Effect and Mechanism of Herbal Medicines on Cisplatin-Induced Anorexia

Cisplatin is a well-known chemotherapeutic agent used to treat various types of cancers; however, it can also induce anorexia, which results in reduced food intake, loss of body weight, and lower quality of life. Although drugs such as megestrol acetate and cyproheptadine are used to decrease this severe feeding disorder, they can also induce side effects, such as diarrhea and somnolence, which limit their widespread use. Various types of herbal medicines have long been used to prevent and treat numerous gastrointestinal tract diseases; however, to date, no study has been conducted to analyze and summarize their effects on cisplatin-induced anorexia. In this paper, we analyze 12 animal studies that used either a single herbal medicine extract or mixtures thereof to decrease cisplatin-induced anorexia. Among the herbal medicines, Ginseng Radix was the most used, as it was included in seven studies, whereas both Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma and Angelicae Gigantis Radix were used in four studies. As for the mechanisms of action, the roles of serotonin and its receptors, cytokines, white blood cells, ghrelin, and leptin were investigated. Based on these results, we suggest that herbal medicines could be considered a useful treatment method for cisplatin-induced anorexia

Zingiber officinale Roscoe Rhizomes Attenuate Oxaliplatin-Induced Neuropathic Pain in Mice

Oxaliplatin is a platinum derivative chemotherapeutic drug widely used against cancers, but even a single treatment can induce a severe allodynia that requires treatment interruption and dose diminution. The rhizome of Zingiber officinale roscoe (Z. officinale, ginger), has been widely used in traditional medicine to treat various diseases causing pain; however, its effect against oxaliplatin-induced neuropathic pain has never been assessed. In mice, a single oxaliplatin (6 mg/kg, i.p.) treatment induced significant cold and mechanical allodynia. Cold and mechanical allodynia were assessed by acetone drop and von Frey filament tests, respectively. Water extracts of Z. officinale (100, 300, and 500 mg/kg, p.o.) significantly attenuated both cold and mechanical allodynia induced by oxaliplatin. Intrathecal pre-treatment with the antagonist 5-HT1A (NAN-190, i.t., 1 μg), but not with the antagonist 5-HT2A (ketanserin, i.t., 1 μg), significantly blocked the analgesic effect of Z. officinale against both cold and mechanical allodynia. However, 5-HT3 antagonist (MDL-72222, i.t., 15 μg) administration only blocked the anti-allodynic effect of Z. officinale against cold allodynia. Real-time PCR analysis demonstrated that Z. officinale significantly increased the mRNA expression of the spinal 5-HT1A receptor that was downregulated after oxaliplatin injection. These results suggest that Z. officinale may be a viable treatment option for oxaliplatin-induced neuropathic pain

Performance Estimation Method of Li-Ion Starting-Lighting-Ignition Batteries of Electric Vehicle through Lab-Scale Pouch Cell Experiment

CCA (cold-cranking amps) is used as one of the standards to define the power of a SLI (starting-lighting-ignition) battery of electric vehicles (EVs) by applying a large discharge current for a short time. It is easier to start an engine at a high temperature than a low temperature, so tests are usually conducted at a low temperature to meet the demands of users. However, in a large cell, the internal temperature of the cell rises due to the heat of the cell when a large current is applied. This phenomenon can increase the overall cell power performance because it has the effect of reducing ohmic overvoltage and improving electrode kinetics. Therefore, it is difficult to distinguish the effect of the temperature rise and applied current on the voltage curve during the consecutive pulse discharge. In this study, three times of 10 C discharge current pulse (~ 7 mA/cm2 in this study) is applied on a cell for 30 seconds, with rest periods of 600s, 30s included between each pulse. Evaluations were conducted from -18 ??? to 50 ???, with a LiFePO4/graphite lab-scale pouch cell rather than an actual large cell. Therefore, the temperature of the cell remained constant under the evaluation conditions in which heat generation is almost zero, so the voltage curves can be interpreted by excluding the effect of the temperature rise of a cell. Based on these experimental results, voltage curves were simulated depending on each internal resistance that related to Joule heating of the actual large cell. It is possible to predict the performance and degree of temperature rise of large cells. Also, this study proposes an effective and economical method to distinguish the effect of the temperature rise of the large cell and the applied current by using a lab-scale pouch cell with controlled temperature

Transcriptional Profiling Reveals Mesenchymal Subtypes of Small Cell Lung Cancer with Activation of the Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition and Worse Clinical Outcomes

While molecular subtypes of small cell lung cancers (SCLC) based on neuroendocrine (NE) and non-NE transcriptional regulators have been established, the association between these molecular subtypes and recently recognized SCLC-inflamed (SCLC-I) tumors is less understood. In this study, we used gene expression profiles of SCLC primary tumors and cell lines to discover and characterize SCLC-M (mesenchymal) tumors distinct from SCLC-I tumors for molecular features, clinical outcomes, and cross-species developmental trajectories. SCLC-M tumors show elevated epithelial-to-mesenchymal transformation (EMT) and YAP1 activity but a low level of anticancer immune activity and worse clinical outcomes than SCLC-I tumors. The prevalence of SCLC-M tumors was 3.2–7.4% in primary SCLC cohorts, which was further confirmed by immunohistochemistry in an independent cohort. Deconvoluted gene expression of tumor epithelial cells showed that EMT and increased immune function are tumor-intrinsic characteristics of SCLC-M and SCLC-I subtypes, respectively. Cross-species analysis revealed that human primary SCLC tumors recapitulate the NE-to-non-NE progression murine model providing insight into the developmental relationships among SCLC subtypes, e.g., early NE (SCLC-A and -N)- vs. late non-NE tumors (SCLC-M and -P). Newly identified SCLC-M tumors are biologically and clinically distinct from SCLC-I tumors which should be taken into account for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease

Inhibition of Cytochrome P450 Activities by Sophora flavescens Extract and Its Prenylated Flavonoids in Human Liver Microsomes

Sophora flavescens possesses several pharmacological properties and has been widely used for the treatment of diarrhea, inflammation, abscess, dysentery, and fever in East Asian countries. S. flavescens is a major source of prenylated flavonoids, such as sophoraflavone and kushenol. In this study, we examined the effects of S. flavescens extract and its prenylated flavonoids on cytochrome P450 (CYP) isoform activity in human liver microsomes. The extract inhibited CYP2C8, CYP2C9, CYP2C19, and CYP3A activities, with IC50 values of 1.42, 13.6, 19.1, and 50 µg/mL, respectively. CYP2B6 was only inhibited in human liver microsomes preincubated with the extract. CYP3A4 was more strongly inhibited by the extract in the presence of NADPH, suggesting that the extract may inhibit CYP2B6 and CYP3A4 via mechanism-based inactivation. Prenylated flavonoids also inhibited CYP isoforms with different selectivity and modes of action. Kushenol I, leachianone A, and sophoraflavone G inhibited CYP2B6, whereas kushenol C, kushenol I, kushenol M, leachianone A, and sophoraflavone G inhibited CYP3A4 via mechanism-based inhibition. Our results suggest that S. flavescens may contribute to herb–drug interactions when coadministered with drugs metabolized by CYP2B6, CYP2C8, CYP2C9, and CYP3A4

Monitoring the vertical distribution of HABs using hyperspectral imagery and deep learning models

Remote sensing techniques have been applied to monitor the spatiotemporal variation of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in many inland waters. However, these studies have been limited to monitor the vertical distribution of HABs due to the optical complexity of inland water. Therefore, this study applied a deep neural network model to monitor the vertical distribution of Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), phycocyanin (PC), and turbidity (Turb) using drone-borne hyperspectral imagery, in-situ measurement, and meteoroidal data. The pigment concentrations were measured between depths of 0 m and 5.0 m with 0.05 m intervals. Here, four state-of-the-art data driven model structures (ResNet-18, ResNet-101, GoogLeNet, and Inception v3) were adopted for estimating the vertical distributions of the harmful algal pigments. Among the four models, the ResNet-18 model showed the best performance, with an R-2 value of 0.70. In addition, Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) substantially provided informative reflectance band ranges near 490 nm and 620 nm in the hyperspectral image for the vertical estimation of pigments. Therefore, this study demonstrated that the explainable deep learning model with drone-borne hyperspectral images has the potential to estimate Chl-a, PC, and Turb vertical distributions and to show influential features that contribute to describing the vertical profile phenomena. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

A Suggestion to Improve Timely Feedback of Infectious Disease Surveillance Data at a Provincial Level in South Korea

Our study suggested the utility of the assessment of time-lag distributions for the feedback strategies to improve surveillance and regional infectious disease controls

Using National Health Insurance Claims Data to Supplement Notifiable Infectious Disease Surveillance System

This study will determine opportunity of using the National Health Insurance (NHI) claims data for supplemental notifiable infectious disease surveillance system at national or regional levels