Renal apoptosis in the mycotoxicology of Penicillium polonicum and ochratoxin A in rats

Penicillium polonicum K. M. Zaleski, which is common on foodstuffs in Balkan regions that are notable for their history of endemic nephropathy, has been shown experimentally to cause a striking histopathological renal change in rats that are given feed contaminated by this fungus. The nephrotoxic agent(s) are only partially characterized. The principal change seen in the cortico-medullary region is karyocytomegaly, but apoptosis, identified with the ApopTag® methodology, is the first response to a dietary extract of P. polonicum-molded wheat after a few days of exposure. Chromatin debris migrates along the nephrons into the medulla, but whether the damaged epithelial fate is via autophagy is unclear. In intermittent exposure experiments, renal apoptosis was resolved with the cessation of exposure and was restored with renewed exposure. Apoptosis became less evident after 3 months of chronic exposure. In contrast, a relatively high dose of dietary ochratoxin A, a potent nephrocarcinogen in male rats after many months of dietary exposure, gave no evidence of apoptosis in asymptomatic weanlings over a few days of dietary exposure. This was attributed to a masking effect by concomitant marked histological disruption in renal tissue. However, in young adults, renal apoptosis was a primary outcome of dietary exposure to either the P. polonicum extract or to ochratoxin A, but the histopathological response to the former was less distorted. The apparent conflicted use in the literature of P. polonicum as a descriptor is highlighted

Chromatographic fractionation of Penicillium polonicum fermentation metabolites in search of the nephrotoxin(s) for rats

Complex renal histopathological changes in rats, in silent response to dietary contamination with wheat moulded by a common Penicillium from the Balkans, have long eluded attribution of a causal toxin. So far, water-soluble amphoteric glyco-peptides seem responsible, at least for the nuclear pyknoses in nephron epithelia after several days of dietary exposure. Recently, refined histology analysis has diagnosed pyknosis as apoptosis, and followed the finding through application of medium-pressure liquid chromatography, anion exchange and silica layer chromatography to fractionate a water/alcohol-soluble extract of a fungal fermentation on wheat. Proline was revealed, with other amino acids, in acid hydrolysate of the fermentation extract. Application of mass spectrometry has recognized prominent ions (m/z 550 and 564) correlated with fragmentations consistent with a terminal proline moiety for the putative toxins, coupled with other structural fragments and correlated with apoptosis. Use of 14C-proline in probing Penicillium polonicum fermentation to aid isolation of the new potential toxins, along with application of gel electrophoresis, may further aid characterization of the apoptosis toxin(s). The present focus on proline peptides in mycotoxicosis fits easily with their increasingly recognised pharmacological activity associated with proline’s rigid secondary amine structure, which causes conformational contortion in peptides. Nevertheless, there remains the striking rat renal karyocytomegaly by P. polonicum, for which there is yet no causative mycotoxin

Data driven graphical applications:a fluid approach

The inclusion of high-level scripting functionality in state-of-the-art rendering APIs indicates a movement toward data-driven methodologies for structuring next generation rendering pipelines. A similar theme can be seen in the use of composition languages to deploy component software using selection and configuration of collaborating component implementations. In this paper we introduce the Fluid framework, which places particular emphasis on the use of high-level data manipulations in order to develop component based software that is flexible, extensible, and expressive. We introduce a data-driven, object oriented programming methodology to component based software development, and demonstrate how a rendering system with a similar focus on abstract manipulations can be incorporated, in order to develop a visualization application for geospatial data. In particular we describe a novel SAS script integration layer that provides access to vertex and fragment programs, producing a very controllable, responsive rendering system. The proposed system is very similar to developments speculatively planned for DirectX 10, but uses open standards and has cross platform applicability. © The Eurographics Association 2007

Changes in male rat urinary protein profile during puberty: a pilot study

BACKGROUND: Androgen-dependent proteins (lipocalins) circulate in blood of male rats and mice and, being small (~ 18 kDa), pass freely into glomerular filtrate. Some are salvaged in proximal nephrons but some escape in urine. Several organic molecules can bind to these proteins causing, where salvage occurs, nephropathy including malignancy in renal cortex. In urine, both free lipocalins and ligands contribute to an increasingly-recognised vital biological role in social communication between adults, especially in the dark where reliance is on smell and taste. Crystal structure of the first-characterised lipocalin of male rats, α2u-globulin, has been determined and peptide sequences for others are available, but no study of occurrence during early puberty has been made. We have followed temporal occurrence in urine of juveniles (n = 3) for non-invasive pilot study by high resolution gradient mini-gel electrophoresis, tryptic digest of excised protein bands, and LC-MS/MS of digest to identify peptide fragments and assign to specific lipocalins. Study objective refers directly to external availability for social communication but also indirectly to indicate kinetics of circulating lipocalins to which some xenobiotics may bind and constitute determinants of renal disease. RESULTS: Mini-gels revealed greater lipocalin complexity than hitherto recognised, possibly reflecting post-translational modifications. Earliest patterns comprised rat urinary protein 1, already evident in Sprague-Dawley and Wistar strains at 36 and 52 days, respectively. By 44 and 57 days major rat protein (α2u-globulin) occurred as the progressively more dominant protein, though as two forms with different electrophoretic mobility, characterised by seven peptide sequences. No significant change in urinary testosterone had occurred in Wistars when major rat protein became evident, but testosterone surged by 107 days concomitant with the marked abundance of excreted lipocalins. CONCLUSIONS: Qualitative temporal changes in the composition of excreted lipocalins early in puberty, and apparent increase in major urinary protein as two resolvable forms, should catalyse systematic non-invasive study of urinary lipocalin and testosterone dynamics from early age, to illuminate this aspect of laboratory rodent social physiology. It could also define the potential temporal onset of nephrotoxic ligand risk, applicable to young animals used as toxicological models

On high-speed turning of a third-generation gamma titanium aluminide

Gamma titanium aluminides are heat-resistant intermetallic alloys predestined to be employed in components suffering from high mechanical stresses and thermal loads. These materials are regarded as difficult to cut, so this makes process adaptation essential in order to obtain high-quality and defect-free surfaces suitable for aerospace and automotive parts. In this paper, an innovative approach for longitudinal external high-speed turning of a third-generation Ti-45Al-8Nb- 0.2C-0.2B gamma titanium aluminide is presented. The experimental campaign has been executed with different process parameters, tool geometries and lubrication conditions. The results are discussed in terms of surface roughness/integrity, chip morphology, cutting forces and tool wear. Experimental evidence showed that, due to the high cutting speed, the high temperatures reached in the shear zone improve chip formation, so a crack-free surface can be obtained. Furthermore, the use of a cryogenic lubrication system has been identified in order to reduce the huge tool wear, which represents the main drawback when machining gamma titanium aluminides under the chosen process condition

Optimising sampling patterns for bi-exponentially decaying signals.

A recently reported method, based on the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound theory, for optimising sampling patterns for a wide range of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments is applied to the problem of optimising sampling patterns for bi-exponentially decaying signals. Sampling patterns are optimised by minimizing the percentage error in estimating the most difficult to estimate parameter of the bi-exponential model, termed the objective function. The predictions of the method are demonstrated in application to pulsed field gradient NMR data recorded for the two-component diffusion of a binary mixture of methane/ethane in a zeolite. It is shown that the proposed method identifies an optimal sampling pattern with the predicted objective function being within 10% of that calculated from the experiment dataset. The method is used to advise on the number of sampled points and the noise level needed to resolve two-component systems characterised by a range of ratios of populations and diffusion coefficients. It is subsequently illustrated how the method can be used to reduce the experiment acquisition time while still being able to resolve a given two-component system

Quantitative characterization of machining-induced white layers in Ti–6Al–4V

Machining-induced white layers can affect the functional performance of engineered components, due to the resulting mechanical and microstructural properties. Destructive inspection methods such as cross-sectional microscopy are typically used to identify white layers, however, these methods are inherently costly and time-consuming. It is, therefore, desirable to detect this anomalous surface feature using non-destructive methods which requires improved knowledge around the characteristics of white layers. The present paper reports on the characterization of white layers formed during machining of Ti–6Al–4V, to aid future development of a reliable non-destructive assessment method. The microstructure of the material in the white layer was found to have a basal α-hexagonal close packed texture and there was no evidence of an α→β phase transformation during white layer formation. The white layer has a highly refined grain structure with an increased nanohardness of up to 15% compared with the bulk material. It is proposed that white layers in Ti–6Al–4V are formed by continuous dynamic recrystallization driven by severe plastic deformation during machining. According to the measured micro-mechanical properties of the white layer, suitable non-destructive testing methods are suggested for the detection of this surface feature