Effects of Maternal Undernutrition on Glomerular Ultrastructure in Rat Offspring

BackgroundIntrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) can reduce glomerular number and increase blood pressure in rats. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of maternal undernutrition during late gestation on glomerular ultrastructure in adult rat offspring.MethodsTimed pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were used. Control dams received regular food throughout pregnancy, while experimental dams received 50% of control food intake from days 15-21 of gestation. Glomerular ultrastructure was quantified in male offspring at 16 weeks of age.ResultsThe ultrastructure of the filtration apparatus in the IUGR rat glomeruli was indistinguishable from that in the control rat glomeruli. The relative volumes of the glomerulus occupied by podocytes, capillaries, and mesangium, and the thickness of the glomerular basement membrane (GBM), and width of the filtration slit were comparable between control and IUGR rats.ConclusionThese results indicate that glomerular ultrastructure is not affected by maternal undernutrition and suggest that altered glomerular ultrastructure is not a contributory factor to the pathogenesis of hypertension following maternal undernutrition

Maternal Tn Immunization Attenuates Hyperoxia-Induced Lung Injury in Neonatal Rats Through Suppression of Oxidative Stress and Inflammation

Hyperoxia therapy is often required to treat newborns with respiratory disorders. Prolonged hyperoxia exposure increases oxidative stress and arrests alveolar development in newborn rats. Tn antigen is N-acetylgalactosamine residue that is one of the most remarkable tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens. Tn immunization increases the serum anti-Tn antibody titers and attenuates hyperoxia-induced lung injury in adult mice. We hypothesized that maternal Tn immunizations would attenuate hyperoxia-induced lung injury through the suppression of oxidative stress in neonatal rats. Female Sprague–Dawley rats (6 weeks old) were intraperitoneally immunized five times with Tn (50 μg/dose) or carrier protein at biweekly intervals on 8, 6, 4, 2, and 0 weeks before the day of delivery. The pups were reared in room air (RA) or 2 weeks of 85% O2, creating the four study groups: carrier protein + RA, Tn vaccine + RA, carrier protein + O2, and Tn vaccine + O2. The lungs were excised for oxidative stress, cytokine, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) expression, and histological analysis on postnatal day 14. Blood was withdrawn from dams and rat pups to check anti-Tn antibody using western blot. We observed that neonatal hyperoxia exposure reduced the body weight, increased 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) expression and lung cytokine (interleukin-4), increased mean linear intercept (MLI) values, and decreased vascular density and VEGF and PDGF-B expressions. By contrast, Tn immunization increased maternal and neonatal serum anti-Tn antibody titers on postnatal day 14, reduced MLI, and increased vascular density and VEGF and PDGF-B expressions to normoxic levels. Furthermore, the alleviation of lung injury was accompanied by a reduction in lung cytokine and 8-OHdG expression. Therefore, we propose that maternal Tn immunization attenuates hyperoxia-induced lung injury in neonatal rats through the suppression of oxidative stress and inflammation

Xanthohumol, a Prenylated Flavonoid from Hops (Humulus lupulus), Prevents Platelet Activation in Human Platelets

Xanthohumol is the principal prenylated flavonoid in the hop plant (Humulus lupulus L.). Xanthohumol was found to be a very potent cancer chemopreventive agent through regulation of diverse mechanisms. However, no data are available concerning the effects of xanthohumol on platelet activation. The aim of this paper was to examine the antiplatelet effect of xanthohumol in washed human platelets. In the present paper, xanthohumol exhibited more-potent activity in inhibiting platelet aggregation stimulated by collagen. Xanthohumol inhibited platelet activation accompanied by relative [Ca2+]i mobilization, thromboxane A2 formation, hydroxyl radical (OH●) formation, and phospholipase C (PLC)γ2, protein kinase C (PKC), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), and Akt phosphorylation. Neither SQ22536, an inhibitor of adenylate cyclase, nor ODQ, an inhibitor of guanylate cyclase, reversed the xanthohumol-mediated inhibitory effect on platelet aggregation. Furthermore, xanthohumol did not significantly increase nitrate formation in platelets. This study demonstrates for the first time that xanthohumol possesses potent antiplatelet activity which may initially inhibit the PI3-kinase/Akt, p38 MAPK, and PLCγ2-PKC cascades, followed by inhibition of the thromboxane A2 formation, thereby leading to inhibition of [Ca2+]i and finally inhibition of platelet aggregation. Therefore, this novel role of xanthohumol may represent a high therapeutic potential for treatment or prevention of cardiovascular diseases

Long working range light field microscope with fast scanning multifocal liquid crystal microlens array

The light field microscope has the potential of recording the 3D information of biological specimens in real time with a conventional light source. To further extend the depth of field to broaden its applications, in this paper, we proposed a multifocal high-resistance liquid crystal microlens array instead of the fixed microlens array. The developed multifocal liquid crystal microlens array can provide high quality point spread function in multiple focal lengths. By adjusting the focal length of the liquid crystal microlens array sequentially, the total working range of the light field microscope can be much extended. Furthermore, in our proposed system, the intermediate image was placed in the virtual image space of the microlens array, where the condition of the lenslets numerical aperture was considerably smaller. Consequently, a thin-cell-gap liquid crystal microlens array with fast response time can be implemented for time-multiplexed scanning

Gene expression profiling of breast cancer survivability by pooled cDNA microarray analysis using logistic regression, artificial neural networks and decision trees

BACKGROUND: Microarray technology can acquire information about thousands of genes simultaneously. We analyzed published breast cancer microarray databases to predict five-year recurrence and compared the performance of three data mining algorithms of artificial neural networks (ANN), decision trees (DT) and logistic regression (LR) and two composite models of DT-ANN and DT-LR. The collection of microarray datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus, four breast cancer datasets were pooled for predicting five-year breast cancer relapse. After data compilation, 757 subjects, 5 clinical variables and 13,452 genetic variables were aggregated. The bootstrap method, Mann–Whitney U test and 20-fold cross-validation were performed to investigate candidate genes with 100 most-significant p-values. The predictive powers of DT, LR and ANN models were assessed using accuracy and the area under ROC curve. The associated genes were evaluated using Cox regression. RESULTS: The DT models exhibited the lowest predictive power and the poorest extrapolation when applied to the test samples. The ANN models displayed the best predictive power and showed the best extrapolation. The 21 most-associated genes, as determined by integration of each model, were analyzed using Cox regression with a 3.53-fold (95% CI: 2.24-5.58) increased risk of breast cancer five-year recurrence… CONCLUSIONS: The 21 selected genes can predict breast cancer recurrence. Among these genes, CCNB1, PLK1 and TOP2A are in the cell cycle G2/M DNA damage checkpoint pathway. Oncologists can offer the genetic information for patients when understanding the gene expression profiles on breast cancer recurrence

NF-κB Hyper-Activation by HTLV-1 Tax Induces Cellular Senescence, but Can Be Alleviated by the Viral Anti-Sense Protein HBZ

Activation of I-κB kinases (IKKs) and NF-κB by the human T lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) trans-activator/oncoprotein, Tax, is thought to promote cell proliferation and transformation. Paradoxically, expression of Tax in most cells leads to drastic up-regulation of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, p21CIP1/WAF1 and p27KIP1, which cause p53-/pRb-independent cellular senescence. Here we demonstrate that p21CIP1/WAF1-/p27KIP1-mediated senescence constitutes a checkpoint against IKK/NF-κB hyper-activation. Senescence induced by Tax in HeLa cells is attenuated by mutations in Tax that reduce IKK/NF-κB activation and prevented by blocking NF-κB using a degradation-resistant mutant of I-κBα despite constitutive IKK activation. Small hairpin RNA-mediated knockdown indicates that RelA induces this senescence program by acting upstream of the anaphase promoting complex and RelB to stabilize p27KIP1 protein and p21CIP1/WAF1 mRNA respectively. Finally, we show that down-regulation of NF-κB by the HTLV-1 anti-sense protein, HBZ, delay or prevent the onset of Tax-induced senescence. We propose that the balance between Tax and HBZ expression determines the outcome of HTLV-1 infection. Robust HTLV-1 replication and elevated Tax expression drive IKK/NF-κB hyper-activation and trigger senescence. HBZ, however, modulates Tax-mediated viral replication and NF-κB activation, thus allowing HTLV-1-infected cells to proliferate, persist, and evolve. Finally, inactivation of the senescence checkpoint can facilitate persistent NF-κB activation and leukemogenesis

Women with endometriosis have higher comorbidities: Analysis of domestic data in Taiwan

AbstractEndometriosis, defined by the presence of viable extrauterine endometrial glands and stroma, can grow or bleed cyclically, and possesses characteristics including a destructive, invasive, and metastatic nature. Since endometriosis may result in pelvic inflammation, adhesion, chronic pain, and infertility, and can progress to biologically malignant tumors, it is a long-term major health issue in women of reproductive age. In this review, we analyze the Taiwan domestic research addressing associations between endometriosis and other diseases. Concerning malignant tumors, we identified four studies on the links between endometriosis and ovarian cancer, one on breast cancer, two on endometrial cancer, one on colorectal cancer, and one on other malignancies, as well as one on associations between endometriosis and irritable bowel syndrome, one on links with migraine headache, three on links with pelvic inflammatory diseases, four on links with infertility, four on links with obesity, four on links with chronic liver disease, four on links with rheumatoid arthritis, four on links with chronic renal disease, five on links with diabetes mellitus, and five on links with cardiovascular diseases (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, etc.). The data available to date support that women with endometriosis might be at risk of some chronic illnesses and certain malignancies, although we consider the evidence for some comorbidities to be of low quality, for example, the association between colon cancer and adenomyosis/endometriosis. We still believe that the risk of comorbidity might be higher in women with endometriosis than that we supposed before. More research is needed to determine whether women with endometriosis are really at risk of these comorbidities

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Effects of Maternal Undernutrition on Renal Angiotensin Ii and Chymase in Hypertensive Offspring

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) can program the future development of hypertension in adulthood. The renin- angiotensin system has been reported to play a role in IUGR- induced hypertension. The aims of this study were to investigate the effects of IUGR on renal angiotensin- converting enzyme (ACE), angiotensin II (Ang II) and chymase in IUGR- induced hypertension. Timed pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats received 50% rations of control food intakes from days 15 to 21 of gestation. Control, rats received regular food throughout the pregnancies. Arterial blood pressure and glomerular number were measured and immunohistochemical studies were performed on kidney tissues in adult male offspring at 16 weeks of age. IUGR rats exhibited significantly lower body and kidney weights and reduced number of glomeruli when compared with control rats. IUGR rats had significantly higher systolic blood pressure than control rats. Immunoreactivity of ACE was comparable between control and IUGR rats whereas immunoreactivities of chymase and Ang II were significantly higher in IUGR rats than in control rats. In conclusion, immunohistochemical studies document up-regulation of ACE-independent Ang II and chymase in IUGR kidney and indicate that overactivity of chymase may result in increased intrarenal Ang II production, which could contribute to the development of hypertension in intrauterine undernourished rats