Cranberry metabolites with urinary anti-adhesion activity

The fruit of the American cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon Aiton, Ericaceae) is a comfood and a top selling dietary supplement in the U.S. Cranberry juice is traditionally used for the prevention of urinary tract infections (UTIs), many of which are caused by P-fimbriated Escherichia coli. Human urine produced after cranberry juice consumption can prevent E. coli adhesion, but the urinary metabolites responsible for this activity are currently not known. High-molecular weight components of cranberry juice, specifically proanthocyanidin oligomers (PACs), are currently believed to be responsible for the ability of cranberry juice to prevent UTIs. Cranberry PACs can prevent the adherence of P-fimbriated E. coli to uroepithelial cells in vitro and are hypothesized to act by a similar mechanism of action in vivo. Many questions exist, however, regarding the potential for PACs to be absorbed, metabolized, and excreted into urine. Adult female sows were therefore fed spray-dried cranberry juice powder (5 g/kg/d) and urine was collected via catheter. Urine fractions were tested for anti-adhesion activity using a human red blood cell (HRBC) anti-agglutination assay with uropathogenic P-fimbriated E. coli. Active urine fractions but not control urine or inactive fractions were found to contain complex mixtures of oligosaccharides but not PACs. An octasaccharide, consisting of a tetrameric, β-(1→4)-linked D-glucose backbone and possessing two D-xylose-L-arabinose side chains, was purified from the oligosaccharide mixture of active urine fractions in sufficient quantity to assign the full structure. Oligosaccharide mixtures of similar character were subsequently identified in cranberry products using methods adapted from those applied to urine samples. Cranberry oligosaccharides were enriched in large scale from three sources of cranberry material and were shown to have activity in both the HRBC anti-agglutination assay and a second anti-adhesion assay that used uropathogenic E. coli and uroepithelial cells. The results of these studies indicate that the compounds responsible for the anti-adhesion properties of urine after cranberry juice consumption are oligosaccharides that are structurally related to those found in cranberry. These findings overturn the current paradigm regarding the active components of cranberry juice that prevent UTIs and provide many new directions for future research

Arabinoxyloglucan Oligosaccharides May Contribute to the Antiadhesive Properties of Porcine Urine after Cranberry Consumption

© 2019 As part of our continuing investigation for interesting biological activities of native medicinal plants, thirty-nine plants, obtained from diverse areas in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, were screened for insecticidal activity against yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti (L.). Out of the 57 organic extracts, Saussurea lappa, Ocimum tenuiflorum, Taraxacum officinale, Nigella sativa, and Hyssopus officinalis exhibited over 80% mortality against adult female Ae. aegypti at 5 μg/mosquito. In the larvicidal bioassay, the petroleum ether extract of Aloe perryi flowers showed 100% mortality at 31.25 ppm against 1st instar Ae. aegypti larvae. The ethanol extract of Saussurea lappa roots was the second most active displaying 100% mortality at 125 and 62.5 ppm. Polar active extracts were processed using LC-MS/MS to identify bioactive compounds. The apolar A. perryi flower extract was analyzed by headspace SPME-GC/MS analysis. Careful examination of the mass spectra and detailed interpretation of the fragmentation pattern allowed the identification of various biologically active secondary metabolites. Some compounds such as caffeic and quinic acid and their glycosides were detected in most of the analyzed fractions. Additionally, luteolin, luteolin glucoside, luteolin glucuronide and diglucuronide were also identified as bioactive compounds in several HPLC fractions. The volatile ketone, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one was identified from A. perryi petroleum ether fraction as a major compound

Pairing in fermionic systems: A quantum information perspective

The notion of "paired" fermions is central to important condensed matter phenomena such as superconductivity and superfluidity. While the concept is widely used and its physical meaning is clear there exists no systematic and mathematical theory of pairing which would allow to unambiguously characterize and systematically detect paired states. We propose a definition of pairing and develop methods for its detection and quantification applicable to current experimental setups. Pairing is shown to be a quantum correlation different from entanglement, giving further understanding in the structure of highly correlated quantum systems. In addition, we will show the resource character of paired states for precision metrology, proving that the BCS states allow phase measurements at the Heisenberg limit.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figure

Bayesian High-Redshift Quasar Classification from Optical and Mid-IR Photometry

We identify 885,503 type 1 quasar candidates to i<22 using the combination of optical and mid-IR photometry. Optical photometry is taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III: Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (SDSS-III/BOSS), while mid-IR photometry comes from a combination of data from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) "ALLWISE" data release and several large-area Spitzer Space Telescope fields. Selection is based on a Bayesian kernel density algorithm with a training sample of 157,701 spectroscopically-confirmed type-1 quasars with both optical and mid-IR data. Of the quasar candidates, 733,713 lack spectroscopic confirmation (and 305,623 are objects that we have not previously classified as photometric quasar candidates). These candidates include 7874 objects targeted as high probability potential quasars with 3.5<z<5 (of which 6779 are new photometric candidates). Our algorithm is more complete to z>3.5 than the traditional mid-IR selection "wedges" and to 2.2<z<3.5 quasars than the SDSS-III/BOSS project. Number counts and luminosity function analysis suggests that the resulting catalog is relatively complete to known quasars and is identifying new high-z quasars at z>3. This catalog paves the way for luminosity-dependent clustering investigations of large numbers of faint, high-redshift quasars and for further machine learning quasar selection using Spitzer and WISE data combined with other large-area optical imaging surveys.Comment: 54 pages, 17 figures; accepted by ApJS Data for tables 1 and 2 available at http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~gtr/outgoing/optirqsos/data/master_quasar_catalogs.011414.fits.bz2 and http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~gtr/outgoing/optirqsos/data/optical_ir_quasar_candidates.052015.fits.bz

Antimicrobial and Antiinsectan Phenolic Metabolites of Dalea searlsiae

Continued interest in the chemistry of Dalea spp. led to investigation of Dalea searlsiae, a plant native to areas of the western United States. Methanol extractions of D. searlsiae roots and subsequent chromatographic fractionation afforded the new prenylated and geranylated flavanones malheurans A–D (1–4) and known flavanones (5 and 6). Known rotenoids (7 and 8) and isoflavones (9 and 10) were isolated from aerial portions. Structure determination of pure compounds was accomplished primarily by extensive 1D- and 2D-NMR spectroscopy. The absolute configurations of compounds 1–5, 7, and 8 were assigned using electronic circular dichroism spectroscopy. Antimicrobial bioassays revealed significant activity concentrated in the plant roots. Compounds 1–6 exhibited MICs of 2–8 μg/mL against Streptococcus mutans, Bacillus cereus, and oxacillin-sensitive and -resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Aerial metabolites 7–10 were inactive against these organisms, but the presence of 7 and 8 prompted investigation of the antiinsectan activity of D. searlsiae metabolites toward the major crop pest Spodoptera frugiperda (fall armyworm). While compounds 1–10 all caused significant reductions in larval growth rates, associated mortality (33–66%) was highest with flavanone 4 and rotenoids 7 and 8. These findings suggest a differential allocation of antimicrobial and antiinsectan plant resources to root and aerial portions of the plant, respectively

ISSUES IN REFORMING TARIFF-RATE IMPORT QUOTAS IN THE AGREEMENT ON AGRICULTURE IN THE WTO

Contents: The Economics of Tariff Rate Quotas and the Effects of Trade Liberalization; TRQs and GATT Rules; An Overview of Tariffs, Quotas and Imports Worldwide; TRQs in the European Union; U.S. TRQs for Sugar, Tobacco and Peanuts; Dairy TRQs in the United States; Tariff Rate Quota Implementation and Administration by Developing Countries; Management of Tariff Rate Quotas in Korea and Japan; Tariff Rate Quota Administration in Canadian Agriculture; The Case of Australia and New Zealand Facing TRQs; The 1999 WTO Panel Report on the EU's Common Market Organization for Bananas; AssessmentInternational Relations/Trade,

Smoking and health-related quality of life in English general population: Implications for economic evaluations

Copyright @ 2012 Vogl et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Little is known as to how health-related quality of life (HRQoL) when measured by generic instruments such as EQ-5D differ across smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers in the general population; whether the overall pattern of this difference remain consistent in each domain of HRQoL; and what implications this variation, if any, would have for economic evaluations of tobacco control interventions. Methods: Using the 2006 round of Health Survey for England data (n = 13,241), this paper aims to examine the impact of smoking status on health-related quality of life in English population. Depending upon the nature of the EQ-5D data (i.e. tariff or domains), linear or logistic regression models were fitted to control for biology, clinical conditions, socio-economic background and lifestyle factors that an individual may have regardless of their smoking status. Age- and gender-specific predicted values according to smoking status are offered as the potential 'utility' values to be used in future economic evaluation models. Results: The observed difference of 0.1100 in EQ-5D scores between never-smokers (0.8839) and heavy-smokers (0.7739) reduced to 0.0516 after adjusting for biological, clinical, lifestyle and socioeconomic conditions. Heavy-smokers, when compared with never-smokers, were significantly more likely to report some/severe problems in all five domains - mobility (67%), self-care (70%), usual activity (42%), pain/discomfort (46%) and anxiety/depression (86%) -. 'Utility' values by age and gender for each category of smoking are provided to be used in the future economic evaluations. Conclusion: Smoking is significantly and negatively associated with health-related quality of life in English general population and the magnitude of this association is determined by the number of cigarettes smoked. The varying degree of this association, captured through instruments such as EQ-5D, may need to be fed into the design of future economic evaluations where the intervention being evaluated affects (e.g. tobacco control) or is affected (e.g. treatment for lung cancer) by individual's (or patients') smoking status

Immunoblot analysis of the seroreactivity to recombinant Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato antigens, including VlsE, in the long-term course of treated patients with Erythema migrans

Objective: We evaluated whether immunoblotting is capable of substantiating the posttreatment clinical assessment of patients with erythema migrans ( EM), the hallmark of early Lyme borreliosis. Methods: In 50 patients, seroreactivity to different antigens of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato was analyzed by a recombinant immunoblot test (IB) in consecutive serum samples from a minimum follow-up period of 1 year. Antigens in the IgG test were decorin- binding protein A, internal fragment of p41 (p41i), outer surface protein C (OspC), p39, variable major protein-like sequence expressed (VlsE), p58 and p100; those in the IgM test were p41i, OspC and p39. Immune responses were correlated with clinical and treatment-related parameters. Results: Positive IB results were found in 50% before, in 57% directly after therapy and in 44% by the end of the follow-up for the IgG class, and in 36, 43 and 12% for the IgM class. In acute and convalescence phase sera, VlsE was most immunogenic on IgG testing 60 and 70%), and p41i (46 and 57%) and OspC (40 and 57%) for the IgM class. By the end of the follow-up, only the anti-p41i lgM response was significantly decreased to 24%. Conclusions: No correlation was found between IB results and treatment-related parameters. Thus, immunoblotting does not add to the clinical assessment of EM patients after treatment. Copyright (c) 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel

Childhood cancer burden: a review of global estimates.

5-year net survival of children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer is approximately 80% in many high-income countries. This estimate is encouraging as it shows the substantial progress that has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of childhood cancer. Unfortunately, scarce data are available for low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), where nearly 90% of children with cancer reside, suggesting that global survival estimates are substantially worse in these regions. As LMICs are undergoing a rapid epidemiological transition, with a shifting burden from infectious diseases to non-communicable diseases, cancer care for all ages has become a global focus. To improve outcomes for children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer worldwide, an accurate appraisal of the global burden of childhood cancer is a necessary first step. In this Review, we analyse four studies of the global cancer burden that included data for children and adolescents. Each study used various overlapping and non-overlapping statistical approaches and outcome metrics. Moreover, to provide guidance on improving future estimates of the childhood global cancer burden, we propose several recommendations to strengthen data collection and standardise analyses. Ultimately, these data could help stakeholders to develop plans for national and institutional cancer programmes, with the overall aim of helping to reduce the global burden of cancer in children and adolescents