Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology

Publications

• Book

  Alshanskaia E., Martynova O.

  2023 Fifth International Conference Neurotechnologies and Neurointerfaces (CNN) 18-20 Sept. 2023

   Cognitive and emotional load in the course of increasing the complexity of tasks leads to the activation of various parts of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and can be accompanied by an increase in the efficiency of problem solving. An increase in cognitive load under the condition of high motivation is a stress factor and is expressed in a different reaction of the sympathetic and parasympathetic links in response to the load. This study explored the ANS reactions by measuring the pupil size of 61 healthy sub-clinical volunteers in response to the gradually increasing complexity of tasks. The experiment included 3 blocks of a combined visual search and 1-back task with six levels of difficulty. K-mean clustering method was used for the analysis. An increase in the complexity of the task from the first to the sixth level led to different dynamics of the pupil size in the three clustered groups. In one group, an intense high switchability and an active reaction with a large amplitude of changes were visible, in the second group the dynamics of changes was minimal, and a third intermediate group was also identified. Our results highlight individual differences in the reaction of the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of ANS under cognitive workload depending on biometric and psychometric parameters. 

  IEEE, 2023.

• Article

  Antipenko I., Makarova J., Shkurnikov M.

  The Expression of the LDLR, LDLRAP1, and PCSK9 Genes has Prognostic Significance in Triple-negative Breast Cancer

  Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate the prognostic significance of cholesterol uptake genes in predicting the survival of breast cancer patients.

  Background: Cholesterol plays a crucial role in the homeostasis of tumor cells. It is known that cholesterol levels can influence important parameters of the disease, such as sensitivity to therapy, progression, and metastasis of cancer. Previous studies suggest that breast cancer subtypes exhibit differences in metabolism.

  Objective: The objectives of this study were to determine whether cholesterol uptake genes have prognostic significance for overall survival in breast cancer patients, evaluate if this prognostic significance varies between breast cancer subtypes, and identify differences in the expression of cholesterol uptake genes among these subtypes.

  Methods: Data from mRNA sequencing of tumors from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) portal were analyzed. Tumors were classified into molecular subtypes, and the prognostic significance of cholesterol uptake gene expression levels was evaluated for each subtype. DESeq2 and Fisher's test were used to assess differences in gene expression.

  Results: High expression levels of genes involved in de novo cholesterol synthesis were associated with poor prognosis for the Basal-like and Luminal A breast cancer subtypes. The prognostic significance of low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR), LDLR adapter protein 1 (LDLRAP1), and proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9), which are responsible for exogenous cholesterol uptake, varied across subtypes. Specifically, low expression of LDLR was associated with a favorable prognosis for the luminal A (OR = 2.17; FDR = 0.0048) and luminal B (OR = 2.21; FDR = 0.015) subtypes but indicated poor prognosis in the basal-like subtype (OR = 0.48; FDR = 0.05). No genes were significant for prognosis prediction in the HER2-positive subtype. The HER2+ subtype exhibited higher expression of cholesterol uptake genes compared to the basal-like subtype based on the analysis of tumor mRNA sequencing (OR = 6.45, p-value = 3.07E-05). This finding was also confirmed through the study of publicly available single-cell sequencing data (OR = 40.3, p-value = 2.19e-07), which may contribute to the differences in their prognostic significance.

  Conclusion: The prognostic significance of cholesterol uptake gene expression varies among breast cancer subtypes. Precise fitting of biomarkers into breast cancer subtypes may aid in more accurate patient stratification and improve treatment approaches.

  Current Medicinal Chemistry. 2025. Vol. 32.

• Book chapter

  Панков Н. С., Pozanenko A. S., Belkin S. et al.

  AWARE: Alert Watcher and Astronomical Rapid Explorer

  We present the software aware for automatic scheduling the observations with the ground based network of optical telescopes GRB-IKI-FuN (extendable on other facilities). It was designed to provide the optimal coverage of large uncertainty contours of LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA (LVK) gravitational wave events, and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), detected by space missions, which is crucial for fast look-up for their optical counterparts. In addition, aware provides capabilities for notifying users on new alert messages received from General Coordinate Network (GCN), and sharing final products generated by the planner via Telegram bot. The implementation of the software allows both scheduler, and Telegram bot to run concurrently in near real-time. In this paper, we discuss main follow-up tactics of LVK events, and GRBs. We overview the automatic planning software aware in terms of an architecture and algorithms. The example products made by aware since the beginning of the LVK O4 run on 25 May 2023 are given. The plans for future work are briefly discussed.

  In bk.: Data Analytics and Management in Data Intensive Domains: 25th International Conference, DAMDID/RCDL 2023, Moscow, Russia, October 24–27, 2023, Revised Selected Papers. Vol. 2086: Communications in Computer and Information Science. Springer, 2024. P. 225-245.

• Working paper

  Liutsko L., Malova Y., Vinokurova E. et al.

  Stress Resilience (Proprioceptive and Verbal Individual Differences) in Onco-Patients, Sportsmen and Controls

  The characteristics of response to stressful situations depend on a complex of factors such as personality traits, emotional regulation, health state, features of the nervous system, motor functions and proprioception. In cases of disruption of the brain's dopamine system due to disease or chemotherapy, hormone discharge due to stress, changes in emotions and proprioception may occur. The aim of our study was to find the relationship of stress resilence in verbal test and individual differences performed in proprioceptive test in onco-patients, sportsmen and group of control; as well as to observe the differences between these groups in the verbal stress resistance and individual differences proprioceptive tests. The results showed that onco-patients were less resistant as per verbal stress resistance outcomes for a major part of variables compared to other groups. The sportsmen were superior in verbal Risk and Control dimensions compared to other groups; but less in Positive Affectiveness. The proprioceptive test perfomance revealed the only statistically significant difference in performance in the dimension related to Mood, showing more Pessimism in the sportsmen group, but more Optimism in the oncopatients at temperamental (or intrisinc) level. The obtained results can be used by psychologists, therapists, coach and healthcare when needed to attend the specific needs of public, being pateints or sportsmen, etc.

  public health and health services. 20944. MDPI, 2023