In vitro litholytic activity of some medicinal plants on urinary stones

Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the effect of plant extracts used in traditional medicine on the dissolution of three types of kidney stones.Subjects and methods: Kidney calculi of cystine; uric acid and pure carbapatite were incubated in vitro during 6 weeks in the presence of three of plant extracts and of 0.9% NaCl solution used as control. An extract of each plant was prepared by infusion of three grams of powdered plants during 30 min in 100 mL of a boiled NaCl 0.9% aqueous solution. Each extract was then filtered and thereafter set in a flask containing a stones. At the end of each week the stone was removed from the experimental medium and weighted after a 18 h drying at 40oC.Results: After 6 weeks of experiment and with in vitro study, we are observed that the aqueous extract of the seeds of Trigonella foenum-graecum has a better effect on dissolution of cystine and carbapatite stones (p < 0.05), with mass loss of 94 mg and 73 mg respectively at the end of experiment. While with NaCl solution, the mass was small.Conclusion: Our experiment failed to demonstrate a significant effect of the tested plant extracts to dissolve three types stones in vitro. However, we observed that only the extract of the seeds of T. foenum-graecum has a better effect on dissolution of cystine and carbapatite stones probably resulting from formation of complexes between stones and polyphenols or flavonoids present in the extracts

Direct and converse magnetoelectric effects in Metglas/LiNbO3/Metglas trilayers

Electromechanical and magnetoelectric properties of Metglas/LiNbO3/Metglas trilayers have been studied in the frequency range from 20 Hz to 0.4 MHz. A trilayer of Metglas/PMN-PT/Metglas prepared in the same way was used as a reference. Though PMN-PT has much larger charge piezocoefficients than LiNbO3 (LNO), the direct magnetoelectric voltage coefficient is found to be comparable in both trilayers due to the much lower dielectric permittivity of LNO. The magnitude of the direct magnetoelectric effect in the LNO trilayers is about 0.4 V/cm Oe in the quasistatic regime and about 90 V/cm Oe at the electromechanical resonance. Calculations show that the magnetoelectric properties can be significantly improved (up to 500 V/cm Oe) via controlling the cut angle of LNO, choosing the appropriate thickness ratio of the ferroelectric/ferromagnetic layers and a better bonding between Metglas and LNO. Advantages of using LiNbO3-type ferroelectrics in magnetoelectric composites are discussed. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC

Association Between Serum Uric Acid and Development of Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE To systematically evaluate the association between serum uric acid (SUA) level and subsequent development of type 2 diabetes.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We searched Medline (31 March from 1966 to 2009) and Embase (31 March from 1980 to 2009) for observational cohort studies examining the association between SUA and the risk of type 2 diabetes by manual literature search. Relative risks (RRs) for each 1 mg/dl increase in SUA were pooled by using a random-effects model. The studies included were stratified into subgroups representing different study characteristics, and meta-regression analyses were performed to investigate the effect of these characteristics on the association between SUA level and type 2 diabetes risk.RESULTS The search yielded 11 cohort studies (42,834 participants) that reported 3,305 incident cases of type 2 diabetes during follow-up periods ranging from 2.0 to 13.5 years. The pooled RR of a 1 mg/dl increase in SUA was 1.17 (95% CI 1.09–1.25). Study results were consistently significant (i.e., >1) across characteristics of participants and study design. Publication bias was both visually and statistically suggested (P = 0.03 for Egger\u27s test, 0.06). Adjustment for publication bias attenuated the pooled RR per mg/dl increase in SUA (RR 1.11 [95% CI 1.03–1.20]), but the association remained statistically significant (P = 0.009).CONCLUSIONS The current meta-analysis suggests that SUA level is positively associated with the development of type 2 diabetes regardless of various study characteristics. Further research should attempt to determine whether it is effective to utilize SUA level as a predictor of type 2 diabetes for its primary prevention

Organism-sediment interactions govern post-hypoxia recovery of ecosystem functioning

Hypoxia represents one of the major causes of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning loss for coastal waters. Since eutrophication-induced hypoxic events are becoming increasingly frequent and intense, understanding the response of ecosystems to hypoxia is of primary importance to understand and predict the stability of ecosystem functioning. Such ecological stability may greatly depend on the recovery patterns of communities and the return time of the system properties associated to these patterns. Here, we have examined how the reassembly of a benthic community contributed to the recovery of ecosystem functioning following experimentally-induced hypoxia in a tidal flat. We demonstrate that organism-sediment interactions that depend on organism size and relate to mobility traits and sediment reworking capacities are generally more important than recovering species richness to set the return time of the measured sediment processes and properties. Specifically, increasing macrofauna bioturbation potential during community reassembly significantly contributed to the recovery of sediment processes and properties such as denitrification, bedload sediment transport, primary production and deep pore water ammonium concentration. Such bioturbation potential was due to the replacement of the small-sized organisms that recolonised at early stages by large-sized bioturbating organisms, which had a disproportionately stronger influence on sediment. This study suggests that the complete recovery of organism-sediment interactions is a necessary condition for ecosystem functioning recovery, and that such process requires long periods after disturbance due to the slow growth of juveniles into adult stages involved in these interactions. Consequently, repeated episodes of disturbance at intervals smaller than the time needed for the system to fully recover organism-sediment interactions may greatly impair the resilience of ecosystem functioning.

Grassland Resistance and Resilience after Drought Depends on Management Intensity and Species Richness

The degree to which biodiversity may promote the stability of grasslands in the light of climatic variability, such as prolonged summer drought, has attracted considerable interest. Studies so far yielded inconsistent results and in addition, the effect of different grassland management practices on their response to drought remains an open question. We experimentally combined the manipulation of prolonged summer drought (sheltered vs. unsheltered sites), plant species loss (6 levels of 60 down to 1 species) and management intensity (4 levels varying in mowing frequency and amount of fertilizer application). Stability was measured as resistance and resilience of aboveground biomass production in grasslands against decreased summer precipitation, where resistance is the difference between drought treatments directly after drought induction and resilience is the difference between drought treatments in spring of the following year. We hypothesized that (i) management intensification amplifies biomass decrease under drought, (ii) resistance decreases with increasing species richness and with management intensification and (iii) resilience increases with increasing species richness and with management intensification

Epitope Density Influences CD8+ Memory T Cell Differentiation

The generation of long-lived memory T cells is critical for successful vaccination but the factors controlling their differentiation are still poorly defined. We tested the hypothesis that the strength of T cell receptor (TCR) signaling contributed to memory CD8(+) T cell generation.We manipulated the density of antigenic epitope presented by dendritic cells to mouse naïve CD8(+) T cells, without varying TCR affinity. Our results show that a two-fold decrease in antigen dose selectively affects memory CD8(+) T cell generation without influencing T cell expansion and acquisition of effector functions. Moreover, we show that low antigen dose alters the duration of the interaction between T cells and dendritic cells and finely tunes the expression level of the transcription factors Eomes and Bcl6. Furthermore, we demonstrate that priming with higher epitope density results in a 2-fold decrease in the expression of Neuron-derived orphan nuclear receptor 1 (Nor-1) and this correlates with a lower level of conversion of Bcl-2 into a pro-apoptotic molecule and an increased number of memory T cells.Our results show that the amount of antigen encountered by naïve CD8(+) T cells following immunization with dendritic cells does not influence the generation of functional effector CD8(+) T cells but rather the number of CD8(+) memory T cells that persist in the host. Our data support a model where antigenic epitope density sensed by CD8(+) T cells at priming influences memory generation by modulating Bcl6, Eomes and Nor-1 expression

Absence of the MGMT protein as well as methylation of the MGMT promoter predict the sensitivity for temozolomide

The DNA repair protein O(6)-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) can cause resistance to the alkylating drug temozolomide (TMZ). The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the MGMT status, determined by means of several techniques and methods, and the cytotoxic response to TMZ in 11 glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cell lines and 5 human tumour cell lines of other origins. Cell survival was analysed by clonogenic assay. The MGMT protein levels were assessed by western blot analysis. The MGMT promoter methylation levels were determined using methylation-specific multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MS-MLPA) and quantitative real-time methylation-specific PCR (qMSP). On the basis of the results of these techniques, six GBM cell lines were selected and subjected to bisulphite sequencing. The MGMT protein was detected in all TMZ-resistant cell lines, whereas no MGMT protein could be detected in cell lines that were TMZ sensitive. The MS-MLPA results were able to predict TMZ sensitivity in 9 out of 16 cell lines (56%). The qMSP results matched well with TMZ sensitivity in 11 out of 12 (92%) glioma cell lines. In addition, methylation as detected by bisulphite sequencing seemed to be predictive of TMZ sensitivity in all six cell lines analysed (100%). The MGMT protein expression more than MGMT promoter methylation status predicts the response to TMZ in human tumour cell line

A Highly Contiguous and Annotated Genome Assembly of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus)

Article asserts that the Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus; LEPC) is an iconic North American prairie grouse, renowned for ornate and spectacular breeding season displays, a species that has been declining in population across much of its historical range, with corresponding precipitous declines in contemporary population abundance, largely due to climatic and anthropogenic factors. The authors describe an annotated reference genome that was generated from a LEPC sample collected from the southern DPS

Contrasting Microbial Community Assembly Hypotheses: A Reconciling Tale from the Río Tinto

The Río Tinto (RT) is distinguished from other acid mine drainage systems by its natural and ancient origins. Microbial life from all three domains flourishes in this ecosystem, but bacteria dominate metabolic processes that perpetuate environmental extremes. While the patchy geochemistry of the RT likely influences the dynamics of bacterial populations, demonstrating which environmental variables shape microbial diversity and unveiling the mechanisms underlying observed patterns, remain major challenges in microbial ecology whose answers rely upon detailed assessments of community structures coupled with fine-scale measurements of physico-chemical parameters.By using high-throughput environmental tag sequencing we achieved saturation of richness estimators for the first time in the RT. We found that environmental factors dictate the distribution of the most abundant taxa in this system, but stochastic niche differentiation processes, such as mutation and dispersal, also contribute to observed diversity patterns.We predict that studies providing clues to the evolutionary and ecological processes underlying microbial distributions will reconcile the ongoing debate between the Baas Becking vs. Hubbell community assembly hypotheses