2,724 research outputs found
The Protective Effects of Curcumin on Obesity-Related Glomerulopathy Are Associated with Inhibition of Wnt/ Ī²
The present study investigated the effects of curcumin, one of the most important active ingredients of turmeric, on podocyte injury in vitro and obesity-related glomerulopathy (ORG) in vivo. Cellular experiments in vitro showed that curcumin significantly antagonized leptin-induced downregulation of the mRNA and protein expression of podocyte-associated molecules including nephrin, podocin, podoplanin, and podocalyxin. Animal experiments in vivo showed that curcumin significantly reduced the body weight, Leeās index, abdominal fat index, urinary protein excretion, and average glomerular diameter and significantly upregulated the mRNA and protein expressions of the above podocyte-associated molecules in ORG mice. Furthermore, the experiments in vitro and in vivo both displayed that curcumin could downregulate the mRNA and protein expressions of Wnt1, Wnt2b, Wnt6, and Ī²-catenin and upregulate the phosphorylation level of Ī²-catenin protein in podocytes and renal tissue. In conclusion, curcumin is able to alleviate the harmful reaction of leptin on podocytes and reduce the severity of ORG. The above protective effects are associated with the inhibition of Wnt/Ī²-catenin signaling activation in podocytes
Graph-Based Fusion of Imaging, Genetic and Clinical Data for Degenerative Disease Diagnosis
Graph learning methods have achieved noteworthy performance in disease diagnosis due to their ability to represent unstructured information such as inter-subject relationships. While it has been shown that imaging, genetic and clinical data are crucial for degenerative disease diagnosis, existing methods rarely consider how best to use their relationships. How best to utilize information from imaging, genetic and clinical data remains a challenging problem. This study proposes a novel graph-based fusion (GBF) approach to meet this challenge. To extract effective imaging-genetic features, we propose an imaging-genetic fusion module which uses an attention mechanism to obtain modality-specific and joint representations within and between imaging and genetic data. Then, considering the effectiveness of clinical information for diagnosing degenerative diseases, we propose a multi-graph fusion module to further fuse imaging-genetic and clinical features, which adopts a learnable graph construction strategy and a graph ensemble method. Experimental results on two benchmarks for degenerative disease diagnosis (Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative) demonstrate its effectiveness compared to state-of-the-art graph-based methods. Our findings should help guide further development of graph-based models for dealing with imaging, genetic and clinical data
Systems infection biology: a compartmentalized immune network of pig spleen challenged with Haemophilus parasuis
2,3-Oxidosqualene cyclase protects liver cells from the injury of intermittent hypoxia by regulating lipid metabolism
Strain Induced One-Dimensional Landau-Level Quantization in Corrugated Graphene
Theoretical research has predicted that ripples of graphene generates
effective gauge field on its low energy electronic structure and could lead to
zero-energy flat bands, which are the analog of Landau levels in real magnetic
fields. Here we demonstrate, using a combination of scanning tunneling
microscopy and tight-binding approximation, that the zero-energy Landau levels
with vanishing Fermi velocities will form when the effective pseudomagnetic
flux per ripple is larger than the flux quantum. Our analysis indicates that
the effective gauge field of the ripples results in zero-energy flat bands in
one direction but not in another. The Fermi velocities in the perpendicular
direction of the ripples are not renormalized at all. The condition to generate
the ripples is also discussed according to classical thin-film elasticity
theory.Comment: 4 figures, Phys. Rev.
Treatment with gelsolin reduces brain inflammation and apoptotic signaling in mice following thermal injury
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Burn survivors develop long-term cognitive impairment with increased inflammation and apoptosis in the brain. Gelsolin, an actin-binding protein with capping and severing activities, plays a crucial role in the septic response. We investigated if gelsolin infusion could attenuate neural damage in burned mice.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Mice with 15% total body surface area burns were injected intravenously with bovine serum albumin as placebo (2 mg/kg), or with low (2 mg/kg) or high doses (20 mg/kg) of gelsolin. Samples were harvested at 8, 24, 48 and 72 hours postburn. The immune function of splenic T cells was analyzed. Cerebral pathology was examined by hematoxylin/eosin staining, while activated glial cells and infiltrating leukocytes were detected by immunohistochemistry. Cerebral cytokine mRNAs were further assessed by quantitative real-time PCR, while apoptosis was evaluated by caspase-3. Neural damage was determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and soluble protein-100 (S-100). Finally, cerebral phospho-ERK expression was measured by western blot.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Gelsolin significantly improved the outcomes of mice following major burns in a dose-dependent manner. The survival rate was improved by high dose gelsolin treatment compared with the placebo group (56.67% vs. 30%). Although there was no significant improvement in outcome in mice receiving low dose gelsolin (30%), survival time was prolonged against the placebo control (43.1 Ā± 4.5 h vs. 35.5 Ā± 5.0 h; P < 0.05). Burn-induced T cell suppression was greatly alleviated by high dose gelsolin treatment. Concurrently, cerebral abnormalities were greatly ameliorated as shown by reduced NSE and S-100 content of brain, decreased cytokine mRNA expressions, suppressed microglial activation, and enhanced infiltration of CD11b+ and CD45+ cells into the brain. Furthermore, the elevated caspase-3 activity seen following burn injury was remarkably reduced by high dose gelsolin treatment along with down-regulation of phospho-ERK expression.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Exogenous gelsolin infusion improves survival of mice following major burn injury by partially attenuating inflammation and apoptosis in brain, and by enhancing peripheral T lymphocyte function as well. These data suggest a novel and effective strategy to combat excessive neuroinflammation and to preserve cognition in the setting of major burns.</p
Method of determining cosmological parameter ranges with samples of candles with an intrinsic distribution
In this paper, the effect of the intrinsic distribution of cosmological
candles is investigated. We find that, in the case of a narrow distribution,
the deviation of the observed modulus of sources from the expected central
value could be estimated within a ceratin range. We thus introduce a lower and
upper limits of , and , to
estimate cosmological parameters by applying the conventional minimizing method. We apply this method to a gamma-ray burst (GRB) sample as well as
to a combined sample including this GRB sample and an SN Ia sample. Our
analysis shows that: a) in the case of assuming an intrinsic distribution of
candles of the GRB sample, the effect of the distribution is obvious and should
not be neglected; b) taking into account this effect would lead to a poorer
constraint of the cosmological parameter ranges. The analysis suggests that in
the attempt of constraining the cosmological model with current GRB samples,
the results tend to be worse than what previously thought if the mentioned
intrinsic distribution does exist.Comment: 6 pages,4 figures,1 tables.Data updated. Main conclusion unchange
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