Browsing by Author "Ercan, Altan"

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COVID-19 Virüs Pandemisinde Haftalık Döngünün Kökeni ve Sosyo-Ekonomik Faktörlerle İlişkisinin Araştırılması
(Abdullah Gül Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, 2024) Yağmur, İsmail Emre; Ercan, Altan
The Covid-19 virus, which started in China in 2019 and affected the whole world, has caused a global pandemic. Looking at the worldwide data of this pandemic, the number of daily cases appears to have a weekly cycle that is underestimated as an artifact of the number of daily tests administered. In this thesis study, a new model is developed to calculate the daily infection numbers from daily case numbers by using the Weibull distribution and the natural characteristics of the COVID-19 virus. According to the results obtained, it is found that the number of daily cases has a real weekly cycle. It has been determined that the daily infection numbers calculated in this weekly cycle are minimum on weekdays. According to the analysis by the new methos, these weekly minimums are controlled by socio-economic factors such as human development index and annual national income per capita. During the ascending and descending phases of the pandemic, the weekly minimum shifts from Monday to Friday, exposing the presence of two separate environments for the transmission of the virus among people: working and social. Moreover, the data reveal a variable rather than a fixed reproduction number. As a result, the model we developed in this study successfully identifies the socio-economic factors as the effectors of the progression of the pandemic by taking into account the time of infection for the first time in the literature and is expected to guide the future pandemic studies and pandemic, itself.
Citation - WoS: 6
Citation - Scopus: 6
Sex Effect on the Correlation of Immunoglobulin G Glycosylation With Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity
(Tubitak Scientific & Technological Research Council Turkey, 2020) Ercan, Altan
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease which affects females more than males with a presence of autoantibodies. Immunoglobulin G (IgG) produced by adaptive arm has 2 functional domains, Fc and Fab. The Fc domain binds Fc gamma receptors and C1q proteins of the innate arm. Therefore, the IgG Fc domain serves as a bridge between the innate and adaptive arms and is regulated by an evolutionarily conserved N-glycosylation with variable structures. These glycans are classified as agalactosylated G0, monogalactosylated G1, and digalactosylated G2, which are further modified by core-fucosylation (F) and bisecting N-acetylglucosamine (B) moieties such as G0F and G0FB. Interestingly, proinflammatory G0F is shown to be regulated by estrogen in vivo. Here, it is hypothesized that the regulation of G0F by estrogen contributes to sex dichotomy in RA by setting up the level of IgG-dependent inflammation and therefore, RA disease activity (Das28-CRP3). To investigate this hypothesis, IgG glycosylation was characterized in serum samples from active RA patients (n = 232) and healthy controls (n = 232) by serum N-glycan analysis using the high performance liquid chromatography. According to the results, the IgG Fc glycan phenotype originates predominantly from the structure of G0F, and both G0F and G0FB correlate with Das28-CRP3 in females, but not in males. In conclusion, IgG G0F-dependent inflammation differs in males and females, and these differences point to the differential regulation of inflammation by sex hormone estrogen via IgG glycosylation.