Circulating micrornas associated with glycemic impairment and progression in Asian Indians.

Aims/hypothesisAsian Indians have a high incidence of type 2 diabetes, but factors associated with glycemic progression in this population are not understood. MicroRNAs are emerging as important mediators of glucose homeostasis and have not been previously studied in Asian Indians. We examined microRNA (miR) expression associated with glycemic impairment and progression in Asian Indians from the San Francisco Bay Area. We studied 128 Asian Indians age 45-84 years without known cardiovascular disease and not taking diabetes medications. Oral glucose tolerance tests were performed at baseline and after 2.5 years. We quantified circulating miRs from plasma collected during the enrollment visit using a flow cytometry-based assay.ResultsGlycemic impairment was present in 57 % (n = 73) at baseline. MiR-191 was positively associated with glycemic impairment (odds ratio (OR) 1.7 (95 % CI 1.2, 2.4), p < 0.01). The prevalence of glycemic progression after 2.5 years was 24 % (n = 23). Six miRs were negatively associated with glycemic progression: miR-122 (OR 0.5 (0.2, 0.8), p < 0.01), miR-15a (OR 0.6 (0.4, 0.9), p < 0.01), miR-197 (OR 0.6 (0.4, 0.9), p < 0.01), miR-320a (OR 0.6 (0.4, 0.9), p < 0.01), miR-423 (OR 0.6 (0.4, 0.9), p < 0.01), and miR-486 (OR 0.5 (0.3, 0.8), p < 0.01). Further multivariate adjustment did not attenuate these results.Conclusions/interpretationThis is the first study to investigate circulating miRs associated with glycemic status among this high-risk ethnic group. Individual miRs were significantly associated with both glycemic impairment and glycemic progression. Further studies are needed to determine whether miR (s) might be useful clinical biomarkers for incident T2D in the Asian Indian population

Preliminary evidence supports circulating microRNAs as prognostic biomarkers for type 2 diabetes.

Background:Circulating microRNAs are emerging as potential prognostic biomarkers for the development of type 2 diabetes. However, microRNAs are also associated with complications from impaired glucose metabolism (e.g. endothelial cell function). Prior studies have not evaluated for associations between trajectories of circulating microRNAs with trajectories of fasting blood glucose over time and the responses to behavioral interventions to reduce risk. This study performed longitudinal assessment of microRNAs and fasting blood glucose and identified relationships between microRNAs and behavioral risk reduction interventions. Methods:MicroRNAs (n = 353) were measured in subsets (n = 10, n = 8) of participants from previously completed clinical trials that studied behavioral risk reduction interventions. Fasting blood glucose trajectories were associated with changes in 45 microRNAs over 12 months. Results:Following a 3-month physical activity and dietary intervention compared with baseline, 13 microRNAs were differentially expressed. Seven microRNAs (i.e. miR-106b, miR-20b, miR-363, miR-486, miR-532, miR-92a and miR-93) were commonly identified between the two analyses. Conclusions:Further studies are needed to determine which microRNAs are prognostic biomarkers of risk for type 2 diabetes versus consequences of impaired glucose metabolism. Additional future directions of this research are to differentiate whether microRNAs are prognostic and/or diagnostic biomarkers for risk for type 2 diabetes and predictive biomarkers of responses to risk reduction interventions

Neutron electric dipole moment with external electric field method in lattice QCD

We discuss a possibility that the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment (NEDM) can be calculated in lattice QCD simulations in the presence of the CP violating $\theta$ term. In this paper we measure the energy difference between spin-up and spin-down states of the neutron in the presence of an uniform and static external electric field. We first test this method in quenched QCD with the RG improved gauge action on a $16^3\times 32$ lattice at $a^{-1}\simeq$ 2 GeV, employing two different lattice fermion formulations, the domain-wall fermion and the clover fermion for quarks, at relatively heavy quark mass $(m_{PS}/m_V \simeq 0.85)$. We obtain non-zero values of NEDM from calculations with both fermion formulations. We next consider some systematic uncertainties of our method for NEDM, using $24^3\times 32$ lattice at the same lattice spacing only with the clover fermion. We finally investigate the quark mass dependence of NEDM and observe a non-vanishing behavior of NEDM toward the chiral limit. We interpret this behavior as a manifestation of the pathology in the quenched approximation.Comment: LaTeX2e, 51 pages, 43 figures, uses revtex4 and graphicx, References and comments added, typos corrected, accepted by PR

The Chiral Critical Point in 3-Flavour QCD

We determine the second order endpoint of the line of first order phase transitions, which occur in the light quark mass regime of 3-flavour QCD at finite temperature, and analyze universal properties of this chiral critical point. A detailed analysis of Binder cumulants and the joint probability distributions of energy like and ordering-field like observables confirms that the chiral critical point belongs to the universality class of the three dimensional Ising model. From a calculation with improved gauge and staggered fermion actions we estimate that the transition is first order for pseudo-scalar meson masses less than about 200 MeV.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX2e File, 7 EPS-file

Neutron electric dipole moment from lattice QCD

We carry out a feasibility study for the lattice QCD calculation of the neutron electric dipole moment (NEDM) in the presence of the $\theta$ term. We develop the strategy to obtain the nucleon EDM from the CP-odd electromagnetic form factor $F_3$ at small $\theta$, in which NEDM is given by $\lim_{q^2\to 0}\theta F_3(q^2)/(2m_N)$ where $q$ is the momentum transfer and $m_N$ is the nucleon mass. We first derive a formula which relates $F_3$, a matrix element of the electromagnetic current between nucleon states, with vacuum expectation values of nucleons and/or the current. In the expansion of $\theta$, the parity-odd part of the nucleon-current-nucleon three-point function contains contributions not only from the parity-odd form factors but also from the parity-even form factors multiplied by the parity-odd part of the nucleon two-point function, and therefore the latter contribution must be subtracted to extract $F_3$. We then perform an explicit lattice calculation employing the domain-wall quark action with the RG improved gauge action in quenched QCD at $a^{-1}\simeq 2$ GeV on a $16^3\times 32\times 16$ lattice. At the quark mass $m_f a =0.03$, corresponding to $m_\pi/m_\rho \simeq 0.63$, we accumulate 730 configurations, which allow us to extract the parity-odd part in both two- and three-point functions. Employing two different Dirac $\gamma$ matrix projections, we show that a consistent value for $F_3$ cannot be obtained without the subtraction described above. We obtain $F_3(q^2\simeq 0.58 \textrm{GeV}^2)/(2m_N) =$ $-$0.024(5) $e\cdot$fm for the neutron and $F_3(q^2\simeq 0.58 \textrm{GeV}^2)/(2m_N) =$ 0.021(6) $e\cdot$fm for the proton.Comment: LaTeX2e, 43 pages, 42 eps figures, uses revtex4 and graphicx, comments added and typos corrected, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Pseudoscalars Mesons in Hot, Dense Matter

Phase transitions in hot and dense matter and the in--medium behavior of pseudoscalar mesons ($\pi^{\pm}, \pi^0, K^{\pm}, K^0 ,\bar K^0,\eta {and} \eta'$) are investigated, in the framework of the three flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, including the 't Hooft interaction, which breaks the $U_A(1)$ symmetry. Three different scenarios are considered: zero density and finite temperature, zero temperature and finite density in quark matter with different degrees of strangeness, and finite temperature and density. At T=0, the role of strange valence quarks in the medium is discussed, in connection with the phase transition and the mesonic behavior. It is found that the appearance of strange quarks, above certain densities, leads to meaningful changes in different observables, especially in matter with \beta$--equilibrium. The behavior of mesons in the$T-\rho$ plane is analyzed in connection with possible signatures of restoration of symmetries.Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures, PRC versio

Effect of physical aging on the low-frequency vibrational density of states of a glassy polymer

The effects of the physical aging on the vibrational density of states (VDOS) of a polymeric glass is studied. The VDOS of a poly(methyl methacrylate) glass at low-energy (<15 meV), was determined from inelastic neutron scattering at low-temperature for two different physical thermodynamical states. One sample was annealed during a long time at temperature lower than Tg, and another was quenched from a temperature higher than Tg. It was found that the VDOS around the boson peak, relatively to the one at higher energy, decreases with the annealing at lower temperature than Tg, i.e., with the physical aging.Comment: To be published in Europhys. Let

Electron-beam-induced shift in the apparent position of a pinned vortex in a thin superconducting film

When an electron beam strikes a superconducting thin film near a pinned vortex, it locally increases the temperature-dependent London penetration depth and perturbs the circulating supercurrent, thereby distorting the vortex's magnetic field toward the heated spot. This phenomenon has been used to visualize vortices pinned in SQUIDs using low-temperature scanning electron microscopy. In this paper I develop a quantitative theory to calculate the displacement of the vortex-generated magnetic-flux distribution as a function of the distance of the beam spot from the vortex core. The results are calculated using four different models for the spatial distribution of the thermal power deposited by the electron beam.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, resubmitted to PRB with referee-suggested revisions, includes new paragraph on numerical evaluatio

Scaling functions for O(4) in three dimensions

Monte Carlo simulation using a cluster algorithm is used to compute the scaling part of the free energy for a three dimensional O(4) spin model. The results are relevant for analysis of lattice studies of high temperature QCD.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, uses epsf.st