In vivo monitoring of lung inflammation in CFTR-deficient mice

Experimentally, lung inflammation in laboratory animals is usually detected by the presence of inflammatory markers, such as immune cells and cytokines, in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) of sacrificed animals. This method, although extensively used, is time, money and animal life consuming, especially when applied to genetically modified animals. Thus a new and more convenient approach, based on in vivo imaging analysis, has been set up to evaluate the inflammatory response in the lung of CFTR-deficient (CF) mice, a murine model of cystic fibrosis

Experimental energy balance during the first cycles of cyclically loaded specimens under the conventional yield stress

This paper, as an extension of Maquin and Pierron (Mech Mater 41(8):928–942, 2009), presents an experimental procedure developed to macroscopically estimate the energy balance during the very first cycles of a uniaxially loaded metallic specimen at low stress levels. This energy balance is performed by simultaneously measuring the plastic input energy using a load cell and a strain gauge, and the dissipative energy using the temperature field provided by an infrared camera. Some experimental limitations led to restrain the present procedure to positive stress ratios, and to complement this energy balance by a second measurement while the material plastic work per cycle is negligible compared to the dissipative energy. Some results obtained on a cold rolled low carbon steel specimen are presented. First, a sensitivity study is undertaken to precisely determine the detection threshold on both thermal and plastic energies. Then, after having verified the homogeneity of the dissipative source fields, energy balances have been performed at different stress levels. It was thus confirmed that the slow variations of the dissipative sources occurring during the first cycles are due to micro-plastic adaptation, and that the dissipative sources remaining after some hundreds of cycles are due to viscoelastic (internal friction) phenomena. This procedure provides a better understanding of dissipation based approaches to fatigue found in the literature and an advanced tool to study viscoelastic phenomena in uniaxial loadin

Functional foods as source of bioactive principles. Some marked examples

Functional foods are those that have a beneficial effect on health beyond the basic function of nutrition, helping to promote better health conditions and to reduce the risk of various diseases. This concept was created in Japan in the 1980s and is widely used around the world. The regulation of these products is made by different authorities and has not been defined yet in many countries. The field of food production has increased and changed considerably in the last decades, since the consumers believe that foods, besides satisfy hunger and to provide necessary nutrients for humans, also contribute directly to improve their health conditions. The present chapter will focus with marked examples the main categories of functional foods and respective therapeutic potential (cardioprotective, hepatoprotective, hypolipidemic, antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory properties, etc.) as well as the active principles responsible for the medicinal properties (flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenes, etc.), including curcuma, garlic, olive oil, grape, broccoli, and probiotic, among others

Association analyses of more than 140,000 men identify 63 new prostate cancer susceptibility loci.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and fine-mapping efforts to date have identified more than 100 prostate cancer (PrCa)-susceptibility loci. We meta-analyzed genotype data from a custom high-density array of 46,939 PrCa cases and 27,910 controls of European ancestry with previously genotyped data of 32,255 PrCa cases and 33,202 controls of European ancestry. Our analysis identified 62 novel loci associated (P C, p.Pro1054Arg) in ATM and rs2066827 (OR = 1.06; P = 2.3 × 10-9; T>G, p.Val109Gly) in CDKN1B. The combination of all loci captured 28.4% of the PrCa familial relative risk, and a polygenic risk score conferred an elevated PrCa risk for men in the ninetieth to ninety-ninth percentiles (relative risk = 2.69; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.55-2.82) and first percentile (relative risk = 5.71; 95% CI: 5.04-6.48) risk stratum compared with the population average. These findings improve risk prediction, enhance fine-mapping, and provide insight into the underlying biology of PrCa1