Cadmium-Induced Oxidative Stress and Apoptotic Changes in the Testis of Freshwater Crab, Sinopotamon henanense

Cadmium (Cd), one of the most toxic environmental and industrial pollutants, is known to exert gonadotoxic and spermiotoxic effects. In the present study, we examined the toxic effect of Cd on the testis of freshwater crab, Sinopotamon henanense. Crabs were exposed to different Cd concentrations (from 0 to 116.00 mg·L−1) for 7 d. Oxidative stress and apoptotic changes in the testes were detected. The activities of SOD, GPx and CAT initially increased and subsequently decreased with increasing Cd concentrations, which was accompanied with the increase in malondialdehyde (MDA) and H2O2 content in a concentration-dependent manner. Typical morphological characteristic and physiological changes of apoptosis were observed using a variety of methods (HE staining, AO/EB double fluorescent staining, Transmission Electron Microscope observation and DNA fragmentation analysis), and the activities of caspase-3 and caspase-9 were increased in a concentration-dependent manner after Cd exposure. These results led to the conclusion that Cd could induced oxidative damage as well as apoptosis in the testis, and the apoptotic processes may be mediated via mitochondria-dependent apoptosis pathway by regulating the activities of caspase-3 and caspase-9

Search for long-lived, massive particles in events with a displaced vertex and a muon with large impact parameter in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for long-lived particles decaying into hadrons and at least one muon is presented. The analysis selects events that pass a muon or missing-transverse-momentum trigger and contain a displaced muon track and a displaced vertex. The analyzed dataset of proton-proton collisions at √ s = 13 TeV was collected with the ATLAS detector and corresponds to 136 fb − 1. The search employs dedicated reconstruction techniques that significantly increase the sensitivity to long-lived particle decays that occur in the ATLAS inner detector. Background estimates for Standard Model processes and instrumental effects are extracted from data. The observed event yields are compatible with those expected from background processes. The results are presented as limits at 95% confidence level on model-independent cross sections for processes beyond the Standard Model, and interpreted as exclusion limits in scenarios with pair production of long-lived top squarks that decay via a small R -parity-violating coupling into a quark and a muon. Top squarks with masses up to 1.7 TeV are excluded for a lifetime of 0.1 ns, and masses below 1.3 TeV are excluded for lifetimes between 0.01 ns and 30 ns

Medicinal Properties of Mediterranean Oyster Mushrooms: Species of Genus Pleurotus (Higher Basidiomycetes)

The term \u201cMediterranean area,\u201d applied in this chapter, refers to the definition reported in Med-Checklist and particularly to all countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea plus Portugal, Bulgaria, the Crimea (Ukraine), and Jordan. The \u201cMediterranean oyster mushrooms\u201d is a geographically and ecologically well-defined group of Basidiomycetes. The medicinal properties of some widely investigated species such as Pleurotus ostreatus and P. eryngii are recognized worldwide, while in the case of some other Mediterranean Pleurotus taxa, there is still a lack of knowledge. A substantial increase in knowledge about the anticancer and antibacterial properties of the group of Pleurotus species growing as saprophytes on dead roots of plants of family Apiaceae (P. nebrodensis, P. eryngii var. elaeoselini, P. eryngii var. ferulae in particular) has been recorded in recent years, thanks to research carried out at the University of Palermo (Italy). This chapter summarizes the latest research on medicinal oyster mushrooms growing in the Mediterranean environment