A study on the effect of resveratrol on lipid metabolism in hyperlipidemic mice

Background: The content of resveratrol is relatively high in Polygonum cuspidatum Sieb. et Zucc., and the resveratrol has the effect of blood vessel dilating, microcirculation improving, platelet aggregation inhibiting and anti-cancer. The objective of this paper was to study the effect of resveratrol on lipid metabolism in hyperlipidemia mice.Materials andMethods: Through the establishment of an experimental mouse model of hyperlipidemia, the effect of resveratrol on change in total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c) levels in mouse serum were determined.Results: Resveratrol group can apparently reduce TC, TG, LDL-c and AI of hyperlipidemic mice in a dose effect manner.Conclusion: We concluded that resveratrol can effectively reduce blood lipid levels of hyperlipidemic mice.Keywords: Resveratrol; hyperlipidemia; TC; TG; HDL-c; LDL-

Early jurassic carbon-isotope perturbations in a shallow-water succession from the tethys himalaya, southern hemisphere

The Early Jurassic was characterized by extreme carbon-cycle perturbations that are associated with abrupt environmental and climatic change. However, the evidence mainly derives from sections in the western Tethys and northern Europe: localities situated in the northern hemisphere. This paper presents new records of biostratigraphical (large benthic foraminiferal), sedimentological and carbonate carbon-isotope (δ13Ccarb) data from the Tibetan Kioto Platform formed in the southeastern Tethys (southern hemisphere) during the Sinemurian–earliest Toarcian interval. Six foraminiferal zones have been recognized: late Sinemurian Textulariopsis sinemuriensis, Pliensbachian Planisepta compressa, Bosniella oenensis, Cyclor-bitopsella tibetica and Streptocyclammina liasica, and earliest Toarcian Siphovalvulina sp. A. Based on biostratigraphy, δ13Ccarb data allow correlation with coeval records from the western Tethys and northern Europe by the identification of both negative and positive δ13C excursions. The negative excursions characterize the Sinemurian–Pliensbachian boundary event (SPBE) and the margaritatus–spinatum zone boundary event (MSBE); the positive δ13C excursion characterizes the margaritatus zone event (ME). Facies evolution in the Early Jurassic indicates that the establishment of carbonate sedimentation on the Kioto Platform occurred in the context of a global sea-level rise partly coincident with the SPBE and that, in common with other coeval platforms, carbonate production following the negative shift was predominantly made up of skeletal carbonates. Furthermore, the spread of the Lithiotis Fauna on the Kioto Platform followed the rebound of isotopic values after the SPBE. This phenomenon has been observed in the western Tethys and suggests that the global biocalcification event represented by the flourishing of the Lithiotis Fauna may have occurred synchronously across the Tethys, possibly reflecting the creation of more favourable marine conditions after the SPBE. Biostratigraphical data indicate that certain index larger benthic foraminifera became extinct around the onset level of the MSBE, likely due to the deleterious impact of this event. However, as in more northerly localities, the Lithiotis Fauna persisted during the late Pliensbachian in the shallow-water platforms of the Tethys until its disappearance in the early Toarcian

Air-Gap Detection in Dielectric Materials by a Step-Frequency Microwave Technique

Most microwave NDE has been performed using continuous wave excitation and reception, due to the general availability of such equipment and the acceptable procedure of extracting information from the amplitude and phase of such signals. With the availability of sources that can be swept over a band of frequencies, the amplitude and phase information can be converted via the Fourier Transformation to the impulse response in the time domain. Instead of searching for changes in the amplitude and phase of microwave reflected from boundaries, interfaces, and defects, this time domain approach concentrates on the recognition of “echoes”. This approach is implicit in some of the more complex approaches in microwave imaging [1–3]. It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that this approach facilitates the detection of internal defects using microwave, in a manner similar to the practice of pulse-echo ultrasound. The time delay for a microwave “echo” is related to the location, and the Fourier transformed amplitude is related to some characteristics of the defect inside the material

Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway activation is required for proliferation of chicken primordial germ cells in vitro

Here, we investigated the role of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in chicken primordial germ cells (PGCs) in vitro. We confirmed the expression of Wnt signaling pathway-related genes and the localization of β-catenin in the nucleus, revealing that this pathway is potentially activated in chicken PGCs. Then, using the single-cell pick-up assay, we examined the proliferative capacity of cultured PGCs in response to Wnt ligands, a β-catenin-mediated Wnt signaling activator (6-bromoindirubin-3′-oxime [BIO]) or inhibitor (JW74), in the presence or absence of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). WNT1, WNT3A, and BIO promoted the proliferation of chicken PGCs similarly to bFGF, whereas JW74 inhibited this proliferation. Meanwhile, such treatments in combination with bFGF did not show a synergistic effect. bFGF treatment could not rescue PGC proliferation in the presence of JW74. In addition, we confirmed the translocation of β-catenin into the nucleus by the addition of bFGF after JW74 treatment. These results indicate that there is signaling crosstalk between FGF and Wnt, and that β-catenin acts on PGC proliferation downstream of bFGF. In conclusion, our study suggests that Wnt signaling enhances the proliferation of chicken PGCs via the stabilization of β-catenin and activation of its downstream genes

Sexual reproduction and genetic polymorphism within the cosmopolitan marine diatom Pseudo-nitzschia pungens.

Different clades belonging to the cosmopolitan marine diatom Pseudo-nitzschia pungens appear to be present in different oceanic environments, however, a 'hybrid zone', where populations of different clades interbreed, has also been reported. Many studies have investigated the sexual reproduction of P. pungens, focused on morphology and life cycle, rather than the role of sexual reproduction in mixing the genomes of their parents. We carried out crossing experiments to determine the sexual compatibility/incompatibility between different clades of P. pungens, and examined the genetic polymorphism in the ITS2 region. Sexual reproduction did not occur only between clades II and III under any of experimental temperature conditions. Four offspring strains were established between clade I and III successfully. Strains established from offspring were found interbreed with other offspring strains as well as viable with their parental strains. We confirmed the hybrid sequence patterns between clades I and III and found novel sequence types including polymorphic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the offspring strains. Our results implicate that gene exchange and mixing between different clades are still possible, and that sexual reproduction is a significant ecological strategy to maintain the genetic diversity within this diatom species

Longitudinal residual strain and stress-strain relationship in rat small intestine

BACKGROUND: To obtain a more detailed description of the stress-free state of the intestinal wall, longitudinal residual strain measurements are needed. Furthermore, data on longitudinal stress-strain relations in visceral organs are scarce. The present study aims to investigate the longitudinal residual strain and the longitudinal stress-strain relationship in the rat small intestine. METHODS: The longitudinal zero-stress state was obtained by cutting tissue strips parallel to the longitudinal axis of the intestine. The longitudinal residual stress was characterized by a bending angle (unit: degrees per unit length and positive when bending outwards). Residual strain was computed from the change in dimensions between the zero-stress state and the no-load state. Longitudinal stresses and strains were computed from stretch experiments in the distal ileum at luminal pressures ranging from 0–4 cmH(2)O. RESULTS: Large morphometric variations were found between the duodenum and ileum with the largest wall thickness and wall area in the duodenum and the largest inner circumference and luminal area in the distal ileum (p < 0.001). The bending angle did not differ between the duodenum and ileum (p > 0.5). The longitudinal residual strain was tensile at the serosal surface and compressive at the mucosal surface. Hence, the neutral axis was approximately in the mid-wall. The longitudinal residual strain and the bending angle was not uniform around the intestinal circumference and had the highest values on the mesenteric sides (p < 0.001). The stress-strain curves fitted well to the mono-exponential function with determination coefficients above 0.96. The α constant increased with the pressure, indicating the intestinal wall became stiffer in longitudinal direction when pressurized. CONCLUSION: Large longitudinal residual strains reside in the small intestine and showed circumferential variation. This indicates that the tissue is not uniform and cannot be treated as a homogenous material. The longitudinal stiffness of the intestinal wall increased with luminal pressure. Longitudinal residual strains must be taken into account in studies of gastrointestinal biomechanical properties

Spin and Chirality Effects in Antler-Topology Processes at High Energy e+e−e^+e^- Colliders

We perform a model-independent investigation of spin and chirality correlation effects in the antler-topology processes $e^+e^-\to\mathcal{P}^+\mathcal{P}^-\to (\ell^+ \mathcal{D}^0) (\ell^-\mathcal{\bar{D}}^0)$ at high energy $e^+e^-$ colliders with polarized beams. Generally the production process $e^+e^-\to\mathcal{P}^+\mathcal{P}^-$ can occur not only through the $s$-channel exchange of vector bosons, $\mathcal{V}^0$, including the neutral Standard Model (SM) gauge bosons, $\gamma$ and $Z$, but also through the $s$- and $t$-channel exchanges of new neutral states, $\mathcal{S}^0$ and $\mathcal{T}^0$, and the $u$-channel exchange of new doubly-charged states, $\mathcal{U}^{--}$. The general set of (non-chiral) three-point couplings of the new particles and leptons allowed in a renormalizable quantum field theory is considered. The general spin and chirality analysis is based on the threshold behavior of the excitation curves for $\mathcal{P}^+\mathcal{P}^-$ pair production in $e^+e^-$ collisions with longitudinal and transverse polarized beams, the angular distributions in the production process and also the production-decay angular correlations. In the first step, we present the observables in the helicity formalism. Subsequently, we show how a set of observables can be designed for determining the spins and chiral structures of the new particles without any model assumptions. Finally, taking into account a typical set of approximately chiral invariant scenarios, we demonstrate how the spin and chirality effects can be probed experimentally at a high energy $e^+e^-$ collider.Comment: 50 pages, 14 figures, 6 tables, matches version published in EPJ

Laser-induced etching of few-layer graphene synthesized by Rapid-Chemical Vapour Deposition on Cu thin films

The outstanding electrical and mechanical properties of graphene make it very attractive for several applications, Nanoelectronics above all. However a reproducible and non destructive way to produce high quality, large-scale area, single layer graphene sheets is still lacking. Chemical Vapour Deposition of graphene on Cu catalytic thin films represents a promising method to reach this goal, because of the low temperatures (T < 900 Celsius degrees) involved during the process and of the theoretically expected monolayer self-limiting growth. On the contrary such self-limiting growth is not commonly observed in experiments, thus making the development of techniques allowing for a better control of graphene growth highly desirable. Here we report about the local ablation effect, arising in Raman analysis, due to the heat transfer induced by the laser incident beam onto the graphene sample.Comment: v1:9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to SpringerPlus; v2: 11 pages, PDFLaTeX, 9 figures, revised peer-reviewed version resubmitted to SpringerPlus; 1 figure added, figure 1 and 4 replaced,typos corrected, "Results and discussion" section significantly extended to better explain etching mechanism and features of Raman spectra, references adde

From covalent bonding to coalescence of metallic nanorods

Growth of metallic nanorods by physical vapor deposition is a common practice, and the origin of their dimensions is a characteristic length scale that depends on the three-dimensional Ehrlich-Schwoebel (3D ES) barrier. For most metals, the 3D ES barrier is large so the characteristic length scale is on the order of 200 nm. Using density functional theory-based ab initio calculations, this paper reports that the 3D ES barrier of Al is small, making it infeasible to grow Al nanorods. By analyzing electron density distributions, this paper shows that the small barrier is the result of covalent bonding in Al. Beyond the infeasibility of growing Al nanorods by physical vapor deposition, the results of this paper suggest a new mechanism of controlling the 3D ES barrier and thereby nanorod growth. The modification of local degree of covalent bonding, for example, via the introduction of surfactants, can increase the 3D ES barrier and promote nanorod growth, or decrease the 3D ES barrier and promote thin film growth

Impact of HPV infection on the clinical outcome of p-CAIR trial in head and neck cancer

The purpose of the study was to analyse the influence of HPV infection on the outcome of a randomized clinical trial of conventional (CF) versus 7-days-a-week postoperative radiotherapy (p-CAIR) for squamous cell cancer of the head and neck (SCCHN). Between 2001 and 2004, 279 patients with high-risk SCC of the larynx or cancer of the oral cavity/oropharynx were randomized to receive 63 Gy in fractions of 1.8 Gy given 5 days a week or 7 days a week (Radiother Oncol 87:155–163, 2008). The presence of HPV DNA in 131 archival paraffin blocks was assessed with multiplex quantitative real-time PCR using five consensus primers for the conservative L1 region and molecular beacon probes targeting 14 high-risk HPV subtypes. Following the RT-PCR procedure, we could determine the presence and type of HPV16, HPV18 and the other 12 less frequent oncogenic subtypes. Out of 131 samples, 9 were positive for HPV infection (6.9%), all of them with HPV16 subtype. None of the 65 laryngeal tumours was HPV positive. The 5-year LRC in HPV-positive patients was 100%, compared to 58% in the HPV-negative group (p = 0.02, log-rank test). Amongst 122 patients with HPV-negative tumours, 5-year LRC was 50.3% in p-CF versus 65.2 in p-CAIR (p = 0.37). HPV infection was associated with low expression of EGFR and cyclin D. This study demonstrates a favourable outcome for HPV-positive patients with SCCHN treated with postoperative radiotherapy. While considering the small number of HPV+ tumours, the data set can be considered as hypothesis generating only, the outcome raises new questions on the necessity of aggressive postoperative treatment in HPV+ patients