Prenatal exposures and exposomics of asthma

This review examines the causal investigation of preclinical development of childhood asthma using exposomic tools. We examine the current state of knowledge regarding early-life exposure to non-biogenic indoor air pollution and the developmental modulation of the immune system. We examine how metabolomics technologies could aid not only in the biomarker identification of a particular asthma phenotype, but also the mechanisms underlying the immunopathologic process. Within such a framework, we propose alternate components of exposomic investigation of asthma in which, the exposome represents a reiterative investigative process of targeted biomarker identification, validation through computational systems biology and physical sampling of environmental medi

A Continuous Process for the Glycerolysis of Soybean Oil

A continuous process for the glycerolysis of soybean oil with pure and crude glycerol, the co-product from the transesterification of soybean oil was investigated in a pilot plant. The process was equipped with a motionless and a high-shear mixer. The experimental studies explored the effects of variations in mixing intensity, temperature, reactant flow rates, and reactant stoichiometry on the formation of MG and DC. The developed process resulted in high conversion of TC to MC. The most favorable conditions were 230°C, 40 mL/min total flow, 25 mm of reaction time, 2.5:1 molar ratio of glycerol/soybean oil, and 3600 rpm for the reactions involving crude glycerol where the concentrations of MC and DC in the product were about 56 and 36 wt%, respectively. Under similar conditions, glycerolysis of pure glycerol resulted in 58% MC and 33% DC. In general, higher temperatures and mixing intensities favored the conversion of TC to MC and DC. Reaction temperature had a greater influence on the extent of the reaction than mixing. The formation of MC approached equilibrium for nearly all cases under investigations

Defective Polymorphonuclear Leukocyte Formyl Peptide Receptor(s) in Juvenile Periodontitis

Juvenile periodontitis (JP) is a disease characterized by severe gingival infections. PMN from some JP patients exhibit abnormal chemotactic responsiveness when challenged with the synthetic formyl peptide, FMLP. While investigating PMN function in JP, we found a patient in whom abnormal PMN chemotactic responses to FMLP were associated with a defective population of PMN formyl peptide receptor(s) (FPR). JP PMN failed to respond chemotactically when challenged with FMLP, but exhibited normal chemotactic responses upon exposure to purified human C5a. Furthermore, JP PMN were capable of degranulating and generating superoxide anion radicals as well as normal PMN upon exposure to FMLP. Binding studies demonstrated that JP PMN had a diminution in the number of high-affinity FPR. Studies in which FPR was radiolabeled by chemical cross-linking demonstrated that JP PMN FPR exhibited the same molecular weight and N-linked glycosylation as normal PMN FPR. JP PMN FPR, however, was more resistant to papain cleavage than normal PMN FPR. Autoradiograms obtained from 2D-PAGE of normal and JP PMN FPR demonstrated decreased amounts of FPR isoforms in J