SCOPE: This study has revealed strong antioxidant activities of barley hordein hydrolysate fractions and investigated the relationships between antioxidant properties and structural features of hordein peptides. METHODS AND RESULTS: Barley hordein fractions separated based on molecular weight and surface hydrophobicity demonstrated strong antioxidant bioactivities, especially ferrous ion chelating capacity. Structural ...

BackgroundIsotropic three-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been applied to various joints. However, comparison for image quality between isotropic 3D MRI and two-dimensional (2D) turbo spin echo (TSE) sequence of the wrist at a 3T MR system has not been investigated.PurposeTo compare the image quality of isotropic 3D MRI ...

The two types of adipose tissue in humans, white and brown, have distinct developmental origins and functions. Human white adipose tissue plays a pivotal role in maintaining whole-body energy homeostasis by storing triglycerides when energy is in surplus, releasing free fatty acids as a fuel during energy shortage, and secreting ...

Class C cephalosporinases are a growing threat and clinical inhibitors of these enzymes are currently unavailable. Previous studies have explored the role of Asn152 in the Escherichia coli AmpC and P99 enzymes and have suggested that interactions between C6' or C7' substituents on penicillins or cephalosporins and Asn152 are important ...

Development of the cerebral vessels, pharyngeal arch arteries (PAAs). and cardiac outflow tract (OFT) requires multipotent neural crest cells (NCCs) that migrate from the neural tube to target tissue destinations. Little is known about how mammalian NCC development is orchestrated by gene programming at the chromatin level, however. Here we ...

The 5,10,15,20-tetraphenyl-21-oxaporphyrin complexes of Mn(II), Co(II), and Zn(II) have been crystallized and studied by X-ray diffraction, NMR and UV/vis spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry as well as cyclic voltammetry. The X-ray structure of the earlier described Cu(II) complex is also reported. All complex structures possess a five-coordinate, approximately square-pyramidal geometry with ...

Influenza and respiratory bacterial synergy, a term often used when describing the relationship between these two highly divergent phyla of respiratory tract pathogens, has been known and documented for nearly a century (1-3).…

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The detection of microembolic signals in transcranial-Doppler monitoring is associated with a higher stroke risk. We investigated the correlation between the frequency of microembolic signals and the efficacy of the antiplatelet therapy in patients with a recent symptomatic carotid-artery stenosis. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Thirty-two patients (mean age: ...

OBJECTIVE:Presleep activities have been implicated in the declining sleep duration of young people. A use-of-time approach may be used to describe the presleep period. The study aims were to describe the activities undertaken 90 minutes before sleep onset and to examine the association between activities and time of sleep onset ...

Translational regulation of the p53 mRNA can determine the ratio between p53 and its N-terminal truncated isoforms and therefore has a significant role in determining p53-regulated signaling pathways. Although its importance in cell fate decisions has been demonstrated repeatedly, little is known about the regulatory mechanisms that determine this ratio. ...

Full 3D beam profiling and quality assurance (QA) of therapeutic megavoltage linear accelerator (LINAC) x-ray photon beams is not routinely performed due to the slow point-by-point measurement nature of conventional scanning ionization chamber systems. In this study we explore a novel optical-based dose imaging approach using a standard commercial camera, ...

E-cadherin, a cell-cell adhesion glycoprotein, is frequently downregulated with tumorigenic progression. The extracellular domain of E-cadherin is cleaved by proteases to generate a soluble ectodomain fragment, termed sEcad, which is elevated in the urine or serum of cancer patients. In this study, we explored the functional role of sEcad in ...

Key pecking of 4 pigeons was studied under a two-component multiple schedule in which food deliveries were arranged according to a fixed and a variable interfood interval. The percentage of response-dependent food in each component was varied, first in ascending (0, 10, 30, 70 and 100%) and then in descending ...

ABSTRACT: Clinical outcome of patients with breast cancer is based on patient and tumor-related factors. The relevant tumor-related factors include anatomical extent and biology. Of the prognostic and predictive biological markers available, hormone receptors (defined as estrogen and progesterone receptors) and HER2 receptors, have been independently validated. Pertinent questions to ...

Rheological measurement was employed to study the mutarotation of D-fructose in anhydrous state. By monitoring the evolution of shear viscosity with time, rate constants for mutarotation were estimated and two different stages of this reaction were identified. One of the mutarotation stages is rapid and has a low activation energy, ...

Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is a characteristic of age-related macular degeneration. Genome-wide association studies have provided evidence that the immune system is involved in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration; however, the role of inflammatory cytokines in CNV has not been established. In this study, we demonstrated that IL-17 had a ...

Neurological deterioration in a child following routine surgery, although rare, has potentially life threatening consequences. We report the case of a child who, following adentonsillectomy, developed quadriplegia and acute respiratory distress due to previously undetected atlanto-axial instability. Patients with atlanto-axial instability often have mild or non-specific symptoms, despite severe cervical ...

Antibodies can protect from Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) infection and clinical malaria disease. However, in the absence of constant reexposure, serum immunoglobulin (Ig) levels rapidly decline and full protection from clinical symptoms is lost, suggesting that B cell memory is functionally impaired. We show at the single cell level that natural ...

The output of the cerebellum to the motor axis of the central nervous system is orchestrated mainly by synaptic inputs and intrinsic pacemaker activity of deep cerebellar nuclear (DCN) projection neurons. Herein, we demonstrate that the soma of these cells is enriched with KV1 channels produced by mandatory multi-merization of ...

Tyrosine kinases present attractive drug targets for specific types of cancers. Gleevec, a well-known therapeutic agent against chronic myelogenous leukemia, is an effective inhibitor of Abl tyrosine kinase. However, Gleevec fails to inhibit closely homologous tyrosine kinases, such as c-Src. Because many structural features of the binding site are conserved, ...

Transposable elements (TEs) are ubiquitously present in plant genomes and often account for significant fractions of the nuclear DNA. For example, roughly 40% of the rice genome consists of TEs, many of which are retrotransposons, including 14% LTR- and ∼1% non-LTR retrotransposons. Despite their wide distribution and abundance, very few ...

ABSTRACT: Definition of the disease: Malignant atrophic papulosis (MAP), described independently by Kohlmeier and Degos et al., is a rare, chronic, thrombo-obliterative vasculopathy characterized by papular skin lesions with central porcelain-white atrophy and surrounding teleangiectatic rim.Epidemiology: Less than 200 cases have been described in the literature. The first manifestation of ...

Pharmacologic treatment options for neonatal seizures have expanded over the past 2 decades, and there is no consensus on optimal treatment strategy. We systematically reviewed the published literature to determine which medication(s) are most effective for treating neonatal seizures, by retrieving trials and observational investigations via PubMed (through August 2011) ...

Pentacenequinone derivative 3 forms luminescent supramolecular aggregates both in bulk as well as in solution phase. In bulk phase at high temperature, long range stacking of columns leads to formation of stable and ordered columnar mesophase. Further, derivative 3 works as sensitive chemosensor for picric acid (PA) and gel coated ...

Histone acetyltransferase binding to origin recognition complex (HBO1) plays a crucial role in DNA replication licensing and cell proliferation, yet its molecular regulation in cells is relatively unknown. Here an uncharacterized protein, Fbxw15, directly interacts with HBO1, a labile protein (t 1/2= ~3 h), to mediate its ubiquitination (Lys338) and ...

Neural crest (NC) cells emerge from the dorsal trunk neural tube (NT) and migrate ventrally to colonize neuronal derivatives, as well as dorsolaterally to form melanocytes. Here, we test whether different dorsoventral levels in the NT have similar or differential ability to contribute to NC cells and their derivatives. To ...

Delayed wound healing in many chronic wounds has been linked to the degradation of fibronectin (FN) by abnormally high protease levels. We sought to develop a proteolytically stable and functionally active form of FN. For this purpose, we conjugated 3.35 kDa polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) to human plasma fibronectin (HPFN). ...

Sesamin (Ses), one of the major lignan in sesame seeds and oil, has been reported to have many benefits and medicinal properties. However, its protective effects against nickel (Ni) induced injury in liver have not been clarified. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of sesamin ...

Protein sample preparation is a crucial step in a 2-DE proteomics approach. In order to establish a routine protocol for the application of proteomics analysis to aphids, this study focuses on the specific protein extraction problems in insect tissues and evaluates four methods to bypass them. The approaches of phenol ...

Mitosis is a highly dynamic process, aimed at separating identical copies of genomic material into two daughter cells. A failure of the mitotic process generates cells that carry abnormal chromosome numbers. Such cells are predisposed to become tumorigenic upon continuous cell division and thus need to be removed from the ...

Noninvasive reporter gene imaging is a component of molecular imaging. Reporter imaging can provide noninvasive assessments of endogenous biologic processes in living subjects and can be performed using different imaging modalities. This review will focus on radionuclide-based reporter gene imaging as developed and applied in preclinical and clinical studies. Examples ...

There is currently great interest in S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs) because the formation of protein-based RSNOs--protein S-nitrosation--has been recently recognized as a major pathway of the biological function of nitric oxide, NO. Despite the growing number of S-nitrosated proteins identified in vivo, enzymatic processes that control reactions of biological RSNOs are still ...

AIMS: To examine the role of two personal resources (active, problem-focused coping; self-efficacy beliefs) in the relation between job demands and strain. BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that healthcare staff in general and nurses in particular, are at a high risk of suffering from high levels of job strain. In addition to ...

Here, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of Spilornis cheela (Falconiformes, Accipitridae), which is considered as endemic raptor species and listed in the second category of National Key Protected Wild Animals in China. The genome is 18,291 bp in size. Its gene arrangement pattern was identical with that of Spizaetus alboniger. ...

BACKGROUND Use of opioids may predispose drivers to road trauma, yet the effect of opioid dose on this association is unknown. METHODS We conducted a population-based nested case-control study of patients aged 18 to 64 years who received at least 1 publicly funded prescription for an opioid from April 1, ...

In a systematic approach we synthesized a new series of fluorescent probes incorporating donor-acceptor (D-A) substituted 1,2,3-triazoles as conjugative π-linkers between the alkali metal ion receptor N-phenylaza-[18]crown-6 and different fluorophoric groups with different electron-acceptor properties (4-naphthalimide, meso-phenyl-BODIPY and 9-anthracene) and investigated their performance in organic and aqueous environments (physiological conditions). ...

ABSTRACT: UniChem is a freely available compound identifier mapping service on the internet, designed to optimize the efficiency with which structure-based hyperlinks may be built and maintained between chemistry-based resources. In the past, the creation and maintenance of such links at EMBL-EBI, where several chemistry-based resources exist, has required independent ...

Intestinal flora contains a reservoir of gram-negative bacilli (GNB) resistant to cephalosporins, which are potentially pathogenic for intensive care unit (ICU) patients; this has led to increasing use of carbapenems. The emergence of carbapenem resistance is a major concern for ICUs. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to assess the ...

A prime goal of regenerative medicine is to direct cell fates in a therapeutically useful manner. Retinitis pigmentosa is one of the most common degenerative diseases of the eye and is associated with early rod photoreceptor death followed by secondary cone degeneration. We hypothesized that converting adult rods into cones, ...

Angiogenesis, the expansion of a capillary network, is implicated in several pathological conditions. Drug-based inhibition of angiogenesis is being explored as therapy. Conversely, therapeutic angiogenesis contributes to control conditions such as ischemia. Here we report pro-angiogenic activity of perivitelline fluid (PVF) from Indian horseshoe crab embryos and one of its ...

Myeloablative allo-SCT decreases relapse incidence (RI) in ALL. Reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) may extend allo-SCT to older and less fit patients. Sixty-nine ALL patients reported to the BSBMT underwent fludarabine-based RIC allo-SCT, 38 from unrelated donors (UD). Forty-four patients received alemtuzumab. ALL was in CR in 64 patients (93%). This ...

Cyclin D1 deregulation is implicated in the genesis of multiple human cancers. Importantly, nuclear cyclin D1 retention during S-phase promotes DNA re-replication and subsequent genomic instability, providing a direct correlation between aberrant cyclin D1/CDK4 activity, transcriptional regulation and double strand DNA break (DSB) induction. Together, these molecular events catalyze the ...

Lipid droplets (LDs) are important organelles in energy metabolism and lipid storage. Their cores are composed of neutral lipids that form a hydrophobic phase, surrounded by a phospholipid monolayer that harbors specific proteins. Most well-established LD proteins perform important functions, particularly in cellular lipid metabolism. Morphological studies show LDs in ...

The pharmaceutical industry is in a period of intense change. While this has many drivers, attrition though the development process continues to be an important pressure. The emerging definitions of "compound quality" that are based on retrospective analyses of developmental attrition have highlighted a new direction for medicinal chemistry and ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Little is known regarding the types of information African American and non-African American patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and their families need to inform renal replacement therapy (RRT) decisions. METHODS: In 20 structured group interviews, we elicited views of African American and non-African American patients with CKD ...

Purpose:To determine the energy levels that provide optimal imaging of thoracic circulation at dual-energy computed tomographic (CT) angiography with reduced iodine load in comparison with a standard technique.Materials and Methods:The institutional review board approved the study with waiver of patient consent. Eighty patients underwent a dual-source, dual-energy CT examination after ...

Abstract Purpose: The present study was done to evaluate the effects of different types of abutments on the rate and distribution of stress on the bone surrounding the implant by dynamic finite element analysis method.Material and methods: In this study two ITI abutment models, one-piece and multi-piece, along with fixture, ...

African trypanosomes are protected by a densely packed surface monolayer of variant surface glycoprotein (VSG). A haptoglobin-hemoglobin receptor (HpHbR) within this VSG coat mediates heme acquisition. HpHbR is also exploited by the human host to mediate endocytosis of trypanolytic factor (TLF)1 from serum, contributing to innate immunity. Here, the crystal ...

Despite the prominent loss of motor skills, artistic capacities remain preserved in Parkinson's disease (PD). Furthermore, artistic creativity may emerge in art-naïve PD patients treated with levodopa and dopamine agonists. The present review discusses reported PD patients who developed enhanced artistic skills under anti-Parkinsonian therapy and the course of this ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The hematoma volume is an important determinant of outcome and a predictor of clinical deterioration in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Our goal was to evaluate alterations in the cerebral circulation, in respect to hemorrhage and edema volume changes, using transcranial Doppler (TCD). METHODS: Twenty patients with ...