Ursodeoxycholic acid lowers bile lithogenicity by regulating SCP2 expression in rabbit cholesterol gallstone models

Aims: We designed this study to get insight into the disorder of lipid metabolism during cholesterol gallstone formation and evaluate the effect of ursodeoxycholic acid on the improvement of bile lithogenicity and on expression of lipid related genes. Methods: Rabbit cholesterol gallstone models were induced by high cholesterol diet. Bile, blood and liver tissues were obtained from rabbits after 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 weeks. Bile and blood lipids were measured enzymatically. 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMGCR), cytochrome P450, family 7, subfamily A, polypeptide 1 (CYP7A1) and sterol carrier protein 2 (SCP2) mRNA expressions were detected by using quantitative real-time RT-PCR. Cholesterol saturation index (CSI) was calculated by using Carey table to represent the bile lithogenicity. Results: Rates of gallstone formation of the 4 and 5 week treatment groups were 100 %, but that of the ursodeoxycholic acid treatment group was only 33.3 %. Expression of HMGCR and SCP2 mRNA in the 4 week group was upregulated and that of CYP7A1 mRNA decreased as compared with the 0 week group. Ursodeoxycholic acid could significantly extend nucleation time of bile and lower CSI. Ursodeoxycholic acid could reduce the expression of SCP2, but couldn’t influence expression of HMGCR and CYP7A1. Conclusions: Abnormal expression of HMGCR, CYP7A1 and SCP2 might lead to high lithogenicity of bile. Ursodeoxycholic acid could improve bile lipids and lower bile lithogenicity, thereby reducing the incidence of gallstones. So it might be a good preventive drug for cholesterol gallstones

Proximity Driven Enhanced Magnetic Order at Ferromagnetic Insulator / Magnetic Topological Insulator Interface

Magnetic exchange driven proximity effect at a magnetic insulator / topological insulator (MI/TI) interface provides a rich playground for novel phenomena as well as a way to realize low energy dissipation quantum devices. Here we report a dramatic enhancement of proximity exchange coupling in the MI / magnetic-TI EuS / Sb$_{2-x}$V$_x$Te$_3$ hybrid heterostructure, where V doping is used to drive the TI (Sb$_{2}$Te$_3$) magnetic. We observe an artificial antiferromagnetic-like structure near the MI/TI interface, which may account for the enhanced proximity coupling. The interplay between the proximity effect and doping provides insights into controllable engineering of magnetic order using a hybrid heterostructure.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Influence of green technology, tourism, and inclusive financial development on ecological sustainability: exploring the path toward green revolution

This study demonstrates the linkages between green technological innovations, sustainable tourism, financial development, economic growth, and ecological sustainability using China’s regional data from 2000 to 2019. The study applies the novel estimation technique, Quantile Autoregressive Distributive Lag (QARDL) approach to examine long-run and short-run relationships between the stated variables. The initial findings confirm non-linearity in the data verified through J-B test statistics. It approves the implication of QARDL estimation for exploring ecological sustainability trends over the study period. The study outcomes confirm that tourism and green technology innovation assists in reducing ecological footprints in China in the long run. Moreover, financial development and economic growth reflect a direct role towards more ecological footprints; therefore, the sustainability dimension has been missing both in financial development and growth. Furthermore, the results in the short run cover the same phenomenon and confirm that ecological innovations and tourism would help in sustaining the natural environment. The study outcomes demonstrate that government officials in China should specifically implement long-term policies to support the natural environment from adverse shocks of more financial development and economic growth

Imbalanced Classification in Medical Imaging via Regrouping

We propose performing imbalanced classification by regrouping majority classes into small classes so that we turn the problem into balanced multiclass classification. This new idea is dramatically different from popular loss reweighting and class resampling methods. Our preliminary result on imbalanced medical image classification shows that this natural idea can substantially boost the classification performance as measured by average precision (approximately area-under-the-precision-recall-curve, or AUPRC), which is more appropriate for evaluating imbalanced classification than other metrics such as balanced accuracy

Genome-Wide Expression Analysis Reveals Diverse Effects of Acute Nicotine Exposure on Neuronal Function-Related Genes and Pathways

Previous human and animal studies demonstrate that acute nicotine exposure has complicated influences on the function of the nervous system, which may lead to long-lasting effects on the behavior and physiology of the subject. To determine the genes and pathways that might account for long-term changes after acute nicotine exposure, a pathway-focused oligoarray specifically designed for drug addiction research was used to assess acute nicotine effect on gene expression in the neuron-like SH-SY5Y cells. Our results showed that 295 genes involved in various biological functions were differentially regulated by 1 h of nicotine treatment. Among these genes, the expression changes of 221 were blocked by mecamylamine, indicating that the majority of nicotine-modulated genes were altered through the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs)-mediated signaling process. We further identified 14 biochemical pathways enriched among the nicotine-modulated genes, among which were those involved in neural development/synaptic plasticity, neuronal survival/death, immune response, or cellular metabolism. In the genes significantly regulated by nicotine but blocked by mecamylamine, 13 enriched pathways were detected. Nine of these pathways were shared with those enriched in the genes regulated by nicotine, including neuronal function-related pathways such as glucocorticoid receptor signaling, p38 MAPK signaling, PI3K/AKT signaling, and PTEN signaling, implying that nAChRs play important roles in the regulation of these biological processes. Together, our results not only provide insights into the mechanism underlying the acute response of neuronal cells to nicotine but also provide clues to how acute nicotine exposure exerts long-term effects on the nervous system

Temperature Effects on the Unsaturated Permeability of the Densely Compacted GMZ01 Bentonite under Confined Conditions

International audienceIn this study, temperature controlled soil-water retention tests and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity tests for densely compacted Gaomiaozi bentonite - GMZ01 (dry density of 1.70 Mg/m3) were performed under confined conditions. Relevant soil-water retention curves (SWRCs) and unsaturated hydraulic conductivities of GMZ01 at temperatures of 40°C and 60°C were obtained. Based on these results as well as the previously obtained results at 20°C, the influence of temperature on water-retention properties and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of the densely compacted Gaomiaozi bentonite were investigated. It was observed that: (i) water retention capacity decreases as temperature increases, and the influence of temperature depends on suction; (ii) for all the temperatures tested, the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity decreases slightly in the initial stage of hydration; the value of the hydraulic conductivity becomes constant as hydration progresses and finally, the permeability increases rapidly with suction decreases as saturation is approached; (iii) under confined conditions, the hydraulic conductivity increases as temperature increases, at a decreasing rate with temperature rise. It was also observed that the influence of temperature on the hydraulic conductivity is quite suction-dependent. At high suctions (s > 60 MPa), the temperature effect is mainly due to its influence on water viscosity; by contrast, in the range of low suctions (s < 60 MPa), the temperature effect is related to both the water viscosity and the macro-pores closing phenomenon that is supposed to be temperature dependent