Ursolic acid enhances macrophage autophagy and attenuates atherogenesis

Macrophage autophagy has been shown to be protective against atherosclerosis. We previously discovered that ursolic acid (UA) promoted cancer cell autophagy. In the present study, we aimed to examine whether UA enhances macrophage autophagy in the context of atherogenesis. Cell culture study showed that UA enhanced autophagy of macrophages by increasing the expression of Atg5 and Atg16l1, which led to altered macrophage function. UA reduced pro-interleukin (IL)-1β protein levels and mature IL-1β secretion in macrophages in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), without reducing IL-1β mRNA expression. Confocal microscopy showed that in LPS-treated macrophages, UA increased LC3 protein levels and LC3 appeared to colocalize with IL-1β. In cholesterol-loaded macrophages, UA increased cholesterol efflux to apoAI, although it did not alter mRNA or protein levels of ABCA1 and ABCG1. Electron microscopy showed that UA induced lipophagy in acetylated LDL-loaded macrophages, which may result in increased cholesterol ester hydrolysis in autophagolysosomes and presentation of free cholesterol to the cell membrane. In LDLR(−/−) mice fed a Western diet to induce atherogenesis, UA treatment significantly reduced atherosclerotic lesion size, accompanied by increased macrophage autophagy. In conclusion, the data suggest that UA promotes macrophage autophagy and, thereby, suppresses IL-1β secretion, promotes cholesterol efflux, and attenuates atherosclerosis in mice

Serum uric acid as a marker of microvascular damage in systemic sclerosis patients

Background: Microvascular damage of skin and internal organs is a hallmark of systemic sclerosis (SSc). Serum uric acid (UA) represents a marker of inflammation and endothelial dysfunction. The aims of this study were to evaluate the correlation between serum UA and intrarenal arterial stiffness evaluated by Doppler ultrasound in SSc patients with normal renal function. We also evaluated the correlation between serum UA and other clinical variables of the disease. Methods: Forty-five SSc patients underwent clinical assessment, Doppler ultrasound of intrarenal arteries with evaluation of resistive index (RI), pulsatile index (PI), and systolic/diastolic ratio (S/D), echocardiography with systolic pulmonary artery pressure (PAPs), baseline pulmonary function tests, and nailfold videocapillaroscopy (NVC). In all patients serum UA was measured. Results: The serum UA showed a significant positive correlation with sCr (r = 0.33, p < 0.0001) and PAPs (r = 0.38, p < 0.01) > and negative correlation with CKD-EPI (r = -0.35, p < 0.01). The mean value of serum UA increased with severity of NVC damage. Using this cut-off value of 4.7 mg/dl, the mean value of Doppler indices of intrarenal stiffness is significantly different (p < 0.05) in SSc patients with low normal or high normal serum UA. Conclusions: Serum UA concentration is higher in patients with high microvascular damage than in patients with low microvascular damage. These preliminary data must be confirmed in large prospective studies

Urban agriculture: a global analysis of the space constraint to meet urban vegetable demand

Urban agriculture (UA) has been drawing a lot of attention recently for several reasons: the majority of the world population has shifted from living in rural to urban areas; the environmental impact of agriculture is a matter of rising concern; and food insecurity, especially the accessibility of food, remains a major challenge. UA has often been proposed as a solution to some of these issues, for example by producing food in places where population density is highest, reducing transportation costs, connecting people directly to food systems and using urban areas efficiently. However, to date no study has examined how much food could actually be produced in urban areas at the global scale. Here we use a simple approach, based on different global-scale datasets, to assess to what extent UA is constrained by the existing amount of urban space. Our results suggest that UA would require roughly one third of the total global urban area to meet the global vegetable consumption of urban dwellers. This estimate does not consider how much urban area may actually be suitable and available for UA, which likely varies substantially around the world and according to the type of UA performed. Further, this global average value masks variations of more than two orders of magnitude among individual countries. The variations in the space required across countries derive mostly from variations in urban population density, and much less from variations in yields or per capita consumption. Overall, the space required is regrettably the highest where UA is most needed, i.e., in more food insecure countries. We also show that smaller urban clusters (i.e., <100 km2 each) together represent about two thirds of the global urban extent; thus UA discourse and policies should not focus on large cities exclusively, but should also target smaller urban areas that offer the greatest potential in terms of physical space

Why Aren't They Teaching? A study of why some University of Alaska teacher education graduates aren't in classrooms

Alaska Statute 14.40.190(b), passed as Senate Bill 241 in 2008, requires the University of Alaska (UA) Board of Regents to submit a report each regular session titled Alaska’s University for Alaska’s Schools that “describes the efforts of the university to attract, train, and retain qualified public school teachers.” In 2012 this report documented that approximately 50% of UA initial teacher preparation graduates did not teach in Alaska public schools after completing their programs. Unfortunately, the data available could not tell us the reasons why so many graduates were not employed as teachers. In response to legislators’ questions about this, the three UA Education deans (with support from the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research) made a commitment to conduct a 2012 research project to understand why graduates of UA initial teacher preparation programs did or did not teach in Alaska public schools after completing their programs. This project was conducted in response to that commitment

MZnet : mail service for personal micro-computer systems

Traditional computer mail systems involve a co-resident User Agent (UA) and Mail Transfer System (MTS) on a time-shared host computer which may be connected to other hosts ina network, with new mail posted or delivered directly through co-resident mail-slot programs. To introduce personal micro-computers (PCs) into this environment requires modification of the traditional mail system architecture. To this end, the MZnet project uses a split-slot model, placing UA programs on the PCs while leaving MTA programs on a mail relay host which can provide authentication and buffering. The split-slot arrangement might be viewed as a new protocol level which operates somewhere between the currently defined MTS-MTS and UA-UA levels

UA Research Summary No. 15

Utterly worthless. That’s how a congressman from Missouri described Alaska in 1867, when the U.S. bought it from Russia. A lot of Americans agreed. For almost 100 years, hardly anyone— except some Alaskans—wanted Alaska to become a state. But Alaska did finally become a state, in 1959. Today, after 142 years as a U.S. possession and 50 years as a state, Alaska has produced resources worth (in today’s dollars) around $670 billion. The U.S. paid$7.2 million for Alaska, equal to about $106 million now. For perspective, that’s roughly what the state government collected in royalties from oil produced on state-owned land in just the month of March 2009. To help mark 50 years of statehood, this publication first takes a broad look at what’s changed in Alaska since 1959. That’s on this page and the back page. We’ve also put together a timeline of political and economic events in Alaska from 1867 to the present. That’s on the inside pages. There’s an interactive version of the timeline—with photos, figures, and more—on ISER’s Web site: www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu