Role of free fatty acids in endothelial dysfunction

© 2017 The Author(s). Plasma free fatty acids levels are increased in subjects with obesity and type 2 diabetes, playing detrimental roles in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases. Increasing evidence showing that dysfunction of the vascular endothelium, the inner lining of the blood vessels, is the key player in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. In this review, we aimed to summarize the roles and the underlying mechanisms using the evidence collected from clinical and experimental studies about free fatty acid-mediated endothelial dysfunction. Because of the multifaceted roles of plasma free fatty acids in mediating endothelial dysfunction, elevated free fatty acid level is now considered as an important link in the onset of endothelial dysfunction due to metabolic syndromes such as diabetes and obesity. Free fatty acid-mediated endothelial dysfunction involves several mechanisms including impaired insulin signaling and nitric oxide production, oxidative stress, inflammation and the activation of the renin-angiotensin system and apoptosis in the endothelial cells. Therefore, targeting the signaling pathways involved in free fatty acid-induced endothelial dysfunction could serve as a preventive approach to protect against the occurrence of endothelial dysfunction and the subsequent complications such as atherosclerosis.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Local channels preserving maximal entanglement or Schmidt number

Maximal entanglement and Schmidt number play an important role in various quantum information tasks. In this paper, it is shown that a local channel preserves maximal entanglement state(MES) or preserves pure states with Schmidt number $r$($r$ is a fixed integer) if and only if it is a local unitary operation.Comment: 10 page

D-concurrence bounds for pair coherent states

The pair coherent state is a state of a two-mode radiation field which is known as a state with non-Gaussian wave function. In this paper, the upper and lower bounds for D-concurrence (a new entanglement measure) have been studied over this state and calculated.Comment: 11 page

Danggui Buxue Tang – A Chinese herbal decoction activates the phosphorylations of extracellular signal-regulated kinase and estrogen receptor α in cultured MCF-7 cells

AbstractDanggui Buxue Tang (DBT), a Chinese herbal decoction used to treat ailments in women, contains Radix Astragali (Huangqi; RA) and Radix Angelicae Sinensis (Danggui; RAS). The weight ratio of RA to RAS used in DBT must be 5:1 as stipulated as early as AD 1247; however, DBT’s mechanism of action has never been described. Here, the estrogenic effects of DBT were investigated by determining the phosphorylations of estrogen receptor α (ERα) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (Erk1/2) in cultured MCF-7 cells. The application of DBT triggered the phosphorylation of ERα and Erk1/2 in a time-dependent manner. In contrast to the effect of estrogen, DBT triggered ERα phosphorylation at both S118 and S167. This DBT-specific phosphorylation was not triggered by an extract of one of the individual herbs, or by mixing the extracts of RA and RAS. DBT-induced downstream signals are described here. These signals suggest the uniqueness of this Chinese herbal decoction that requires a well-defined formulation

The Periodic Instability of Diameter of ZnO Nanowires via a Self-oscillatory Mechanism

ZnO nanowires with a periodic instability of diameter were successfully prepared by a thermal physical vapor deposition method. The morphology of ZnO nanowires was investigated by SEM. SEM shows ZnO possess periodic bead-like structure. The instability only appears when the diameter of ZnO nanowires is small. The kinetics and mechanism of Instability was discussed at length. The appearance of the instability is due to negative feed-back mechanism under certain experimental conditions (crystallization temperature, vapor supersaturation, etc)

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results