Glucose and Fatty Acid Metabolism in a 3 Tissue In-Vitro Model Challenged with Normo- and Hyperglycaemia

Nutrient balance in the human body is maintained through systemic signaling between different cells and tissues. Breaking down this circuitry to its most basic elements and reconstructing the metabolic network in-vitro provides a systematic method to gain a better understanding of how cross-talk between the organs contributes to the whole body metabolic profile and of the specific role of each different cell type. To this end, a 3-way connected culture of hepatocytes, adipose tissue and endothelial cells representing a simplified model of energetic substrate metabolism in the visceral region was developed. The 3-way culture was shown to maintain glucose and fatty acid homeostasis in-vitro. Subsequently it was challenged with insulin and high glucose concentrations to simulate hyperglycaemia. The aim was to study the capacity of the 3-way culture to maintain or restore normal circulating glucose concentrations in response to insulin and to investigate the effects these conditions on other metabolites involved in glucose and lipid metabolism. The results show that the system’s metabolic profile changes dramatically in the presence of high concentrations of glucose, and that these changes are modulated by the presence of insulin. Furthermore, we observed an increase in E-selectin levels in hyperglycaemic conditions and increased IL-6 concentrations in insulin-free-hyperglycaemic conditions, indicating, respectively, endothelial injury and proinflammatory stress in the challenged 3-way system

Pull-out Behaviour of Hooked End Steel Fibres Embedded in Ultra-high Performance Mortar with Various W/B Ratios

This paper presents the fibre-matrix interfacial properties of hooked end steel fibres embedded in ultra-high performance mortars with various water/binder (W/B) ratios. The principle objective was to improve bond behaviour in terms of bond strength by reducing the (W/B) ratio to a minimum. Results show that a decrease in W/B ratio has a significant effect on the bondslip behaviour of both types of 3D fibres, especially when the W/B ratio was reduced from 0.25 to 0.15. Furthermore, the optimization in maximizing pullout load and total pullout work is found to be more prominent for the 3D fibres with a larger diameter than for fibres with a smaller diameter. On the contrary, increasing the embedded length of the 3D fibres did not result in an improvement on the maximum pullout load, but increase in the total pullout work

Synthesis and characterization of macroporous tin oxide composite as an anode material for Li-ion batteries

A macroporous SnO 2/C composite anode material was synthesized using an organic template-assisted method. Polystyrene spheres were synthesized and used as template and lead to macroporous morphology with pores of 300-500 nm in diameter and a surface area of 54.7 m 2 g -1. X-ray diffraction showed that the SnO 2 nanoparticles are crystallized in a rutile P42/mnm lattice with the presence of Sn metal traces. The synthesized macroporous SnO 2/C composite provided promising performance in lithium half cells showing a discharge capacity of 607 mAh g -1 after 55 cycles. It was found that the macroporous SnO 2/C composite is stable and resistant to pulverization upon cycling. \ua9 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

Structure solution from orientated data\u2026 from 'avenue of last resort' to routine?

NRC publication: Ye