatic extraction method of UV patterns for paper money inspection systems. The image acquired by camera and UV illumination is transformed to input data through preprocessing. And then, the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and split-and-merge expectation maximization (SMEM) algorithm are applied to segment the image represented by input data. In order to extract the UV pattern from the segmented image, we develop a criterion using the area of covariance vector and the weight value. The experimental results on various paper money are presented to verify the usefulness of the proposed method.

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