Molecular Mechanisms of Liver Injury and Hepatocarcinogenesis: Focusing on the Role of Stress-Activated MAPK

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third most common cause of cancer mortality. Short-term prognosis of patients with HCC has improved recently due to advances in early diagnosis and treatment, but long-term prognosis is still unsatisfactory. Therefore, obtaining a further understanding of the molecular carcinogenic mechanisms and the unique pathogenic biology of HCC is important. The most characteristic process in hepatocarcinogenesis is underlying chronic liver injury, which leads to repeated cycles of hepatocyte death, inflammation, and compensatory proliferation and subsequently provides a mitogenic and mutagenic environment leading to the development of HCC. Recent in vivo studies have shown that the stress-activated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade converging on c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38 plays a central role in these processes, and it has attracted considerable attention as a therapeutic target. However, JNK and p38 have complex functions and a wide range of cellular effects. In addition, crosstalk with each other and the nuclear factor-kappaB pathway further complicate these functions. A full understanding is essential to bring these observations into clinical settings. In this paper, we discuss the latest findings regarding the mechanisms of liver injury and hepatocarcinogenesis focusing on the role of the stress-activated MAPK pathway

Effects of Z-Isomerization on the Bioavailability and Functionality of Carotenoids: A Review

Carotenoids, the most common fat-soluble plant pigments in nature, are beneficial to human health due to their strong antioxidant activities and abilities to prevent various diseases. Carotenoids have many geometrical isomers forms caused by E/Z-isomerization at arbitrary sites within the multiple conjugated double bonds. Several studies have addressed that the bioavailability as well as the antioxidant, anticancer, and antiatherosclerotic activities of carotenoids varies among the isomers. In addition, those variations differ among carotenoids: Z-isomerization resulted in “positive” or “negative” effect for carotenoids bioavailability and functionality, for example, Z-isomers of lycopene are more bioavailable than the all-E-isomer, whereas the opposite is observed for β-carotene. Thus, to efficiently promote the beneficial effects of carotenoids by ingestion, it is important to have a good understanding of the impact of E/Z-isomerization on the corresponding functional changes. The objective of this contribution is to review the effects of carotenoid Z-isomerization on bioavailability and functionality and describe their differences among carotenoids

Asynchronous Bilateral Body Bending Enables Fast Cheetah-like Rotary Galloping

The 11th International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines. Kobe University, Japan. 2023-06-06/09. Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines Organizing Committee.Poster Session P

LPD after RHC for ascending colon cancer

Laparoscopic pancreaticoduodenectomy (LPD) has been widely adopted in institutions with sufficiently skilled practitioners. This technique requires attentive dissection around the superior mesenteric vein (SMV) and artery. Dissection around the SMV and Henle’s trunk is one of the key aspects of right hemicolectomy (RHC) ; adhesions and fibrosis around these vessels may impede LPD in patients with a history of RHC. We encountered three cases of periampullary tumors in patients with a history of RHC who were successfully treated with LPD. Cases 1, 2, and 3 were of 60-, 73-, and 74-year-old men with periampullary tumors. The operative durations in cases 1, 2, and 3 were 316, 267, and 265 min, respectively. The estimated blood loss volumes in cases 1, 2, and 3 were 20, 50, and 720 mL, respectively. The postoperative hospital stay durations in cases 1, 2, and 3 were of 13, 35, and 15 days, respectively. In conclusion, LPD following RHC may be safely completed with laparoscopy

Elemental Abundances in the Possible Type Ia Supernova Remnant G344.7-0.1

Recent studies on the Galactic supernova remnant (SNR) G344.7-0.1 have commonly claimed its origin to be a core-collapse supernova (SN) explosion, based on its highly asymmetric morphology and/or proximity to a star forming region. In this paper, however, we present an X-ray spectroscopic study of this SNR using Suzaku, which is supportive of a Type Ia origin. Strong K-shell emission from lowly ionized Fe has clearly been detected, and its origin is determined, for the first time, to be the Fe-rich SN ejecta. The abundance pattern is highly consistent with that expected for a somewhat-evolved Type Ia SNR. It is suggested, therefore, that the X-ray point-like source CXOU J170357.8-414302 located at the SNR's geometrical center is not associated with the SNR but is likely to be a foreground object. Our result further indicates that G344.7-0.1 is the first possible Type Ia SNR categorized as a member of the so-called "mixed-morphology" class. In addition, we have detected emission from He-like Al at ~1.6 keV, the first clear detection of this element in the spectrum of an extended X-ray source. The possible enhancement of the Al/Mg abundance ratio from the solar value suggests that the ambient interstellar medium has a relatively high metallicity (not less than 10% of the solar value), if this SNR has indeed a Type Ia origin. We also report marginal detection of Cr and Mn, although the measured fluxes have large statistical and systematic uncertainties.Comment: ApJ in pres

Formation of Dust in the Ejecta of Type Ia Supernovae

We investigate the formation of dust grains in the ejecta of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), adopting the carbon-deflagration W7 model. In the calculations of dust formation, we apply the nucleation and grain growth theory and consider the two cases with and without formation of CO and SiO molecules. The results of the calculations show that for the sticking probability of alpha_j=1, C, silicate, Si, and FeS grains can condense at early times of ~100--300 days after the explosion, whereas Fe and SiC grains cannot form substantially. Due to the low gas density in SNe Ia with no H-envelope, the average radii of the newly formed grains are generally below 0.01 micron, being much smaller than those in Type II-P SNe. This supports our previous conclusion that the radius of dust formed in the ejecta is smaller in SNe with less massive envelopes. The total dust mass ranges from 3x10^{-4} M_sun to 0.2 M_sun for alpha_j=0.1--1, depending on whether or not CO and SiO molecules are formed. We also estimate the optical depths and thermal emission by the newly formed dust and compare to the relevant observations of SNe Ia. We find that the formation of C grains in SNe Ia is suppressed to be consistent with the observational constraints. This implies that energetic photons and electrons heavily depress the formation efficiency of C grains or that the outermost C-O layer of SNe Ia is almost fully burned. Finally, we perform the calculations of dust destruction in the SN remnants and find that dust grains formed in the ejecta of SNe Ia are almost completely destroyed in the shocked gas before being injected into the interstellar medium. This indicates that SNe Ia are unlikely to be the major sources of interstellar dust.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap

Differences in response to treatment in children with severe IgA nephropathy according to patient age

Aim: To clarify whether the response to treatment of IgA nephropathy (IgAN) differs depending on patient age, we examined the response to treatment according to age of onset in children with IgAN. Methods: We collected data for 44 children with severe IgAN. The children were retrospectively divided into three groups based on their age at disease onset. Group 1 consisted of 24 children under 11 years old, group 2 consisted of 9 children aged 12 to 13 years, and group 3 consisted of 11 children aged over 14 years old. The clinical features and prognosis were analyzed for each group. Results: The urinary protein excretion and serum IgA values in group 3 were higher than those in groups 1 and 2 at the most recent follow up, and histological findings showed that the MESTCG scores in group 3 were higher than those in group 1. Furthermore, the incidence of patients with persistent nephropathy or renal insufficiency in group 3 was higher than those in groups 1 and 2. Conclusions: Patients aged 14 years and older with IgAN may respond poorly to treatment compared with those younger than 14 years old. Therefore, care must be taken regarding response to treatment and relapse when treating older children