Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy: A Case Report

Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is a maternally inherited mitochondrial disease that primarily affects the optic nerve, causing bilateral vision loss in juveniles and young adults. A 12-year-old boy had complained of blurred vision in both eyes for more than 1 year. His best-corrected visual acuity was 0.08 in the right eye and 0.1 in the left. Ophthalmologic examination showed bilateral optic disc hyperemia and margin blurring, peripapillary telangiectasis, and a relative afferent pupil defect in his right eye. Fluorescein angiography showed no stain or leakage around the optic disc in the late phase. Visual field analysis showed central scotoma in the left eye and a near-total defect in the right. Upon examination of the patient's mitochondrial DNA, a point mutation at nucleotide position 11778 was found, and the diagnosis of LHON was confirmed. Coenzyme Q10 was used to treat the patient

Inhibitory Effects of Resveratrol on PDGF-BB-Induced Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Migration via PDGFRβ, PI3K/Akt and MAPK Pathways

Purpose: In diseases such as proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR), proliferative diabetic retinopathy, and age-related macular degeneration, retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells proliferate and migrate. Moreover, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) has been shown to enhance proliferation and migration of RPE cells in PVR. Even resveratrol can suppress the migration and adhesion of many cell types, its effects on RPE cell migration and adhesion remain unknown. In this study, we investigated the inhibitory effects of resveratrol on RPE cell migration induced by PDGF-BB, an isoform of PDGF, and adhesion to fibronectin, a major ECM component of PVR tissue. Methods: The migration of RPE cells was assessed by an electric cell-substrate impedance sensing migration assay and a Transwell migration assay. A cell viability assay was used to determine the viability of resveratrol treated-cells. The cell adhesion to fibronectin was examined by an adhesion assay. The interactions of resveratrol with PDGF-BB were analyzed by a dot binding assay. The PDGF-BB-induced signaling pathways were determined by western blotting and scratch wound healing assay. Results: Resveratrol inhibited PDGF-BB-induced RPE cell migration in a dose-dependent manner, but showed no effects on ARPE19 cell adhesion to fibronectin. The cell viability assay showed no cytotoxicity of resveratrol on RPE cells and the dot binding assay revealed no direct interactions of resveratrol with PDGF-BB. Inhibitory effects of resveratrol on PDGF-BB-induced platelet-derived growth factor receptor β (PDGFRβ) and tyrosine phosphorylation and the underlying pathways of PI3K/Akt, ERK and p38 activation were found; however, resveratrol and PDGF-BB showed no effects on PDGFRα and JNK activation. Scratch wound healing assay demonstrated resveratrol and the specific inhibitors of PDGFR, PI3K, MEK or p38 suppressed PDGF-BB-induced cell migration. Conclusions: These results indicate that resveratrol is an effective inhibitor of PDGF-BB-induced RPE cell migration via PDGFRβ, PI3K/Akt and MAPK pathways, but has no effects on the RPE cell adhesion to fibronectin

The Nucleolus of Caenorhabditis elegans

Nucleolar size and appearance correlate with ribosome biogenesis and cellular activity. The mechanisms underlying changes in nucleolar appearance and regulation of nucleolar size that occur during differentiation and cell cycle progression are not well understood. Caenorhabditis elegans provides a good model for studying these processes because of its small size and transparent body, well-characterized cell types and lineages, and because its cells display various sizes of nucleoli. This paper details the advantages of using C. elegans to investigate features of the nucleolus during the organism's development by following dynamic changes in fibrillarin (FIB-1) in the cells of early embryos and aged worms. This paper also illustrates the involvement of the ncl-1 gene and other possible candidate genes in nucleolar-size control. Lastly, we summarize the ribosomal proteins involved in life span and innate immunity, and those homologous genes that correspond to human disorders of ribosomopathy

Bulk locality from the celestial amplitude

In this paper, we study the implications of bulk locality on the celestial amplitude. In the context of the four-point amplitude, the fact that the bulk S-matrix factorizes locally in poles of Mandelstam variables is reflected in the imaginary part of the celestial amplitude. In particular, on the real axis in the complex plane of the boost weight, the imaginary part of the celestial amplitude can be given as a positive expansion on the Poincar\'e partial waves, which are nothing but the projection of flat-space spinning polynomials onto the celestial sphere. Furthermore, we derive the celestial dispersion relation, which relates the imaginary part to the residue of the celestial amplitude for negative even integer boost weight. The latter is precisely the projection of low energy EFT coefficients onto the celestial sphere. We demonstrate these properties explicitly on the open and closed string celestial amplitudes. Finally, we give an explicit expansion of the Poincar\'e partial waves in terms of 2D conformal partial waves.Comment: 43 pages, 10 figures. v2: typos corrected, minor clarifications added, SciPost published versio

"An Econometric Analysis of SARS and Avian Flu on International Tourist Arrivals to Asia"

This paper compares the impacts of SARS and human deaths arising from Avian Flu on international tourist arrivals to Asia. The effects of SARS and human deaths from Avian Flu will be compared directly according to human deaths. The nature of the short run and long run relationship is examined empirically by estimating a static line fixed effect model and a difference transformation dynamic model, respectively. Empirical results from the static fixed effect and difference transformation dynamic models are consistent, and indicate that both the short run and long run SARS effect have a more significant impact on international tourist arrivals than does Avian Flu. In addition, the effects of deaths arising from both SARS and Avian Flu suggest that SARS is more important to international tourist arrivals than is Avian Flu. Thus, while Avian Flu is here to stay, its effect is currently not as significant as that of SARS.

The Enterprise Risk Management of Foreign Exchange Exposures: Evidence from Taiwanese Hospitality Industry

For this paper, I use the ARIMA model to study the relationship between business performance and exchange rate fluctuations. Through this model, the empirical results shows that the influences of foreign exchange rate fluctuations on the tourist hotel business performance are significant and different across currencies and firms. Furthermore, according to the framework of Kim (2013) we employ the modern portfolio theory proposed by Markowitz (1952) to give an optimal foreign exchange allocation for each tourist hotel company's financial decision-makers, which will avoid the risk of exchange rate fluctuations expose and reduce losses due to the fluctuations of exchange rates, and complete the construction of enterprise risk management system (ERM)

Relevance of Phenolic Diterpene Constituents to Antioxidant Activity of Supercritical CO2 Extract from the Leaves of Rosemary

[[abstract]]Isolation of phenolic diterpene constituents from the freeze-dried leaves of Rosmarinus officinalis has been obtained by supercritical extraction with carbon dioxide. To determine the ideal conditions for the maximum yield of extract, nine different conditions using three levels of pressures (3000, 4000 and 5000 psi) in combination with three temperatures at 40, 60 and 80°C, respectively, in combination with the analyses of the corresponding antioxidant activities and constituents which existed in extracts has been investigated. The antioxidant activity of each obtained extract was determined by using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radicals test. GC/MS method was used as an alternative to conventional HPLC method for the determination of the principal antioxidant constituents in extract, including phenolic diterpenes carnosic acid (CA) and carnosol (CAL). The confirmation of CA and CAL in extract was forward performed by subjecting HPLC isolates from extract into an ion trap mass spectrometer through an electrospray ionization (ESI) interface for MS/MS analysis. These results indicate that an ideal extraction process was obtained at 5000 psi and 80°C with an extraction yield of 4.27% (w/w) and rich in phenolic antioxidants CA and CAL as contents of 35.23 and 0.46 mg g−1 in extract, respectively