Soyoung Bang

OBJECTIVE: Smoking is associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in individuals with the HLA-DRB1 shared epitope (SE). SE alleles have been shown to be predominantly associated with anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP)-positive RA. These risk factors have not been identified for anti-CCP-negative RA. The aim of this study was to investigate whether SE-containing HLA-DRB1 alleles, smoking, or the combination of these factors contributes to the development of RA, depending on the presence o

Vitrification involves the use of cryoprotectants (CPAs) and liquid nitrogen (LN2), which may cause osmotic damage and cryoinjury to oocytes. Autophagy is widely recognized as a survival or response mechanism elicited by various environmental and cellular stressors. However, the induction of autophagy in vitrified-warmed oocytes has not been examined. In this work, we investigated whether the vitrification-warming process induces autophagy in mouse oocytes. Metaphase II (MII) oocytes that were v

OBJECTIVE: Investigators from the Australo-Anglo-American Spondyloarthritis Consortium have reported additional genes associated with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) susceptibility including IL1R2, ANTXR2, and gene deserts at 2p15 and 21q22. We evaluated these new candidate genes in a large cohort of Korean patients with AS. METHODS: A group of 1164 patients with AS and 752 healthy controls were enrolled for our study. Eight single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were analyzed to define genetic assoc

Tai Chi exercise improved endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness in elderly women with RA, suggesting that it can be a useful behavioral strategy for CVD prevention in patients with RA.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Antibiotic resistance of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a significant clinical problem because it reduces the efficacy of eradication therapy. The aims of this study were to assess the changing patterns of antibiotic resistance of H. pylori in patients with peptic ulcer diseases and to evaluate the eradication rate in antibiotic resistant H. pylori strains. METHODS: One hundred forty four H. pylori isolates obtained from 466 patients with peptic ulcer disease between June 20

INTRODUCTION: Anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide autoantibodies (anti-CCP) are the most specific serologic marker for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Genetic polymorphisms in a citrullinating (or deiminating) enzyme, peptidyl arginine deiminase type IV (PADI4) have been reproducibly associated with RA susceptibility in several populations. We investigated whether PADI4 polymorphisms contribute to anti-CCP-negative as well as -positive RA, whether they influence disease severity (erosive joint status),

Objective. Although two recent randomized placebo-controlled trials of rituximab (RTX) failed to demonstrate efficacy in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), clinicians continue to use off-label RTX for cases refractory to current treatments. We evaluated the effectiveness and safety of rituximab for patients with refractory SLE in Korea. Methods. We retrospectively analyzed multicenter patients treated with RTX in Korea. Results. 39 SLE patients treated with RTX were included in the following ma

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between HLA-DRB1 alleles and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) susceptibility and features of SLE, such as clinical manifestations and autoantibody profiles, in a Korean population. METHODS: We tested the genetic associations between HLA-DRB1 alleles and SLE susceptibility and clinical subphenotypes in 1,089 patients with SLE and 2,161 control subjects, including a discovery set (475 patients and 1,119 controls) and a replication set (614 patients and 1

INTRODUCTION: Although it has been suggested that rare coding variants could explain the substantial missing heritability, very few sequencing studies have been performed in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We aimed to identify novel functional variants with rare to low frequency using targeted exon sequencing of RA in Korea. METHODS: We analyzed targeted exon sequencing data of 398 genes selected from a multifaceted approach in Korean RA patients (n = 1,217) and controls (n = 717). We conducted a sin

AIM: To compare renal outcomes between cyclophosphamide (CYC) and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), and attempt to identify a predictor of renal survival. METHODS: A total of 99 patients with class III-V lupus nephritis (LN) and treated with CYC or MMF were enrolled. The remission rate and predictors of poor renal outcomes in LN were assessed. RESULTS: The mean age at LN diagnosis was 31.7 years. The baseline characteristics of the two groups were similar except for the chronicity index (3.1 ± 2.4 an

Instances of tuberculosis were treated successfully in our AS patients, even when given concomitantly with TNF inhibitors. We suggest that early resumption of TNF inhibitors in AS patients could be safe under effective coverage of tuberculosis.

Dysregulation of forkhead box protein A2 (Foxa2) expression in fetal ventral mesencephalon (VM)-derived neural precursor cells (NPCs) appears to be associated with the loss of their potential to differentiate into dopaminergic (DA) neurons after mitogenic expansion in vitro, hindering their efficient use as a transplantable cell source. Here, we report that epigenetic activation of Foxa2 in VM-derived NPCs by inducing histone hyperacetylation rescues the mitogenic-expansion-dependent decrease of

Objective Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a highly heritable complex disorder with heterogeneous clinical manifestations. In this study, we aimed to identify the genetic risk load using clinical and serological manifestations in SLE patients. Methods We genotyped a total of 1,655 Korean patients with SLE (n = 1,243 as a discovery set and n = 412 as a replication set) using a customized genome‐wide single‐nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array, KoreanChip. A weighted genetic risk score (wGRS)

OBJECTIVE: Although HLA-DRB1 shared epitope (SE) alleles and HLA-DRB1*09:01 have repeatedly been shown to be associated with susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the effect of each allele on levels of anticyclic citrullinated peptide autoantibodies (anti-CCP) and interaction with cigarette smoking in RA remains to be fully defined. We investigated whether HLA-DRB1 risk alleles influence anti-CCP levels and whether each allele interacts with smoking in anti-CCP-positive or -negative RA. M

Abstract Diabetic macular edema (DME), a complication of diabetes mellitus, is a leading cause of adult-onset blindness worldwide. Recently, intravitreal anti-VEGF injection has been used as a first-line treatment. This study analyzed the association between the genetic profile of patients with DME and their response to treatment. Intravitreal anti-VEGF injections were administered monthly for three months to Korean patients diagnosed with DME, who were classified into two groups depending on wh